784 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth. ann.m 



We may now consider details of the doctrine as held by different 

 tribes, beginning with the Paiute, among whom it originated. The 

 best account of the Paiute belief is contained in a report to the War 

 Department by Captain J. M. Lee, who was sent out in the autumn of 

 1890 to investigate the temper and lighting strength of the Paiute and 

 other Indians in the vicinity of Fort Bidwell in northeastern California. 

 We give the statement obtained by him from Captaiu Dick, a Paiute, 

 as delivered one day in a conversational way and apparently without 

 reserve, after nearly all the Indians had left the room: 



Long time, twenty years ago, Indian medicine-man in Mason's valley at Walker 

 lake talk same way, same as you hear now. In one year, maybe, after he begin talk 

 he die. Three years ago another medicine-man begin same talk. Heap talk all 

 time. Indians hear all about it everywhere. Indians come from long way off to 

 hear him. They come from the east; they make signs. Two years ago me go to 

 Winnemucca and Pyramid lake, me see Indian Sam, a head man, and Johnson Sides. 

 Sam he tell me he just been to see Indian medicine-man to bear him talk. Sam say 

 medicine-man talk this way: 



"All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in next 

 spring Big Man [Great Spirit] come. He bring back all game of every kind. The 

 game be thick everywhere. All dead Indians come back and live again. They all 

 be strong just like young men, be young again. Old blind Indian see again and get 

 young and have fine time. When Old Man [God] comes this way, then all the Indians 

 go to mountains, high up away from -whites. AVhites can't hurt Indians then. Then 

 while Indians way up high, big flood comes like water and all white people die, get 

 drowned. After that water go way and then nobody but Indians everywhere and 

 game all kinds thick. Then medicine-man tell Indians to send word to all Indians 

 to keep up dancing and the good time will come. Indians who don't dance, who 

 don't believe in this word, will grow little, just about a foot high, and stay that 

 way. Some of them will be tinned into wood and be burned in fire.'' That's the 

 way Sam tell me the medicine-man talk. (A. G. 0., <>■) 



Lieutenant 1ST. P. Phister, who gathered a part of the material 

 embodied in Captain Lee's report, confirms this general statement and 

 gives a few additional particulars. The flood is to consist of mingled 

 mud and water, and when the faithful go up into the mountains, the 

 skeptics will be left behind and will be turned to stone. The prophet 

 claims to receive these revelations directly from God and the spirits of 

 the dead Indians during his trances. He asserts also that he is invul- 

 nerable, and that if soldiers should attempt to kill him they would fall 

 down as if they had no bones and die, while he would still live, even 

 though cut into little pieces. (Phister, 3.) 



One of the first and most prominent of those who brought the doc- 

 trine to the prairie tribes was Porcupine, a Cheyenne, who crossed the 

 mountains with several companions in the fall of 1880, visited Wovoka, 

 and attended the dance near Walker lake, Nevada, In his report of 

 his experiences, made some months later to a military officer, he states 

 that Wovoka claimed to be Christ himself, who had come back again, 

 many centuries after his first rejection, in pity to teach his children. 

 He quotes the prophet as saying: 



I found my children were bad, sol went back to heaven and left them. I told 

 them that in s.i many hundred years I would come back to sec my children. At the 



