mooney] SIOUX VERSION OF THE DANCE 787 



of religious duties is too natural and universal to require comment. 

 The purification by the sweat-bath, which forms an important prelimi- 

 nary tn the dance among the Sioux, while devotional in its purpose, is 

 probably also sanitary in its effect. 



Among the powerful and warlike Sioux of the Dakotas, already rest- 

 less under both old and recent grievances, and more, lately brought to 

 the edge of starvation by a reduction of rations, the doctrine speedily 

 assumed a hostile meaning and developed some peculiar features, for 

 which reason it deserves particular notice as concerns this tribe. The 

 earliest rumors of the new messiah came to the Sioux from the more 

 western tribes in the winter of 1888-89, but the first definite, account 

 was brought by a delegation which crossed the mountains to visit the 

 messiah in the fall of 1889, returning in the spring of 1890. On the 

 report of these delegates the dance was at once inaugurated and spread 

 so rapidly that in a few months the new religion had been accepted by 

 the majority of the tribe. 



Perhaps the best statement of the Sioux version is giveu by the vet- 

 eran agent, James McLaughlin, of Standing Hock agency. In an official 

 letter of October 17, 1890, he writes that the Sioux, under the influence of 

 Sitting Bull, were greatly excited over the near approach of a predicted 

 Indian millennium or "return of the ghosts,"when the white man would 

 be annihilated and the Indian again supreme, and which the medicine- 

 men had promised was to occur as soon as the grass was green in the 

 spring. They were told that the Great Spirit had sent upon them the 

 dominant race to punish them for their sins, and that their sins were 

 now expiated and the time of deliverance was at hand. Their deci- 

 mated ranks were, to be reinforced by all the Indians who hail ever died, 

 and these spirits were already oil their way to reinhabit the earth, which 

 had originally belonged to the Indians, and were driving before them, 

 as they advanced, immense herds of buffalo and fine ponies. The Great 

 Spirit, who had so long deserted his red children, was now once more 

 with them and against the whites, and the white man's gunpowder 

 would no longer have power to drive a bullet through the. skin of an 

 Indian. The whites themselves would soon be overwhelmed and smoth- 

 ered under a deep landslide, held down by sod and timber, and the few 

 who might escape would become small fishes in the rivers. In order to 

 bring about this happy result, the Indians must believe and organize 

 the Ghost dance. 



The agent continues: 



It would seem impossible that any person, no matter how ignorant, could lie 

 brought to believe such absurd nonsense, but as a matter of fact a great many Indians 

 of this agency actually believe it, and since this new doctrine has been ingrafted 

 here from the more southern Sioux agencies the infection has been wonderful, and so 

 pernicious that it now includes some of the Iudians who were formerly numbered 

 with the progressive and more intelligent, and many of our very best Indians appear 

 dazed and undecided when talking of it, their inherent superstition having been 

 thoroughly aroused. (G. 1)., 7.) 



