79G THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.ann.14 



been to heaven and seen your dead friends and Lave seen my own father and mother. 

 In the beginning, after Cod made the earth, they sent me hack to teach the people, 

 and when I came back on earth the people were afraid of me and treated me badly. 

 This is what they did to me [showing his scars]. I did not try to defend myself. I 

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

 that in so many hundred years I would come back to see my children. At the end 

 of this time I was sent back to try to teach them. My father told me the earth was 

 getting old aud worn out, and the people getting bad, and that I was to renew 

 everything as it used to be, and make it better.'' 



He told us also that all our dead were to be resurrected ; that they were all to come 

 back to earth, and that as the earth was too small for them and us, he would do 

 away with heaven, and make the earth itself large enough to contain us all ; that we 

 must tell all the people we meet about these things. He spoke to us about fighting, 

 and said that was bad, and we must keep from it; that the earth was to be all good 

 hereafter, and we must all lie friends with one another. He said that in the fall of 

 the year the youth of all the good people would be renewed, so that nobody would 

 be more than 40 years old, and that if they behaved themselves well after this the 

 youth of everyone would be renewed in the spring. He said if we were all good he 

 would send people among us who could heal all our wounds and sickness by mere 

 touch, and that we would live forever. He told us not to quarrel, or fight, nor strike 

 each other, nor shoot one another; that the whites and Indians were to be all one 

 people. He said if any man disobeyed what he ordered, his tribe would be wiped 

 from the face of the earth; that we must believe everything he said, and that we 

 must not doubt him, or say he lied; that if we did, he would know it; that he would 

 know our thoughts aud actions, in no matter what part of the world we might be. 



When I heard this from the Christ, and came back home to tell it to my people, I 

 thought they would listen. Where I went to there were lots of white people, but 

 I never had one of them say an unkind word to me. I thought all of your people 

 knew all of this I have told you of, but it seems you do not. 



Ever since the Christ I speak of talked to me I have thought what In- said was 

 good. I see nothing bad in it. When I got back, I knew my people were bail, 

 and had heard nothing of all this, so I got them together and told them of it and 

 warned them to listen to it for their own good. I talked to them for four nights 

 and live days. I told them just what I have told you here today. I told them 

 what I said were the words of God Almighty, who was looking down on them. I 

 wish some of you had been up in our camp here to have heard my words to the 

 Cheyennes. The only bad thing that there has been in it at all was this: I had 

 just, told my people that the Christ would visit the sins of any Indian upon the 

 whole tribe, when the recent trouble [killing of Ferguson] occurred. If any one 

 of you think I am not telling the truth, you can go and see this man I speak of for 

 yourselves. I Will go with you, and I would like one or two of my people who 

 doubt me to go with me. 



The Christ talked to us all in our respective tongues. You can see this man in 

 your sleep any time you want after you have seen him and shaken hands with him 

 once. Through him you can go to heaven and meet your friends. Since my return 

 I have seen him often in my sleep. About the time the soldiers went up the Rosebud 

 I was lyiug in my lodge asleep, when this man appeared and told me that the 

 Indians had gotten into trouble, and I was frightened. The next night he appeared 

 to me and told me that everything would come out all right. 



THE GHOST DANCE AMONG THE SIOUX 



The following was written originally in the Teton Dakota dialect by 

 George Sword, an Ogalala Sioux Indian, formerly captain of the Indian 

 police at Pine Ridge agency and now judge of the Indian court. It 



