hookey] EXCITEMENT AMONG THE SIOUX 821 



in the trance. The excitement which the agent had thought to smother 

 by the arrest of the leaders broke out again with added strength. 

 Red Cloud himself, the great chief of the Ogalala, declared his adhe- 

 sion to the new doctrine and said his people must do as the messiah 

 had commanded. Another council was called on White Clay creek, a 

 few miles from Pine Ridge agency, and the Ghost dance was formally 

 inaugurated among the Sioux, the recent delegates acting as priests 

 and leaders of the ceremony. 



As the result of all he could learn. Selwyn. in November, 1890, warned 

 the agent in charge of Yankton agency that the Indians intended a 

 general outbreak in the spring. Six mouths earlier, and before Porcu- 

 pine's statement had been made to the officer at ('ami) Crook, a letter 

 dated .May L".>, 1890, had been addressed to the Interior Department 

 from a citizen of Pierre, South Dakota, stating that the Sioux, or a 

 portion of them, were secretly planning for an outbreak in the near 

 future. This was the hist intimation of trouble ahead. {<!. ]>.. 20.) 



Wonderful things were said of the messiah by the returned delegates. 

 It was claimed that he could make animals talk and distant objects 

 appear close at hand, and that he came down from heaven in a cloud. 

 He conjured up before their eyes a vision of the spirit world, so that 

 when they looked they beheld an ocean, and beyond it a land upon 

 which they saw "all the nations of Indians coming home," but as they 

 looked the vision faded away, the messiah saying that the time had not 

 yet come. Curiously enough, although he came to restore the old life, 

 he advised his hearers to go to work and to send their children to school. 

 Should the soldiers attempt to harm him, he said lie need only stretch 

 out his anus and his enemies would become powerless, or the ground 

 would open and swallow them. On their way home if they should kill 

 a buffalo — the messiah had evidently not read Allen's monograph — 

 they must cut off its head and fail and feet and leave them on the 

 ground and the buffalo would come to life again. They must tell their 

 people to follow his instructions. Unbelievers and renegade Indians 

 would be buried under the new earth which was to come upon the old. 

 They must use the sacred red and white paint and the sacred grass 

 (possibly sagebrush) which he gave them, and in the spring, when the 

 green grass came, their people who were gone before would return, and 

 they would see their friends again. 



Now comes the most remarkable part, quoting from the statement 

 given to Captain Sword: 



The people from every tipi send for us to visit them; they arc people who died 

 many years ago. Chasing Hawk, who died not long ago, was there and we went to 

 his tipi. He was living with his wile, who was killed in war long ago. They live 

 in a buffalo skin tipi — a very large one — and he wanted all his friends to go there 

 to live. A son of Good Thunder, who died in war long ago. was one who also took us 

 to his tipi. so his father saw him. When coming we come to a herd of buffaloes. We 

 killed one and took everything except thefourfeet, head, and tail, and when we came 

 a little ways from it there was tin- buffaloes C c to lite again and went off. This 



