908 



THE GHOST-DANCE UELIGION 



[ETH. AXN. 14 



the sacred red paint procured originally from the country of the messiah. 

 Soon after there was a great gathering of the Kiowa and Apache at the 

 agency at Anadarko to receive a payment of "grass money" due from 

 the cattlemen for the lease of pasturage <>n the reservation. On this 

 occasion the (ihost dance was formally inaugurated among the Kiowa, 

 Poor Buffalo assuming direction of the ceremony, and painting the 

 principal participants with the sacred red paint with his own hands. The 



dance was carried back 

 to their various camps and 

 became a part of the tribal 

 life. 



About this time a Sioux 

 chief, Iligh Wolf, came 

 down from the north to 

 visit the Cheyenne, Arap- 

 aho, Kiowa, and other 

 tribes in that section. lie 

 remained some time among 

 them, and on his return to 

 the north invited a young 

 Kiowa named A'piatan, 

 "Wooden Lance,"' whose 

 grandmother had been a 

 Sioux captive, to come up 

 and visit his relatives at 

 PineEidge. The invitation 

 was accepted by A'piatan, 

 partly for the pleasure of 

 seeing a new tribe and 

 meeting his mother's kin- 

 dred, but chiefly for the 

 purpose of investigating 

 for himself and for the 

 Kiowa the truth of the 

 messiah story. Apiatafi, 

 who speaks but little Eng- 

 lish, and who was t hen about 30 years of age, had recently lost a child 

 to whom he had been very much attached, lie brooded over his loss 

 until the new doctrine came with its promise of a reunion with departed 

 friends and its possibility of seeing and talking with them in visions of 

 the trance. Moved by parental affection, which is the ruling passion 

 with an Indian, he determined on this long journey in search of the 

 messiah, who was vaguely reported to be somewhere in the north, to 

 learn from his own lips the. wonderful story, and to see if it were possi- 

 ble to talk again with his child. Be discussed the matter with the 

 chiefs, who decided to send him as a delegate to find the messiah and 



Fig. 85— Poor Buffalo, 



