1060 



THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION 



ETH \NN\ 14 



the little cemetery at the agency were the fresh graves of the slain 

 soldiers, and only a few miles away was the Wounded Knee battlefield 

 and the trench where the bodies of nearly three hundred of their people 

 had been thrown. To my questions the answer almost invariably was, 

 "The dance was our religion, but the government sent soldiers to kill 

 us on account of it. We will not talk any more about it." Another 

 reason for their unwillingness was the fact that most of the interpreters 

 were from the eastern or Sautee portion of the tribe, and looked with 

 contempt on the beliefs and customs of their more primitive western 

 brethren, between whom and themselves there was in consequence but 

 little friendly feeling. On one occasion, while endeavoring to break 



Fig. 102— Native drawings of Ghosl dance— A, Comanche; B, Sioux 



the ice with one of the initiates of the dance, I told him how willingly 

 the Arapaho had given me, information and even invited me to join in 

 the dance. "Then," said he, "don't you find that the religion of the 

 Ghost dance is better than the religion of the churches?'* I could not 

 well say yes, and hesitated a moment to frame an answer, lie noticed 

 it at once and said very deliberately, " Well, then, if you have not 

 learned that, you have not learned anything about it," and refused to 

 continue the conversation. 



The Sioux ghost songs are all in the dialect of the Teton, who took 

 the most active interest, in the dance, which was hardly known among 

 the bands wist of the Missouri. The vocalic character of the language, 



