Chapter IXWOVOKA THE MESSIAH
When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people.—Wovoka.
When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people.—Wovoka.
When Tävibo, the prophet of Mason valley, died, about 1870, he left a son named Wovoka, “The Cutter,” about 14 years of age. The prophetic claims and teachings of the father, the reverence with which he was regarded by the people, and the mysterious ceremonies which were doubtless of frequent performance in the little tulé wikiup at home must have made early and deep impression on the mind of the boy, who seems to have been by nature of a solitary and contemplative disposition, one of those born to see visions and hear still voices.
Fig. 69—Wovoka.
Fig. 69—Wovoka.
The physical environment was favorable to the development of such a character. His native valley, from which he has never wandered,is a narrow strip of level sage prairie some 30 miles in length, walled in by the giant sierras, their sides torn and gashed by volcanic convulsions and dark with gloomy forests of pine, their towering summits white with everlasting snows, and roofed over by a cloudless sky whose blue infinitude the mind instinctively seeks to penetrate to far-off worlds beyond. Away to the south the view is closed in by the sacred mountain of the Paiute, where their Father gave them the first fire and taught them their few simple arts before leaving for his home in the upper regions of the Sun-land. Like the valley of Rasselas, it seems set apart from the great world to be the home of a dreamer.
The greater portion of Nevada is an arid desert of rugged mountains and alkali plains, the little available land being confined to narrow mountain valleys and the borders of a few large lakes. These tracts are occupied by scattered ranchmen engaged in stock raising, and as the white population is sparse, Indian labor is largely utilized, the Paiute being very good workers. The causes which in other parts of the country have conspired to sweep the Indian from the path of the white man seem inoperative here, where the aboriginal proprietors are regarded rather as peons under the protection of the dominant race, and are allowed to set up their small camps of tulé lodges in convenient out-of-the-way places, where they spend the autumn and winter in hunting, fishing, and gathering seeds and piñon nuts, working at fair wages on ranches through spring and summer. In this way young Wovoka became attached to the family of a ranchman in Mason valley, named David Wilson, who took an interest in him and bestowed on him the name of Jack Wilson, by which he is commonly known among the whites. From his association with this family he gained some knowledge of English, together with a confused idea of the white man’s theology. On growing up he married, and still continued to work for Mr Wilson, earning a reputation for industry and reliability, but attracting no special notice until nearly 30 years of age, when he announced the revelation that has made him famous among the tribes of the west.
Following are the various forms of his name which I have noticed: Wo′voka, or Wü′voka, which I have provisionally rendered “Cutter,” derived from a verb signifying “to cut;” Wevokar, Wopokahte, Kwohitsauq, Cowejo, Koit-tsow, Kvit-Tsow, Quoitze Ow, Jack Wilson, Jackson Wilson, Jack Winson, John Johnson. He has also been confounded with Bannock Jim, a Mormon Bannock of Fort Hall reservation, Idaho, and with Johnson Sides, a Paiute living near Reno, Nevada, and bitterly opposed to Wovoka. His father’s name, Tävibo, has been given also as Waughzeewaughber. It is not quite certain that the Paiute prophet of 1870 was the father of Wovoka. This is stated to have been the case by one of Captain Lee’s informants (A. G. O., 4) and by Lieutenant Phister (Phister, 2). Wovoka himself says that his father did not preach, but was a “dreamer” with supernatural powers. Certain it is that a similar doctrine was taught by an Indian living inthe same valley in Wovoka’s boyhood. Possibly the discrepancy might be explained by an unwillingness on the part of the messiah to share his spiritual honors.
In proportion as Wovoka and his doctrines have become subjects of widespread curiosity, so have they become subjects of ignorant misrepresentation and deliberate falsification. Different writers have made him a Paiute, a half-blood, and a Mormon white man. Numberless stories have been told of the origin and character of his mission and the day predicted for its final accomplishment. The most mischievous and persistent of these stories has been that which represents him as preaching a bloody campaign against the whites, whereas his doctrine is one of peace, and he himself is a mild-tempered member of a weak and unwarlike tribe. His own good name has been filched from him and he has been made to appear under a dozen different cognomens, including that of his bitterest enemy, Johnson Sides. He has been denounced as an impostor, ridiculed as a lunatic, and laughed at as a pretended Christ, while by the Indians he is revered as a direct messenger from the Other World, and among many of the remote tribes he is believed to be omniscient, to speak all languages, and to be invisible to a white man. We shall give his own story as told by himself, with such additional information as seems to come from authentic sources.
Notwithstanding all that had been said and written by newspaper correspondents about the messiah, not one of them had undertaken to find the man himself and to learn from his own lips what he really taught. It is almost equally certain that none of them had even seen a Ghost dance at close quarters—certainly none of them understood its meaning. The messiah was regarded almost as a myth, something intangible, to be talked about but not to be seen. The first reliable information as to his personality was communicated by the scout, Arthur Chapman, who, under instructions from the War Department, visited the Paiute country in December, 1890, and spent four days at Walker lake and Mason valley, and in the course of an interview with Wovoka obtained from him a detailed statement similar in all essentials to that which I obtained later on. (Sec. War, 3.)
After having spent seven months in the field, investigating the new religion among the prairie tribes, particularly the Arapaho, and after having examined all the documents bearing on the subject in the files of the Indian Office and War Department, the author left Washington in November, 1891, to find and talk with the messiah and to gather additional material concerning the Ghost dance. Before starting, I had written to the agent in charge of the reservation to which he was attached for information in regard to the messiah (Jack Wilson) and the dance, and learned in reply, with some surprise, that the agent had never seen him. The surprise grew into wonder when I was further informed that there were “neither Ghost songs, dances, nor ceremonials”among the Paiute.[6]This was discouraging, but not entirely convincing, and I set out once more for the west. After a few days with the Omaha and Winnebago in Nebraska, and a longer stay with the Sioux at Pine Ridge, where traces of the recent conflict were still fresh on every hand, I crossed over the mountains and finally arrived at Walker Lake reservation in Nevada.
On inquiry I learned that the messiah lived, not on the reservation, but in Mason valley, about 40 miles to the northwest. His uncle, Charley Sheep, lived near the agency, however, so I sought him out and made his acquaintance. He spoke tolerable—or rather intolerable—English, so that we were able to get along together without an interpreter, a fact which brought us into closer sympathy, as an interpreter is generally at best only a necessary evil. As usual, he was very suspicious at first, and inquired minutely as to my purpose. I explained to him that I was sent out by the government to the various tribes to study their customs and learn their stories and songs; that I had obtained a good deal from other tribes and now wanted to learn some songs and stories of the Paiute, in order to write them down so that thewhite people could read them. In a casual way I then offered to show him the pictures of some of my Indian friends across the mountains, and brought out the photos of several Arapaho and Cheyenne who I knew had recently come as delegates to the messiah. This convinced him that I was all right, and he became communicative. The result was that we spent about a week together in the wikiups (lodges of tulé rushes), surrounded always by a crowd of interested Paiute, discussing the old stories and games, singing Paiute songs, and sampling the seed mush and roasted piñon nuts. On one of these occasions, at night, a medicine-man was performing his incantations over a sick child on one side of the fire while we were talking on the other. When the ice was well thawed, I cautiously approached the subject of the ghost songs and dance, and, as confidence was now established, I found no difficulty in obtaining a number of the songs, with a description of the ceremonial. I then told Charley that, as I had taken part in the dance, I was anxious to see the messiah and get from him some medicine-paint to bring back to his friends among the eastern tribes. He readily agreed to go with me and use his efforts with his nephew to obtain what was wanted.
It is 20 miles northward by railroad from Walker River agency to Wabuska, and 12 miles more in a southwesterly direction from there to the Mason valley settlement. There we met a young white man named Dyer, who was well acquainted with Jack Wilson, and who also spoke the Paiute language, and learned from him that the messiah was about 12 miles farther up the valley, near a place called Pine Grove. Enlisting his services, with a team and driver, making four in all, we started up toward the mountain. It was New Year’s day of 1892, and there was deep snow on the ground, a very unusual thing in this part of the country, and due in this instance, as Charley assured us, to the direct agency of Jack Wilson. It is hard to imagine anything more monotonously unattractive than a sage prairie under ordinary circumstances unless it be the same prairie when covered by a heavy fall of snow, under which the smaller clumps of sagebrush look like prairie-dog mounds, while the larger ones can hardly be distinguished at a short distance from wikiups. However, the mountains were bright in front of us, the sky was blue overhead, and the road was good under foot.
Soon after leaving the settlement we passed the dance ground with the brush shelters still standing. We met but few Indians on the way. After several miles we noticed a man at some distance from the road with a gun across his shoulder. Dyer looked a moment and then exclaimed, “I believe that’s Jack now!” The Indian thought so, too, and pulling up our horses he shouted some words in the Paiute language. The man replied, and sure enough it was the messiah, hunting jack rabbits. At his uncle’s call he soon came over.
As he approached I saw that he was a young man, a dark full-blood, compactly built, and taller than the Paiute generally, being nearly 6feet in height. He was well dressed in white man’s clothes, with the broad-brimmed white felt hat common in the west, secured on his head by means of a beaded ribbon under the chin. This, with a blanket or a robe of rabbit skins, is now the ordinary Paiute dress. He wore a good pair of boots. His hair was cut off square on a line below the base of the ears, after the manner of his tribe. His countenance was open and expressive of firmness and decision, but with no marked intellectuality. The features were broad and heavy, very different from the thin, clear-cut features of the prairie tribes.
PL. XCIIWINTER VIEW IN MASON VALLEY, SHOWING SNOW-COVERED SAGEBRUSH
PL. XCII
WINTER VIEW IN MASON VALLEY, SHOWING SNOW-COVERED SAGEBRUSH
As he came up he took my hand with a strong, hearty grasp, and inquired what was wanted. His uncle explained matters, adding that I was well acquainted with some of his Indian friends who had visited him a short time before, and was going back to the same people. After some deliberation he said that the whites had lied about him and he did not like to talk to them; some of the Indians had disobeyed his instructions and trouble had come of it, but as I was sent by Washington and was a friend of his friends, he would talk with me. He was hunting now, but if we would come to his camp that night he would tell us about his mission.
With another hand-shake he left us, and we drove on to the nearest ranch, arriving about dark. After supper we got ready and started across country through the sagebrush for the Paiute camp, some miles away, guided by our Indian. It was already night, with nothing to be seen but the clumps of snow-covered sagebrush stretching away in every direction, and after traveling an hour or more without reaching the camp, our guide had to confess that he had lost the trail. It was two years since he had been there, his sight was failing, and, with the snow and the darkness, he was utterly at a loss to know his whereabouts.
To be lost on a sage plain on a freezing night in January is not a pleasant experience. There was no road, and no house but the one we had left some miles behind, and it would be almost impossible to find our way back to that through the darkness. Excepting for a lantern there was no light but what came from the glare of the snow and a few stars in the frosty sky overhead. To add to our difficulty, the snow was cut in every direction by cattle trails, which seemed to be Indian trails, and kept us doubling and circling to no purpose, while in the uncertain gloom every large clump of sagebrush took on the appearance of a wikiup, only to disappoint us on a nearer approach. With it all, the night was bitterly cold and we were half frozen. After vainly following a dozen false trails and shouting repeatedly in hope of hearing an answering cry, we hit on the expedient of leaving the Indian with the wagon, he being the oldest man of the party, while the rest of us each took a different direction from the central point, following the cattle tracks in the snow and calling to each other at short intervals, in order that we might not become lost from one another. After goingfar enough to know that none of us had yet struck the right trail, the wagon was moved up a short distance and the same performance was repeated. At last a shout from our driver brought us all together. He declared that he had heard sounds in front, and after listening a few minutes in painful suspense we saw a shower of sparks go up into the darkness and knew that we had struck the camp. Going back to the wagon, we got in and drove straight across to the spot, where we found three or four little wikiups, in one of which we were told the messiah was awaiting our arrival.
On entering through the low doorway we found ourselves in a circular lodge made of bundles of tulé rushes laid over a framework of poles, after the fashion of the thatched roofs of Europe, and very similar to the grass lodges of the Wichita. The lodge was only about 10 feet in diameter and about 8 feet in height, with sloping sides, and was almost entirely open above, like a cone with the top cut off, as in this part of the country rain or snow is of rare occurrence. As already remarked, the deep snow at the time was something unusual. In the center, built directly on the ground, was a blazing fire of sagebrush, upon which fresh stalks were thrown from time to time, sending up a shower of sparks into the open air. It was by this means that we had been guided to the camp. Sitting or lying around the fire were half a dozen Paiute, including the messiah and his family, consisting of his young wife, a boy about 4 years of age, of whom he seemed very fond, and an infant. It was plain that he was a kind husband and father, which was in keeping with his reputation among the whites for industry and reliability. The only articles in the nature of furniture were a few grass woven bowls and baskets of various sizes and patterns. There were no Indian beds or seats of the kind found in every prairie tipi, no rawhide boxes, no toilet pouches, not even a hole dug in the ground for the fire. Although all wore white men’s dress, there were no pots, pans, or other articles of civilized manufacture, now used by even the most primitive prairie tribes, for, strangely enough, although these Paiute are practically farm laborers and tenants of the whites all around them, and earn good wages, they seem to covet nothing of the white man’s, but spend their money for dress, small trinkets, and ammunition for hunting, and continue to subsist on seeds, piñon nuts, and small game, lying down at night on the dusty ground in their cramped wikiups, destitute of even the most ordinary conveniences in use among other tribes. It is a curious instance of a people accepting the inevitable while yet resisting innovation.
Wovoka received us cordially and then inquired more particularly as to my purpose in seeking an interview. His uncle entered into a detailed explanation, which stretched out to a preposterous length, owing to a peculiar conversational method of the Paiute. Each statement by the older man was repeated at its close, word for word and sentence by sentence, by the other, with the same monotonous inflection.This done, the first speaker signified by a grunt of approval that it had been correctly repeated, and then proceeded with the next statement, which was duly repeated in like manner. The first time I had heard two old men conversing together in this fashion on the reservation I had supposed they were reciting some sort of Indian litany, and it required several such experiences and some degree of patience to become used to it.
At last he signified that he understood and was satisfied, and then in answer to my questions gave an account of himself and his doctrine, a great part of the interpretation being by Dyer, with whom he seemed to be on intimate terms. He said he was about 35 years of age, fixing the date from a noted battle[7]between the Paiute and the whites near Pyramid lake, in 1860, at which time he said he was about the size of his little boy; who appeared to be of about 4 years. His father, Tävibo, “White Man,” was not a preacher, but was acapita(from the Spanishcapitan) or petty chief, and was a dreamer and invulnerable. His own proper name from boyhood was Wovoka or Wüvoka, “The Cutter,” but a few years ago he had assumed the name of his paternal grandfather, Kwohitsauq, or “Big Rumbling Belly.” After the death of his father he had been taken into the family of a white farmer, David Wilson, who had given him the name of Jack Wilson, by which he is commonly known among the whites. He thus has three distinct names, Wovoka, Kwohitsauq, and Jack Wilson. He stated positively that he was a full-blood, a statement borne out by his appearance. The impression that he is a half-blood may have arisen from the fact that his father’s name was “White Man” and that he has a white man’s name. His followers, both in his own and in all other tribes, commonly refer to him as “our father.” He has never been away from Mason valley and speaks only his own Paiute language, with some little knowledge of English. He is not acquainted with the sign language, which is hardly known west of the mountains.
When about 20 years of age, he married, and continued to work for Mr Wilson. He had given the dance to his people about four years before, but had received his great revelation about two years previously. On this occasion “the sun died” (was eclipsed) and he fell asleep in the daytime and was taken up to the other world. Here he saw God, with all the people who had died long ago engaged in their oldtime sports and occupations, all happy and forever young. It was a pleasant land and full of game. After showing him all, God told him he must goback and tell his people they must be good and love one another, have no quarreling, and live in peace with the whites; that they must work, and not lie or steal; that they must put away all the old practices that savored of war; that if they faithfully obeyed his instructions they would at last be reunited with their friends in this other world, where there would be no more death or sickness or old age. He was then given the dance which he was commanded to bring back to his people. By performing this dance at intervals, for five consecutive days each time, they would secure this happiness to themselves and hasten the event. Finally God gave him control over the elements so that he could make it rain or snow or be dry at will, and appointed him his deputy to take charge of affairs in the west, while “Governor Harrison” would attend to matters in the east, and he, God, would look after the world above. He then returned to earth and began to preach as he was directed, convincing the people by exercising the wonderful powers that had been given him.
In 1890 Josephus, a Paiute informant, thus described to the scout Chapman the occasion of Wovoka’s first inspiration: “About three years ago Jack Wilson took his family and went into the mountains to cut wood for Mr Dave Wilson. One day while at work he heard a great noise which appeared to be above him on the mountain. He laid down his ax and started to go in the direction of the noise, when he fell down dead, and God came and took him to heaven.” Afterward on one or two other occasions “God came and took him to heaven again.” Wovoka also told Chapman that he had then been preaching to the Indians about three years. In our conversation he said nothing about a mysterious noise, and stated that it was about two years since he had visited heaven and received his great revelation, but that it was about four years since he had first taught the dance to his people. The fact that he has different revelations from time to time would account for the discrepancy of statement.
He disclaimed all responsibility for the ghost shirt which formed so important a part of the dance costume among the Sioux; said that there were no trances in the dance as performed among his people—a statement confirmed by eye-witnesses among the neighboring ranchmen—and earnestly repudiated any idea of hostility toward the whites, asserting that his religion was one of universal peace. When questioned directly, he said he believed it was better for the Indians to follow the white man’s road and to adopt the habits of civilization. If appearances are in evidence he is sincere in this, for he was dressed in a good suit of white man’s clothing, and works regularly on a ranch, although living in a wikiup. While he repudiated almost everything for which he had been held responsible in the east, he asserted positively that he had been to the spirit world and had been given a revelation and message from God himself, with full control over the elements. From his uncle I learned that Wovoka has five songs for making itrain, the first of which brings on a mist or cloud, the second a snowfall, the third a shower, and the fourth a hard rain or storm, while when he sings the fifth song the weather again becomes clear.
I knew that he was holding something in reserve, as no Indian would unbosom himself on religious matters to a white man with whom he had not had a long and intimate acquaintance. Especially was this true in view of the warlike turn affairs had taken across the mountains. Consequently I accepted his statements with several grains of salt, but on the whole he seemed to be honest in his belief and his supernatural claims, although, like others of the priestly function, he occasionally resorts to cheap trickery to keep up the impression as to his miraculous powers. From some of the reports he is evidently an expert sleight-of-hand performer. He makes no claim to be Christ, the Son of God, as has been so often asserted in print. He does claim to be a prophet who has received a divine revelation. I could not help feeling that he was sincere in his repudiation of a number of the wonderful things attributed to him, for the reason that he insisted so strongly on other things fully as trying to the faith of a white man. He made no argument and advanced no proofs, but said simply that he had been with God, as though the statement no more admitted of controversy than the proposition that 2 and 2 are 4. From Mr J. O. Gregory, formerly employed at the agency, and well acquainted with the prophet, I learned that Wovoka had once requested him to draw up and forward to the President a statement of his supernatural claims, with a proposition that if he could receive a small regular stipend he would take up his residence on the reservation and agree to keep Nevada people informed of all the latest news from heaven and to furnish rain whenever wanted. The letter was never forwarded.
From a neighboring ranchman, who knew Wovoka well and sometimes employed him in the working season, I obtained a statement which seems to explain the whole matter. It appears that a short time before the prophet began to preach he was stricken down by a severe fever, during which illness the ranchman frequently visited and ministered to him. While he was still sick there occurred an eclipse of the sun, a phenomenon which always excites great alarm among primitive peoples. In their system the sun is a living being, of great power and beneficence, and the temporary darkness is caused by an attack on him by some supernatural monster which endeavors to devour him, and will succeed, and thus plunge the world into eternal night unless driven off by incantations and loud noises. On this occasion the Paiute were frantic with excitement and the air was filled with the noise of shouts and wailings and the firing of guns, for the purpose of frightening off the monster that threatened the life of their god. It was now, as Wovoka stated, “when the sun died,” that he went to sleep in the daytime and was taken up to heaven. This means simply that the excitement and alarm produced by the eclipse, acting on a mind and bodyalready enfeebled by sickness, resulted in delirium, in which he imagined himself to enter the portals of the spirit world. Constant dwelling on the subject in thought by day and in dreams by night would effect and perpetuate the exalted mental condition in which visions of the imagination would have all the seeming reality of actual occurrences. To those acquainted with the spiritual nature of Indians and their implicit faith in dreams all this is perfectly intelligible. His frequent trances would indicate also that, like so many other religious ecstatics, he is subject to cataleptic attacks.
I have not been able to settle satisfactorily the date of this eclipse. From inquiry at the Nautical Almanac office I learn that solar eclipses visible in Nevada and the adjacent territory from 1884 to 1890 occurred as follows: 1884, October 18, partial; 1885, March 16, partial; 1886, March 5, partial; 1887, none; 1888, none; 1889, January 1, total or partial; 1890, none. The total eclipse of January 1, 1889, agrees best with his statement to me on New Year’s night, 1892, that it was about two years since he had gone up to heaven when the sun died. It must be noted that Indians generally count years by winters instead of by series of twelve calendar months, a difference which sometimes makes an apparent discrepancy of nearly a year.
In subsequent conversations he added a few minor details in regard to his vision and his doctrine. He asked many questions in regard to the eastern tribes whose delegates had visited him, and was pleased to learn that the delegates from several of these tribes were my friends. He spoke particularly of the large delegation—about twelve in number—from the Cheyenne and Arapaho, who had visited him the preceding summer and taken part in the dance with his people. Nearly all the members of this party were personally known to me, and the leader, Black Coyote, whose picture I had with me and showed to him, had been my principal instructor in the Ghost dance among the Arapaho. While this fact put me on a more confidential footing with Wovoka, it also proved of great assistance in my further investigation on my return to the prairie tribes, as, when they were satisfied from my statements and the specimens which I had brought back that I had indeed seen and talked with the messiah, they were convinced that I was earnestly desirous of understanding their religion aright, and from that time spoke freely and without reserve.
I had my camera and was anxious to get Wovoka’s picture. When the subject was mentioned, he replied that his picture had never been made; that a white man had offered him five dollars for permission to take his photograph, but that he had refused. However, as I had been sent from Washington especially to learn and tell the whites all about him and his doctrine, and as he was satisfied from my acquaintance with his friends in the other tribes that I must be a good man, he would allow me to take his picture. As usual in dealing with Indians, he wanted to make the most of his bargain, and demanded two dollarsand a half for the privilege of taking his picture and a like sum for each one of his family. I was prepared for this, however, and refused to pay any such charges, but agreed to give him my regular price per day for his services as informant and to send him a copy of the picture when finished. After some demur he consented and got ready for the operation by knotting a handkerchief about his neck, fastening an eagle feather at his right elbow, and taking a wide brim sombrero upon his knee. I afterward learned that the feather and sombrero were important parts of his spiritual stock in trade. After taking his picture I obtained from him, as souvenirs to bring back and show to my Indian friends in Indian Territory, a blanket of rabbit skins, some piñon nuts, some tail feathers of the magpie, highly prized by the Paiute for ornamentation, and some of the sacred red paint, endowed with most miraculous powers, which plays so important a part in the ritual of the Ghost-dance religion. Then, with mutual expressions of good will, we parted, his uncle going back to the reservation, while I took the train for Indian Territory.
As soon as the news of my arrival went abroad among the Cheyenne and Arapaho on my return, my friends of both tribes came in, eager to hear all the details of my visit to the messiah and to get my own impressions of the man. In comparing notes with some of the recent delegates I discovered something of Wovoka’s hypnotic methods, and incidentally learned how much of miracle depends on the mental receptivity of the observer.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho, although for generations associated in the most intimate manner, are of very different characters. In religious matters it may be said briefly that the Arapaho are devotees and prophets, continually seeing signs and wonders, while the Cheyenne are more skeptical. In talking with Tall Bull, one of the Cheyenne delegates and then captain of the Indian police, he said that before leaving they had asked Wovoka to give them some proof of his supernatural powers. Accordingly he had ranged them in front of him, seated on the ground, he sitting facing them, with his sombrero between and his eagle feathers in his hand. Then with a quick movement he had put his hand into the empty hat and drawn out from it “something black.” Tall Bull would not admit that anything more had happened, and did not seem to be very profoundly impressed by the occurrence, saying that he thought there were medicine-men of equal capacity among the Cheyenne. In talking soon afterward with Black Coyote, one of the Arapaho delegates and also a police officer, the same incident came up, but with a very different sequel. Black Coyote told how they had seated themselves on the ground in front of Wovoka, as described by Tall Bull, and went on to tell how the messiah had waved his feathers over his hat, and then, when he withdrew his hand, Black Coyote looked into the hat and there “saw the whole world.” The explanation is simple. Tall Bull, who has since been stricken withparalysis, was a jovial, light-hearted fellow, fond of joking and playing tricks on his associates, but withal a man of good hard sense and disposed to be doubtful in regard to all medicine-men outside of his own tribe. Black Coyote, on the contrary, is a man of contemplative disposition, much given to speculation on the unseen world. His body and arms are covered with the scars of wounds which he has inflicted on himself in obedience to commands received in dreams. When the first news of the new religion came to the southern tribes, he had made a long journey, at his own expense, to his kindred in Wyoming, to learn the doctrine and the songs, and since his return had been drilling his people day and night in both. Now, on his visit to the fountain head of inspiration, he was prepared for great things, and when the messiah performed his hypnotic passes with the eagle feather, as I have so often witnessed in the Ghost dance, Black Coyote saw the whole spirit world where Tall Bull saw only an empty hat. From my knowledge of the men, I believe both were honest in their statements.
As a result of the confidence established between the Indians and myself in consequence of my visit to the messiah, one of the Cheyenne delegates named Black Sharp Nose, a prominent man in his tribe, soon after voluntarily brought down to me the written statement of the doctrine obtained from the messiah himself, and requested me to take it back and show it to Washington, to convince the white people that there was nothing bad or hostile in the new religion. The paper had been written by a young Arapaho of the same delegation who had learned some English at the Carlisle Indian school, and it had been taken down on the spot from the dictation of the messiah as his message to be carried to the prairie tribes. On the reverse page of the paper the daughter of Black Sharp Nose, a young woman who had also some school education, had written out the same thing in somewhat better English from her father’s dictation on his return. No white man had any part, directly or indirectly, in its production, nor was it originally intended to be seen by white men. In fact, in one part the messiah himself expressly warns the delegates to tell no white man.