# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 12/Issue 47/Folk-Lore Scrap-Book

FOLK-LORE SCRAP-BOOK
Osakie Legend of the Ghost Dance. In the "Harvard Monthly," Mr. William Jones, of Harvard University, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe, gives an account of the origin of the " Ghost Dance," or as the Osakies call it, Anoska Niwimina, the Dance of Peace, as related to him by the Osaka chieftain. He prefaces his narrative by relating the manner in which, while the religious enthusiasm which began about ten years ago was at its height, bands of Kiowas, Comanches, Caddoes, Shawnees, Delawares, and Kickapoos came on a friendly visit to a village of the Osakies, on the Canadian, in the Indian Territory. The arrival of the strangers is described, who appeared before the village at sunset. In the centre of the village was a circular space, inclosed by an embankment knee-high. The muffled boom of a drum gave the summons, at which the warriors and male children filed in and placed themselves in a circle against the embankment, while the women and girls sat in the middle and a great throng stood outside. When silence was obtained, the Osakie chieftain rose, urged his brothers and sisters to receive with friendship the visitors, and put up a prayer to "Our Father, Gisha Munetoa: As thou didst show to the young woman who once brought the spirit of peace upon earth, so wilt thou fill now with the same spirit the hearts of our girls, our women, our wives, and our mothers. Then they can show our men how to live, and there shall be no more war among the nations." A dance followed, and whenever a strange dancer sat down to rest, an Osakie young man stepped before him with a long peace-pipe in his hand. After the Osakie had invoked the spirit of Gisha Munetoa by pointing a stem of the pipe successively in the four directions, the dancer received to his lips and held for a moment the stem of the pipe, in the red stone bowl of which was lit, with a live coal, the sacred tobacco. Such, says Mr. Jones, is the ceremony which has been scornfully branded as the "Ghost Dance" and the "Messiah Craze." But to the Osakies, and those who join with them in singing its songs, in dancing its dance, and in praying its prayers, it is the Anoska Niwimina, a dance of peace. The accompanying legend, relating the manner in which Shaskasi brought from Gisha Munetoa the spirit of peace into the lodges of men, is then related:—
"Many winters ago, during the war in the north, in the course of an attack on a village, a girl escaped and wandered until she issued through hollows on a high prairie, where she abandoned herself to grief, remembering the destruction of her people.
"Suddenly, in this great despair, she caught the faint sound of a voice calling from afar, 'O my daughter!' Instantly she raised her head, and, pressing her clasped hands between her knees, she listened, doubting all the while whether the call were but a ringing of the imagination. And while she listened she heard again, nearer and more distinctly, 'O my daughter!' She leaped at once to her feet, and, as her eyes swept the prairies round about to find whence the sound came, she heard even yet ​the same voice and the same call. Still she saw no one. She stopped and looked into the sky; and, lo! as she stood there motionless, Gisha Munetoa, the Master of Life, who spoke to her thus:—
"'Wipe away the tears from thine eyes, my daughter, and listen to the message which I shall tell thee; for I shall intrust many things upon thee, because I have seen thee loved above all the young women of thy nation. I wish thee to return to thy lodge and to thy village, which thou shalt find standing as in the days of peace.
"'Now do these things which I shall tell thee as thou hearest them, and all shall come out well. First, pluck four stems from the long grass waving at thy side, and then return the way whence thou hast come. On that way is the camp of the foe. Be not afraid, but enter straight into the camp as thou wouldst into thine own. Thou shalt find the chiefs and the warriors feasting. I shall direct thy footsteps to the place where the two head chiefs are eating. There sit thyself down and eat till thy hunger is gone. Warriors shall place food before thee, and thou shalt see everything that passes before thine eyes; but no one shall see thee, nor shall any one know that thou art there. After thou art done eating, rise; and as thou turnest thy back upon the chiefs and the warriors, and startest on thy way home, thou shalt see at thy feet a large wooden vessel. Lift up the vessel and bear it upon thy shoulders, for thou shalt find it light. And when thou hast come into the village of thy people, go and sit by thy lodge. There play upon the drum which thou shalt have, and, in time to the measure, sing the songs which I shall cause thee to sing. And while thy people sing with thee, show them how to dance to the new songs. Then tell them that there shall be no more war. Be brave in thine heart, my daughter; for I shall be with thee in all that I have asked thee to do.'
"Gisha Munetoa disappears behind the clouds, and the girl, while thinking over what she has heard, slowly plucks four grass-stems, which change in her hand into four Anoska drumsticks. She is then moved by a mysterious power, and begins to retrace her steps; she passes into the camp of the enemy, but is enveloped in a cloud of faint blue mist, and mingles with the warriors unobserved, partaking of food placed before the apparently empty seat. When she has sated her hunger she rises, and, as she does so, observes at her feet the wooden vessel which she has been ordered to take up. She does so, and it is transformed into an Anoska drum, beautifully decorated with porcupine quills, beads, and eagle feathers. She lifts it to her shoulder and goes on to her viljage, which she finds deserted, and, without any conscious volition, begins to beat the drum and chant an old war-song. Attracted by the sound, the warriors return, find the girl, and summon the people, who look with wonder on the maiden sitting alone and singing in time with the drum. By and by, three men, to whom she had handed the other three drumsticks, sit down by the drum with her. They followed the time she had set to the beating of the drum, and presently joined in the song she was singing. After she found that the men could play the drum and sing alone, she slowly lowered her voice until it was hushed. Then, handing her own drumstick to a man standing ​by, she rose and gave him her place at the drum. After she had formed an open circular space in the middle of the wondering crowd, she beckoned to the boys and the men to join with her in dancing to the music of the song and the drum; and while the boys and the men fell to dancing the step she taught them, the girls and the women went and sat down beside the drummers and singers.
"Now the booming of the drum, the singing of the great chorus of men who had joined with the four singers at the drum, and the whoops and the yells of dancers were all heard in the distant camp of the foe. Quickly, in the firelight, the warriors of the enemy sprang to their sacred war bags, and rubbed a pinch of magic paint over their cheeks and upon their weapons. Then, leaping upon their bare-back ponies, they disappeared in the darkness with the war-chiefs in the lead. On reaching the top of the butte above the wigwams of the village, they stopped and listened, but only long enough to locate the place where the singing and the dancing were going on. Then the chiefs yelled the war-whoop, the warriors gave it back, and all, bending far over on the backs of their ponies, rode at full speed down the slope.
"Meantime, in the village below, the dance went on. Nearer and nearer sounded the heavy tramp of many horses, and louder and fiercer grew the yells and whoops of the enemy. But all the while the boom of the drum increased, the singing grew more spirited, and the number of dancers swelled. Like a big, black cloud suddenly rising, the enemy loomed out of the darkness. But at the very moment when the ponies were about to dash into the throng to scatter it, at the very moment when the noses of the ponies struck the backs and the shoulders of the people who were looking on at the dance, that very moment the ponies halted—stopped stiff in their tracks. Their riders in anger lashed, clubbed, and kicked them, but the only movement the ponies would make was to turn their heads and their necks to one side or the other. Finding their ponies would budge no farther, the men leaped to the ground. But the moment they alighted, the spirit of hatred left their hearts. They flung aside their shields, their war-clubs, their bows and their quivers of arrows, and joined in the dancing and in the singing with the men whom they had come to slay. And the warriors of the two nations, while smoking together the pipes of peace, listened to the words of Shaskasi, telling them that war between them was over."
Passion Play at Coyoacan.—The "Herald," of the City of Mexico, Mexico, gives an account of the Passion Play, as performed in 1899 at Coyoacan, where the environment is said to be more picturesque than at other villages in the neighborhood of the capital:—
"It was at Coyoacan that Madam Calderon de la Barca saw the Passion Play, and really, in reading her excellent description of it, one is struck with the little variation wrought by a lapse of fifty-five years. In one part she says: 'The padre's sermon was really eloquent in some passages, but lasted nearly an hour, during which time we admired the fortitude of the ​unhappy Cyrenian, who was performing a penance of no ordinary kind. The sun darted down perpendicularly on the back of his exposed head, which he kept bent downwards, maintaining the same posture the whole time without flinching or moving. Before the sermon was over, we could stand the heat no longer, and went in under cover. I felt as if my brains were melted into a hot jelly. We emerged upon hearing that the procession was again moving towards the pulpit, where it shortly after formed itself into two lines. In a few moments a man with a plumed helmet, mounted on a fiery horse, galloped furiously through the ranks, holding a paper on the point of his lance,—the sentence pronounced by Pontius Pilate. His horse bolted at the end of the lines, and occasioned a laugh amongst the spectators.'
"Yesterday afternoon precisely this same scene was enacted. The horse, ridden by the pregonero, or crier, Manual Rivas, performed just the antics described by Madam Calderon, and there was the same hilarity amongst the spectators. But the part of Simon of Cyrene, instead of being taken by an old man 'with hair as white as snow,' was enacted by a really good-looking youth of the name of Cruz Rivas.
"The open-air religious display is quite contrary to the law, but the matter is compounded beforehand, as the Mayor of Cayoacan informed the 'Herald' representative, by payment of a fine of twenty-five dollars. Du reste the affair is quite innocent, and it is to be regretted that the laws lay their ban on it.
"There is a generic resemblance among the representations of the Passion enacted on Good Friday in the neighboring villages. An image of the Saviour, dressed in a purple velvet robe, crowned with thorns and bearing his cross, is carried on a platform round the churchyard, surrounded with Roman soldiers, Jewish priests, and crowds of the faithful bearing lights. On the same platform with the Saviour are the Cyrenian, a part taken yesterday by a young boy, Cruz Rivas, dressed in crimson and white, and a little girl representing an angel. The part of the latter was represented yesterday by a child of the name of Manuela Mariscal, who was dressed in white muslin, with silver gossamer wings. She held her handkerchief to one eye, as if grieving over the sorrows of the Redeemer, while with the other she calmly surveyed the crowd. A kind relative walked alongside, shading this little angel with a parasol. In front of the procession walked two bands, the first performing the monotonous music of the indigenous race, consisting only of the beating of the drum and the piping of the chirimia, the second rendering modern selections in excellent style. Only these selections were somewhat incongruous. For example, after the pathetic scene where Jesus meets his Mother, the band yesterday struck up the well-known two-step, the 'Washington Post.'
"Apolonio Rivas, the manager of the representation and one of the most substantial residents of Coyoacan, kindly gave the text of the sentence to the 'Herald' representative. The following is the translation of a part: 'I, Pontius Pilate, President of Lower Galilee, and governor under the Roman Emperor, do judge and sentence Jesus of Nazareth, as ​a seditious man and an enemy of the mighty Emperor Tiberius Caesar. And I determine that his death be on the cross, fixed there with nails, in the manner customary with criminals. For, gathering round him many men, both rich and poor, he has not ceased to provoke tumults throughout the whole of Judea, proclaiming himself the Son of God and King of Israel, and prophesying the downfall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. I ordain that the first centurion, Quintus Cornelius, shall lead him through the streets of Jerusalem to be a scoff and a byword. After having been scourged he shall be dressed in mock state, so as to be known by all, and the cross to which he is to be nailed he shall bear on his shoulders. And he shall walk through the most frequented streets, between two thieves who have been condemned to death for robbery and murder. And I, furthermore, ordain that, as an example to malefactors, he shall issue from the Antonine gate, preceded by a public crier who shall proclaim all his misdeeds, and on arriving at the hill of Calvary, where evil-doers and other miscreants receive their meed, he shall be nailed to the cross, and over his head shall be placed an inscription in the languages most widely spoken, viz., Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, saying, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."'
"After Manual Rivas had vociferated this sentence, he handed it to the priest in the pulpit, who, as in Madam Calderon's day, 'received it with a look of horror, tried to read it, and threw it on the ground with an air of indignation.
"Next came the final procession to the hill of Calvary, an artificial mound in the centre of the churchyard. The two thieves were crucified, one on either side of the Saviour, the penitent on his right, who, to the appeal, 'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,' received the answer, 'To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.'
"When the cross with the figure of Christ had been erected, the other scenes mentioned in the sacred narrative were enacted,—the casting of lots for the seamless garment, the offering of the sponge soaked with vinegar and gall, the opening of the side with a spear. After this, Padre Avila preached another sermon, and then the whole crowd knelt bare- headed in prayer at the foot of Calvary. During the scene of crucifixion the drums were beaten and the chirimia kept up its pathetic wail. With the descent from the cross and the burial, the representation terminated."
Cures by Conjure Doctors.—The "Southern Workman and Hampton School Record," August, 1899, gives some interesting information, obtained from a teacher attending a course at Hampton, in regard to the methods and effects of treatment by "conjure doctors:"—
"When I was about eight years old a little girl threw a brick at my head, which cut it very badly, and when I showed the wound to my mother she became very angry, and took the broom, ran out to the girl, and gave her several raps over the head. In about three months I began to have chills, and they lasted me eight years. The strange part of my story is how they were cured.
​"My mother was instructed that the chills were put on me by the hand of the wicked, and she, being anxious about my welfare, employed a conjurer to take them off me. When he came he demanded part pay before entering in business, and, that part being settled, he went to work. The first thing he did was to take out of his pocket the 'walking boy' which was to assist him in finding the direction of enemies or friends,—in this case, the one who put the chills on me. The 'walking boy' is a bottle with a string tied to its neck, deeply colored, that you may not see what the doctor puts in it—something alive, you may know, which enables it to move or even flutter briskly, and this makes you certain of whatever fact the doctor is trying to impress.
"The treatment for my chills was a tea, and an ointment of his own preparation. The tea was made of roots, which looked like potatoes, and silver money. The ointment was made out of herbs fried in hog's lard.
"After being thus treated, as I had good faith in the 'doctor' the chills vanished.
"An old man once was ill with palsy, as they thought, and, after spending much money employing medical doctors and getting no relief, he was advised to change treatment. He employed a conjurer, who came with his 'walking boy.' The doctor, with 'boy' in hand, ordered a man to bring a hoe and dig where he would order him to, that he might earth up the thing that caused the man's illness.
"After he had walked over and around the yard several times with the 'boy' suspended, it was thought by many that he would not be able to find the buried poison; but as they were about to give up their pursuit, the 'boy' fluttered and kicked as though he would come out of the bottle. Then the doctor ordered the man to dig quickly, for the 'trick-bag' was there. On the order being obeyed, the poison was found. It was rusty nails, finger and toe nails, hair and pins sewed up in a piece of red flannel.
"The 'doctor' carried this to the patient, and convinced him that he had found the cause of his illness, and that he would surely get well. Not many days elapsed before he was walking as well as ever."
Modern Conjuring in Washington.—It is to be expected that the advance of scientific knowledge should affect the practice of "voodoo." A curious example of such progress is given by the "Washington Post," March 7, 1899, in an account of a case tried in the police court of that city:—
"Mrs. Sarah Smith, a colored woman, who has been employed as cook in some of the most exclusive homes of Washington, is the complainant against Johnson. She told a story of deceit in the police court yesterday, which accuses Johnson of working first upon her hopes and then upon her fears, with the net result of the transfer of six hundred dollars from Mrs. Smith's possession to Johnson's. Larceny by trick on six different occasions, and the possession of a revolver when arrested by Policeman Duvall, are the specific charges against Johnson.
"Mrs. Smith said yesterday that, several months ago, Johnson called ​upon her and volunteered to regain for Mrs. Smith the affections of a man in whom she was interested. She did not entertain the love-charmer's proposals, she said, though he told her he could get her swain back quicker and cheaper than any one else, and called often to repeat his offers. Finally, Johnson is alleged to have told the woman that he had bought a vault from some New York people, in which to keep the names of people for whom he was working charms. Into this vault, he informed Mrs. Johnson, he had put her name, though without her consent. Johnson is said to have further advised Mrs. Smith that the placing of her name in this vault with a certain kind of gas was a secret process, and love-matches could be infallibly arranged by the juxtaposition of the names of the lovers in this vault, under the influence of the magic gas.
"This system does not appear to have accomplished the effects desired on Mrs. Smith's pocket-book, the woman surmising that, if the charm would work at all, the placing of her name and her friend in the vault would be sufficient without the transfer of any negotiable securities to Johnson. This impression Johnson is said to have speedily designed means to remove. Mrs. Smith says that when he had failed to collect for his unauthorized subjection of her name to the vault process, he changed his tactics and called on her one evening with a horrible story. A leak had been discovered in the precious vault, according to the necromancer, and the lovers whose names had been placed in it were dying off rapidly instead of finding mutual bliss. The gas was escaping faster than he could supply it, according to Johnson, and Mrs. Smith was in a fair way to escape to a better world with it. This change in the situation terrified the colored woman, and when Johnson let her understand that money was needed to buy the very expensive gas needed to keep the lovers alive, Mrs. Smith found the cash. News from the vault was a trifle more encouraging for a while, but Johnson's troubles with the gas seemed to be unending, and soon he needed more coin to meet the drain of gas by the leak. Mrs. Smith again and again found comparatively large sums to prevent herself becoming a victim of the leaky meter. Once she had no money at hand, but Johnson called with such a tale of horror about what was happening to the other lovers in the vault, that she went out and borrowed sixty-five dollars, and fainted after handing it over to buy more gas. After this experience, Johnson told her that the outlook was a trifle better, and he had succeeded in getting her name out of the vault, but it was necessary to bury it to save her life. Mrs. Smith provided funds for the interment."