Title: Dreamer-prophets of the Columbia Plateau : Smohalla and Skolaskin /
Authors: Ruby, Robert H.; Brown, John A. 1914-2004.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press,
Year: 1989
Subjects: Smohalla,; Skolaskin,; Indian mythology Northwest, Pacific.; Indians of North America Northwest, Pacific Religion.; Sanpoil mythology.; Sanpoil Indians Religion.; Wanapum mythology.; Wanapum Indians Religion.; Wanapum Indians Biography.; Sanpoil Indians Biography.; Indians of North America Northwest, Pacific Biography.
Abstract: "Seekers after wisdom have always been drawn to American Indian ritual and symbol. This history of two nineteenth-century Dreamer-Prophets, Smohalla and Skolaskin, will interest those who seek a better understanding of the traditional Native American commitment to Mother Earth, visionary experiences drawn from ceremony, and the promise of revitalization implicit in the Ghost Dance. To white observers, the Dreamers appeared to imitate Christianity by celebrating the sabbath and preaching a covenant with God, nonviolence, and life after death. But the Prophets also advocated adherence to traditional dress and subsistence patterns and to the spellbinding Washat dance. By engaging in this dance and by observing traditional life-ways, the Prophets claimed, the living Indians might bring their dead back to life and drive the whites from the earth.^