Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-11-28
will doubtless receive their certificates
from the district canvassing board, com-
posed of the auditors from each county
in the district-meeting to be held at the
county seat of the senior county.
CAUSE OF THE EXCITEMENT,

CAUSE OF THE EXCITEMENT.
The facts and circumstances which
have caused all the Indian excitement
and wholly unnecessary scare, so far as
North Dakota is concerned, are briefly
these. For months, more than a year in
fact, a new religion has been growing
among the Indians, and it has at last
taken full possession of them. The
principal feature of this new creed is the
coming of an Indian Messiah who will
give to his chosen people, the Indians,
dominion yer the globe, The Indian
idea of the Messiah for which they are
looking is wonderfully like the idea en-
tertained by the Jews in regard to the
coming of their promised Christ, who
should be a temporal king Of infinite
power.
This metamorphosis is to be accom-
plished, the Indians say, by a huge wave
of r I'D which will envelope the earth and
destroy all the whites, but the Indians
will rise to the surface and be saved, as
will also such of their ponies as have
eagle feathers in their tails, consequently
all ponies belonging to converts are seer
to have their tails decorated in this man.
ner.
Then the buffalo shall return, and
such other conditions be ordered as con-
stitute the savage idea of perfect happi-
ness. The principal ceremony or mode
of worship is the ghost dance, a weird,
fantastic performance i%ngeniously ar
arranged to produce a dizziness so vio-
lent as to amount to a delirium. Like
all religions, faith is the sine qua non.
Preliminary to entering the dance the
candidate spends a few hours in the
sweat tepee, al almost air tight tepee.
He enters the tepee entirely nakel, some
red hot stones are then rolled in and
water poured over them. The result is a
Turkish bath that would put the Sultan's
article to shame. A few hours of
this completes the publication, washes
away all past sins and in biblical par
lance the candidate has been "born
again" and a pure innocent is ready to
receive instruction direct from the foun-
tain head.
Now, if he has faith enough, he may
enter the dance and, by wooing the gods
by various contortions, be transported to
the happy hunting grounds and hold
sweet converse either with the Messiah
or some of his staff, or, if he prefer, in
terview the spirit of any dear departed.
But faith is essential. It the candi-
date has not perfect faith, he is told that
the instant he joins the dance the Messi-
ah will strike him dead. AS a conse-
quence, being universally superstitious,
none are brave enough to tempt destruc-
ton and do not join the dance unless
all doubts have ceased. Going into the
dance, then, with perfect belief that their
desire to pass into a trance and visit CO.
lestial regions will be gratifed and, NOV
ing in a circle, keeping their eyes on
circling wands and other devices de-
signed to produce acute giddiness, and
as they have been kept without food for
a long time prior to initiation, they soon
lose all reason and fall on the ground i n
commissions of delirium, during which,
no doubt, strange f%ancies, in the same
lire of thought which filled their minds
during the dance, fit through their
brains. Completely exhausted as
they are by hunger and the
violence of the dance, they
soon sink into a stupor. When they re-
cover the indistinct memory of the vaga-
ries of their delirium convinces them
that they have really had a wonderful
spiritual experience, and though perhaps
they do not remember the details of
their visit to celestial regions, they are
satisfied that they have been there and
the truth and power and reality of the
new faith has been demonstrated to them
clearly.
There are two features of this new re-
ligion which should allay all imminent
fears of an outbreak. First, they do not
prophesy the coming Of the Messiah un-
til next June. Second, and most important
it is essentially a religion of peace. The
great change is, they say, to be brought
about by acts of Providence, and the
Messiah will not sanction or permit any
acts of violence whatever.
This religion has taken a wonderful
hold upon men, women and children,
and the effect is demoralizing in the ex-
treme. Discipline is destroyed, civilized
customs abandoned and the tendency is
to a general state of disorder.
It is the absolute necessity of re-
establishing discipline, and the underlined
fear that so violent a religious mama in
spires, which has led to the calling out of
troops, rather than any specific danger
of depredations.
BISHOP HARE, who has inst retnrned