The times., 1899-08-08

storeoVer, IL is amazingly infectious, run
ming over the country like wildfre. Super
| stition has so proved itself always, among
civilized peoples as well as barbarians
Higher Christianity is by no means exempt
| from its influence. We whites have our
Second Adventists as we'll as the red
men; only these untutcred wards OF ours
who are looking for coming Messiah have
been believers in Shamanism from away
back, and consequently are the more sus-
ceptible to impressions and to the wiies
of charlatans who seek to take ADVANTAGE
OF their credulity, as well as of their in
nate jealousy of inherent rights to the soil
and game. AS the astute Gall logically
argues: The Indians are little different
from white men, Ne one can say that the
Indians are wrong, for the same faith
which inspires the Christian inspires
them"
The Redskins Worship.
Formerly the worship of the red men
was vague. They were pantheists who saw
the Deity in the whirlwind and in the
storm. and in every phenomenon, and it
should certainly stand to the credit of their
susceptibility and adaptability that they
have become so impressed by the Chris
tianity which has been taught them that
their spirituality has taken shape in con-
formity herewith. 1t is true that their
ideas of the expected millennium are
somewhat different from ours; for in
metaphorically separating the sheep from
the goats they draw the color line" at
Indian red, consigning their white oppres-
sors to oblivion and punishment and the
aboriginal elect to repienished buffalo
range and good riddance from white
domination.
In the accomplishment of this much COW
ic Sip h
ing, as respects the question of a general
uprising, which some so persistenuy ap-
prehend, that the Indians expect the Mes
siah alone 10 act. They do not propose to
take part themselves. They expect every
thing TO be done for them. They simply
press the button; the Messiah does the rest
They are well aware of the su-
velous expedients and appliances of
the white people, and the dis
tressful straits to which their own tribes
are now reduced. They are practically hors
du combat, and will not venture to act in
body without the prospect OF supernatural
assistance. False prophets and mercenary
men may inspire some of them with
promise of this, and there may be ON oc
casions foolhardy individuals, and even
bands, who will run amuck under a frenzy
OF fanaticai excitement or perhaps go on
the war path. But the great mass of the
Indian people is likely to remain in quiet
expectancy Of the advent or go about their
business with faith and resignation. Should
the Messiah fail to come, and prophecies
come to naght, as they have repeatedly
done with all Adventists for the past fifty
years. and indeed for eighteen centuries,
then the time of the Messiah's appearance
may be indefinitely postponed while the
faith continues to smolder.
There is naturally, among old residents
who have lived through Indian cam
1paigns, and know their yicissitudes by
painful personal experience, nervous
apprehension that disquietude may at any
time develop into an outbreak. And GER
tainly it is just as easy TO secretly or
ganiZe an emeute among Indians
as it is to formulate a strike among the
brotherhoods of trade and labor. An In
dian uprising may be arranged by pre-
concerted agreement for given date, and
a massacre OF whites enSue in fifteen diff
ferent States at once; and the results
might be infinitely more deplorable than
the anarchist outbreak in Chicago, or the
draft riot in New York, or the John Brown
insurrection in Virginia or the more re-
cent half-breed rebellion in Manitoba and
the Northwest Territory. But no matter
how mysteriously the spirit may move, or
in what disguise the Messiah may come,
restless vigilance will surely detect his
The direct and effective way to break
up the nest of fanatics is to break up
their meetings, and the direct way to
avert an Indian uprising is to prevent
their ghost dances, just as the Indian agent
did at Pender, Neb., where 5000 Indians
were assembled and more were expected
These ghost dances are held openly, and
it may be imagined with what desperate
fervor the Indians engage in them when
1t is understood that their dances are not
only in the interest of temporal needs,
but for eternal gain. They believe that
by constant stamping (which is about all
the style there is to an Indian dance)
they may bury the whites thirty feet deep
underground and restore the country to its
pristine. bucolic condition.
The focus OF the religious movement
seems always TO be at Standing Rock or
Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Indeed. all
insurrectionary plots are Matched there, of
which Swift Bears movement on July il
is not an exception. 1t is a centre from
which all inspiration doubtless emanates,
and emissaries are sent from there to out
lying districts to stir up enthusiasm, while
in correct conformity with tradition and
all histNrical events the locum tenens of
the Messiah is in the wilderness. 1t was
so with John the Baptist, Elijah, Moses,
and Peter the Hermit, and even with the
Child of Bethlehem.
OF course, general uprising of the red
men would only hasten their ultimate ex-
termination, il such an uprising were pos
sible; but as cur troops are always on
the alert it is expected that they will as
eHectuallys prevent the advent of an In
dian Messiah as they prevented the un-
lawful and premature occupation of Okla
homa and the Cherokee Strip
CJJAPTES xJAJr0GIY