Messiah. Ezk. 37:19; III Nephi, 21:1–7. In 1887, sixty years after
the plates were delivered to Joseph Smith, jr., the Book of Mormon
in Spanish was delivered to the American Indians, with the promise
to those who are identified with the Gentiles that if they will not
harden their hearts, but will repent and know the true points of my
doctrine they shall be numbered with my covenant people, the Branch
of Joseph. Doctrine and Covenant, 19:59–62; 20:8–17; III Nephi,
21:1–7.
5. The coming of the Messiah. Three years later, March, 1890,
the people of God, who were notified by the three Nephites, met
at Walkers lake, Esmeralda county, Nevada, where a dispensation
of the Celestial kingdom of God—the gospel in the covenant of
consecration, a perfect oneness in all things, temporal and
spiritual—was given unto them. Twelve disciples were ordained, not
by angels or men, but by the Messiah, in the presence of hundreds,
representing scores of tribes or nations, who saw his face, heard
and understood his voice as on the day of pentecost. Acts 2,
also fulfilling sec. 90:9, 10, 11 of Doctrine and Covenant. Ezk.
20:33–37.
6. The Fulness of the Gentiles. In 1492, the Lord God let His
vineyard to the nations of the Gentiles, to punish His people the
Branch of Joseph for 400 years (Gen. 15:13), bringing the fulness
of the Gentiles the end of their rule over the American Indians.
October, 1892, Rom. II: 25–26; Gen. 50:25; New Trans. Matt.
21:33–41.
7. The Pruning of the Vineyard. The husbandmen upon this land began
the last pruning of the vineyard in 1891. Prominent among which
stands our government in fulfilling Matt. 21:33–41, saying, let us
kill the heirs and hold the inheritance, as shown in the massacre
of Wounded Knee; the butchery of Sitting Bull; the imprisonment
of Short Bull and others; the breaking up of reservations, and
the attempts to destroy the treaty stipulations above mentioned
by forcing the mark of the Beast, citizenship and statehood, upon
the American Indians, which will ultimately terminate in a war of
extermination. Isa. 10:24–27; Dan. 2:34; Isa. 14:21.
According to the astronomical, prophetic, and historical evidence
found in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants for
the redemption of Zion and the restoration of Israel, there are
seven celestial keys of powers to be used which can not be handled
by apostles, prophets, or angels. They can only be handled by the
Messiah and his Father.
* * * * *
2. The key of power that restores the heirs, the American Indians,
to their own lands consecrating to them the wealth of the Gentiles.
3. The key of power that turns away ungodliness from Jacob (the
American Indians) enabling them to build the temple on the spot
pointed out by the finger of God (Independence, Jackson County,
Missouri), on which the true sign of Israel is to rest, the glory
of the living God of the Hebrews, the cloud by day and the pillar
of fire by night by the close of this generation, 1896.
* * * * *
On and after July 10, 1892, free lectures illustrated by figures,
will be given weekly, on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, from 6.30
to 8.30 p. m. (weather permitting), at the book stand in the
Nineteenth Ward, opposite Margett’s Brewery, No. 312 North Second
West.
First. On the coming of the Messiah to the Hebrews, at the
sacrifice of Esau, near the close of the 400-year bondage of Jacob
in the morning of the Abrahamic Covenant, B. C. 1491.
Second. On the coming of the Messiah to the Jews, at the Meridian
sacrifice of Jacob at the close of the last 1921 years of the
covenant, the year one A. D.
Third. On the coming of the Messiah to the American Indians, the
remnants, at the evening sacrifice of Esau, near the expiration of
the evening bondage of Jacob of 400 years, 1892, in the last 430
years of the covenant.
PORCUPINE’S ACCOUNT OF THE MESSIAH
The following statement was made to Major Carroll, in command of Camp
Crook, at Tongue River agency, Montana, June 15, 1890, and transmitted
through the War Department to the Indian Office:
In November last [1889] I left the reservation with two other
Cheyennes. I went through [Fort] Washakie and took the Union
Pacific railroad at Rawlins. We got on early in the morning about
breakfast, rode all day on the railroad, and about dark reached a
fort [Bridger?]. I stayed there two days, and then took a passenger
train, and the next morning got to Fort Hall. I found some lodges
of Snakes and Bannocks there. I saw the agent here, and he told me
I could stay at the agency, but the chief of the Bannocks who was
there took me to his camp near by. The Bannocks told me they were
glad to see a Cheyenne and that we ought to make a treaty with the
Bannocks.
The chief told me he had been to Washington and had seen the
President, and that we ought all to be friends with the whites
and live at peace with them and with each other. We talked these
matters over for ten days. The agent then sent for me and some
of the Bannocks and Shoshones, and asked me where I was going. I
told him I was just traveling to meet other Indians and see other
countries; that my people were at peace with the whites, and I
thought I could travel anywhere I wished. He asked me why I did
not have a pass. I said because my agent would not give me one. He
said he was glad to see me anyhow, and that the whites and Indians
were all friends. Then he asked me where I wanted a pass to. I
told him I wanted to go further and some Bannocks and Shoshones
wanted to go along. He gave passes—five of them—to the chiefs of
the three parties. We took the railroad to a little town near by,
and then took a narrow-gauge road. We went on this, riding all
night at a very fast rate of speed, and came to a town on a big
lake [Ogden or Salt Lake City]. We stayed there one day, taking
the cars at night, rode all night, and the next morning about 9
oclock saw a settlement of Indians. We traveled south, going on
a narrow-gauge road. We got off at this Indian town. The Indians
here were different from any Indians I ever saw. The women and men
were dressed in white people’s clothes, the women having their hair
banged. These Indians had their faces painted white with black
spots. We stayed with these people all day. We took the same road
at night and kept on. We traveled all night, and about daylight
we saw a lot of houses, and they told us there were a lot more
Indians there; so we got off, and there is where we saw Indians
living in huts of grass [tulé?]. We stopped here and got something
to eat. There were whites living near by. We got on the cars again
at night, and during the night we got off among some Indians, who
were fish-eaters [Paiute]. We stayed among the Fish-eaters till
morning, and then got into a wagon with the son of the chief of the
Fish-eaters, and we arrived about noon at an agency on a big river.
There was also a big lake near the agency.
The agent asked us where we were from and said we were a long ways
from home, and that he would write to our agent and let him know we
were all right. From this agency we went back to the station, and
they told us there were some more Indians to the south. One of the
chiefs of the Fish-eaters then furnished us with four wagons. We
traveled all day, and then came to another railroad. We left our
wagons here and took the railroad, the Fish-eaters telling us there
were some more Indians along the railroad who wanted to see us. We
took this railroad about 2 oclock and about sun down got to another
agency, where there were more Fish-eaters. [From diagrams drawn
and explanations given of them in addition to the foregoing, there
seems to be no doubt that the lakes visited are Pyramid and Walker
lakes, western Nevada, and the agencies those of the same name.]
They told us they had heard from the Shoshone agency that the
people in this country were all bad people, but that they were
good people there. All the Indians from the Bannock agency down to
where I finally stopped danced this dance [referring to the late
religious dances at the Cheyenne agency], the whites often dancing
it themselves. [It will be recollected that he traveled constantly
through the Mormon country.] I knew nothing about this dance before
going. I happened to run across it, that is all. I will tell you
about it. [Here all the Indian auditors removed their hats in token
that the talk to follow was to be on a religious subject.] I want
you all to listen to this, so that there will be no mistake. There
is no harm in what I am to say to anyone. I heard this where I met
my friends in Nevada. It is a wonder you people never heard this
before. In the dance we had there [Nevada] the whites and Indians
danced together. I met there a great many kinds of people, but
they all seemed to know all about this religion. The people there
seemed all to be good. I never saw any drinking or fighting or bad
conduct among them. They treated me well on the cars, without pay.
They gave me food without charge, and I found that this was a habit
among them toward their neighbors. I thought it strange that the
people there should have been so good, so different from those here.
What I am going to say is the truth. The two men sitting near me
were with me, and will bear witness that I speak the truth. I and
my people have been living in ignorance until I went and found out
the truth. All the whites and Indians are brothers, I was told
there. I never knew this before.
The Fish-eaters near Pyramid lake told me that Christ had appeared
on earth again. They said Christ knew he was coming; that eleven
of his children were also coming from a far land. It appeared that
Christ had sent for me to go there, and that was why unconsciously
I took my journey. It had been foreordained. Christ had summoned
myself and others from all heathen tribes, from two to three or
four from each of fifteen or sixteen different tribes. There were
more different languages than I ever heard before and I did not
understand any of them. They told me when I got there that my great
father was there also, but did not know who he was. The people
assembled called a council, and the chief’s son went to see the
Great Father [messiah], who sent word to us to remain fourteen days
in that camp and that he would come to see us. He sent me a small
package of something white to eat that I did not know the name of.
There were a great many people in the council, and this white food
was divided among them. The food was a big white nut. Then I went
to the agency at Walker lake and they told us Christ would be there
in two days. At the end of two days, on the third morning, hundreds
of people gathered at this place. They cleared off a place near the
agency in the form of a circus ring and we all gathered there. This
space was perfectly cleared of grass, etc. We waited there till
late in the evening anxious to see Christ. Just before sundown I
saw a great many people, mostly Indians, coming dressed in white
men’s clothes. The Christ was with them. They all formed in this
ring around it. They put up sheets all around the circle, as they
had no tents. Just after dark some of the Indians told me that
the Christ [Father] was arrived. I looked around to find him, and
finally saw him sitting on one side of the ring. They all started
toward him to see him. They made a big fire to throw light on him.
I never looked around, but went forward, and when I saw him I bent
my head. I had always thought the Great Father was a white man, but
this man looked like an Indian. He sat there a long time and nobody
went up to speak to him. He sat with his head bowed all the time.
After awhile he rose and said he was very glad to see his children.
“I have sent for you and am glad to see you. I am going to talk to
you after awhile about your relatives who are dead and gone. My
children, I want you to listen to all I have to say to you. I will
teach you, too, how to dance a dance, and I want you to dance it.
Get ready for your dance and then, when the dance is over, I will
talk to you.” He was dressed in a white coat with stripes. The rest
of his dress was a white man’s except that he had on a pair of
moccasins. Then he commenced our dance, everybody joining in, the
Christ singing while we danced. We danced till late in the night,
when he told us we had danced enough.
The next morning, after breakfast was over, we went into the circle
and spread canvas over it on the ground, the Christ standing in the
midst of us. He told us he was going away that day, but would be
back that next morning and talk to us.
In the night when I first saw him I thought he was an Indian, but
the next day when I could see better he looked different. He was
not so dark as an Indian, nor so light as a white man. He had no
beard or whiskers, but very heavy eyebrows. He was a good-looking
man. We were crowded up very close. We had been told that nobody
was to talk, and even if we whispered the Christ would know it. I
had heard that Christ had been crucified, and I looked to see, and
I saw a scar on his wrist and one on his face, and he seemed to be
the man. I could not see his feet. He would talk to us all day.
That evening we all assembled again to see him depart. When we were
assembled, he began to sing, and he commenced to tremble all over,
violently for a while, and then sat down. We danced all that night,
the Christ lying down beside us apparently dead.
The next morning when we went to eat breakfast, the Christ was with
us. After breakfast four heralds went around and called out that
the Christ was back with us and wanted to talk with us. The circle
was prepared again. The people assembled, and Christ came among us
and sat down. He said he wanted to talk to us again and for us to
listen. He said: “I am the man who made everything you see around
you. I am not lying to you, my children. I made this earth and
everything on it. I have been to heaven and seen your dead friends
and have seen my own father and mother. In the beginning, after God
made the earth, they sent me back to teach the people, and when
I came back on earth the people were afraid of me and treated me
badly. This is what they did to me [showing his scars]. I did not
try to defend myself. I found my children were bad, so went back to
heaven and left them. I told them that in so many hundred years I
would come back to see my children. At the end of this time I was
sent back to try to teach them. My father told me the earth was
getting old and worn out, and the people getting bad, and that I
was to renew everything as it used to be, and make it better.”
He told us also that all our dead were to be resurrected; that they
were all to come back to earth, and that as the earth was too small
for them and us, he would do away with heaven, and make the earth
itself large enough to contain us all; that we must tell all the
people we meet about these things. He spoke to us about fighting,
and said that was bad, and we must keep from it; that the earth
was to be all good hereafter, and we must all be friends with one
another. He said that in the fall of the year the youth of all the
good people would be renewed, so that nobody would be more than 40
years old, and that if they behaved themselves well after this the
youth of everyone would be renewed in the spring. He said if we
were all good he would send people among us who could heal all our
wounds and sickness by mere touch, and that we would live forever.
He told us not to quarrel, or fight, nor strike each other, nor
shoot one another; that the whites and Indians were to be all one
people. He said if any man disobeyed what he ordered, his tribe
would be wiped from the face of the earth; that we must believe
everything he said, and that we must not doubt him, or say he lied;
that if we did, he would know it; that he would know our thoughts
and actions, in no matter what part of the world we might be.
When I heard this from the Christ, and came back home to tell it to
my people, I thought they would listen. Where I went to there were
lots of white people, but I never had one of them say an unkind
word to me. I thought all of your people knew all of this I have
told you of, but it seems you do not.
Ever since the Christ I speak of talked to me I have thought what
he said was good. I see nothing bad in it. When I got back, I knew
my people were bad, and had heard nothing of all this, so I got
them together and told them of it and warned them to listen to it
for their own good. I talked to them for four nights and five days.
I told them just what I have told you here today. I told them what
I said were the words of God Almighty, who was looking down on
them. I wish some of you had been up in our camp here to have heard
my words to the Cheyennes. The only bad thing that there has been
in it at all was this: I had just told my people that the Christ
would visit the sins of any Indian upon the whole tribe, when the
recent trouble [killing of Ferguson] occurred. If any one of you
think I am not telling the truth, you can go and see this man I
speak of for yourselves. I will go with you, and I would like one
or two of my people who doubt me to go with me.
The Christ talked to us all in our respective tongues. You can see
this man in your sleep any time you want after you have seen him
and shaken hands with him once. Through him you can go to heaven
and meet your friends. Since my return I have seen him often in my
sleep. About the time the soldiers went up the Rosebud I was lying
in my lodge asleep, when this man appeared and told me that the
Indians had gotten into trouble, and I was frightened. The next
night he appeared to me and told me that everything would come out
all right.
THE GHOST DANCE AMONG THE SIOUX
The following was written originally in the Teton Dakota dialect by
George Sword, an Ogalala Sioux Indian, formerly captain of the Indian
police at Pine Ridge agency and now judge of the Indian court. It
was translated by an Indian for Miss Emma C. Sickels and is published
by her courtesy. The copy of the original Sioux manuscript is in the
archives of the Bureau of Ethnology:
In the story of ghost dancing, the Ogalala heard that the Son of
God was truly on earth in the west from their country. This was in
the year 1889. The first people knew about the messiah to be on
earth were the Shoshoni and Arapaho. So in 1889 Good Thunder with
four or five others visited the place where Son of God said to be.
These people went there without permission. They said the messiah
was there at the place, but he was there to help the Indians and
not the whites; so this made the Indians happy to find out this.
Good Thunder, Cloud Horse, Yellow Knife, and Short Bull visited the
place again in 1890 and saw the messiah. Their story of visit to
the messiah is as follows:
“From the country where the Arapaho and Shoshoni we start in the
direction of northwest in train for five nights and arrived at
the foot of the Rocky mountains. Here we saw him and also several
tribes of Indians. The people said that the messiah will come at
a place in the woods where the place was prepare for him. When we
went to the place a smoke descended from heaven to the place where
he was to come. When the smoke disappeared, there was a man of
about forty, which was the Son of God. The man said:”
“‘My grandchildren! I am glad you have come far away to see your
relatives. This are your people who have come back from your
country.’ When he said he want us to go with him, we looked and
we saw a land created across the ocean on which all the nations
of Indians were coming home, but, as the messiah looked at the
land which was created and reached across the ocean, again
disappeared, saying that it was not time for that to take place.
The messiah then gave to Good Thunder some paints—Indian paint
and a white paint—a green grass [sagebrush twigs?]; and said, ‘My
grandchildren, when you get home, go to farming and send all your
children to school. And on way home if you kill any buffalo cut the
head, the tail, and the four feet and leave them, and that buffalo
will come to live again. When the soldiers of the white people
chief want to arrest me, I shall stretch out my arms, which will
knock them to nothingness, or, if not that, the earth will open and
swallow them in. My father commanded me to visit the Indians on a
purpose. I have came to the white people first, but they not good.
They killed me, and you can see the marks of my wounds on my feet,
my hands, and on my back. My father has given you life—your old
life—and you have come to see your friends, but you will not take
me home with you at this time. I want you to tell when you get home
your people to follow my examples. Any one Indian does not obey me
and tries to be on white’s side will be covered over by a new land
that is to come over this old one. You will, all the people, use
the paints and grass I give you. In the spring when the green grass
comes, your people who have gone before you will come back, and you
shall see your friends then, for you have come to my call.’”
The people from every tipi send for us to visit them. They are
people who died many years ago. Chasing Hawk, who died not long
ago, was there, and we went to his tipi. He was living with his
wife, who was killed in war long ago. They live in a buffalo skin
tipi—a very large one—and he wanted all his friends to go there to
live. A son of Good Thunder who died in war long ago was one who
also took us to his tipi so his father saw him. When coming we come
to a herd of buffaloes. We killed one and took everything except
the four feet, head, and tail, and when we came a little ways from
it there was the buffaloes come to life again and went off. This
was one of the messiah’s word came to truth. The messiah said, “I
will short your journey when you feel tired of the long ways, if
you call upon me.” This we did when we were tired. The night came
upon us, we stopped at a place, and we called upon the messiah to
help us, because we were tired of long journey. We went to sleep
and in the morning we found ourselves at a great distance from
where we stopped.
The people came back here and they got the people loyal to the
government, and those not favor of the whites held a council. The
agent’s soldiers were sent after them and brought Good Thunder and
two others to the agency and they were confined to the prison. They
were asked by the agent and Captain Sword whether they saw the
Son of God and whether they hold councils over their return from
visit, but Good Thunder refused to say “yes.” They were confined
in the prison for two days, and upon their promising not to hold
councils about their visit they were released. They went back to
the people and told them about their trouble with the agent. Then
they disperse without a council.
In the following spring the people at Pine Ridge agency began to
gather at the White Clay creek for councils. Just at this time
Kicking Bear, from Cheyenne River agency, went on a visit to the
Arapaho and said that the Arapaho there have ghost dancing. He said
that people partaking in dance would get crazy and die, then the
messiah is seen and all the ghosts. When they die they see strange
things, they see their relatives who died long before. They saw
these things when they died in ghost dance and came to life again.
The person dancing becomes dizzy and finally drop dead, and the
first thing they saw is an eagle comes to them and carried them to
where the messiah is with his ghosts. The man said this: