What The Ghost Dance is.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 15 January 1891, Page 3

What The Ghost Dance is.

«. Jt was cabled the other day that lh e Indians in Canada ha 1 had a ghost dance. Tho description giv«n of sach a dunce wil bo interesting : — Kan&as City, Mo., Noveinbfr 21.--Mrs Finley, wife of ex-Councilman Finley, in an interview today thus descrbed the ghos 1 ' donees: " One Gh">st dance, that f saw wns participn ed in by 480 Indians. In prepare g for tie dniice they cut the tal est tree that they can fiud, and having dragged it to a ievt 1 piece of prairie, s< t it up in the ground. 'I he others form in a circle, and begin to go around and around the tree. They begin the dunce on Friday afternoon. It is kept up Saturday and Sunday until sundown. During all this time they do not eat or drink. '! hey keep going round in one direction, untill they become so dizzj that they can scarce'y sand, then torn and go in the other direction, and keep up until they swoon from exhaustion That is what they desi c, for while they are in a swoon tliay think rhey see and talk with the new Christ " When thep regain consciousness < they tell their experiences to the I four wise men under the tree. All the tales end with the same story about the two mountains that me " to belch forth mud and bury the white men, and the return of good old Indian times. They lose all of their benses in tho dance. They think they are anima's. Some get down all fours and bob abont like buffaloes. When they cannot lose their senses from exhaustion they but their heads together, beat them ( on the ground and do anything to become iusensiblp, so that they may be ushered into the presence of the new f hrist. One poor Indian when he recovered his s<nses said that Christ had told him he must return to oarth because he had not brought with him his wife and child. His child had died two years before, and tho way the poor fellow cried was the most heart rending thing I ever saw. At the end of the dance they have a grand feast, the revel lasting all Sunday night. They kill several steers and eat them raw — drink and gorge themselves to make up for their fast."