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2. Songs of the Indian Ghost Dance.
(Geister-Tanz.)
By James Mooney.
II. So far as known only one white man, a Mr. Roberts,
a teacher at the Arapalio school in Wyoming, has ever seen the
sacred pipe, which was shown to him on one occasion by Weasel
Bear, as a special mark of gratitude in return for some kindness.
After having spent several months among the southern Arapahos,
from whom I learned the songs of the pipe with much as to its
sacred history, I visited the Messiah in Nevada and then went to
the Northern Arapahos in Wyoming, with great hope of seeing the
seicha and hearing the tradition in full. On the strength of my
intimate acquaintance with their relativs in the south and with their
greatli Messiah in the west, the chiefs and headmen were favorable
to my purpose and encouraged me to hope, but on going out to
the camp in the mountains, where nearly the whole tribe was then
assembled cutting wood, my hopes were dashed to the ground the
first night by hearing the old priest, Weasel Bear, making the
public announcement in a loud voice throughout the camp that a
white man was among them to learn about their sacred things, but
that these belonged to the religion of the Indian and a white man
had no business to ask about them. The chief and those who had
been delegates to the Messiah came in soon after to the tipi where
I was stopping, to express their deep regret, but they were unable
to change the resolution of Weasel Bear, and none of themselves
would venture to repeat the tradition.
A-HUHU HAGENISTITI BAIIU.
A-huhu liagenistiti balm
Hagenistiti balm.
Hanistiti
Hanistiti
Hinisana
Hinisana
Nea-iqahati
Nea-iqahati
The crow has made a road across the
water,
Has made a road across the water.
He lias finished it,
He lias finished it.
His children,
His children,
Then he collected them,
Then he collected them. (i. e., on the
farther side.)
The Crow (ho) is the sacred bird of the Ghost Dance, being
revered as the messenger from the spirit world on account of its
color, black, the color symbolic of death and the shadowland. The
raven, which is practically a larger crow, and which lives in the
mountains, but occasionally comes down into the plains, is also