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the bright and Happy Hunting Grounds, to be sorry for our sings, to institute a Messiah Dance among our people at Pine Ridge, and to keep up this dance until the Lord himself shall appear."

When the Ghost or Messiah Dance was first given on Pine Ridge Reservation by the Sioux who had been in Utah on a visit to the Ute Indians, there were many on-lookers. These became interested as the dance proceeded, for such was its influence upon a beholder that he felt an irresistible desire to join the circle.

The largest camp of the dancers prior to the departure for the North was located upon Wounded Knee Creek. Other camps of considerable extent existed upon White Clay Creek, four miles from the agency headquarters, upon Porcupine and Medicine Root streams. Nearly five hundred persons were leaping up and down, or rolling upon the earth, at one time, in an enormous circle. The earth is packed as firm as a cemented cellar bottom, so rendered by the thousands of feet that stamped furiously upon the surface, and for a space of three hundred and fifty feet in diameter there is not a vestige of grass, nor the indication of the smallest
shrub.

When the medicine men took the Ghost Dance under their charge one man was appointed "High Priest," to have entire control of the ceremonies. His four assistants were likewise invested with power to start or stop the dance at will. They were given authority to punish any person who should refuse to obey their commands.

While the priests are employed in their prayers, the squaws make a good-sized sweathouse. Poles are stuck in the ground and the tops bent together and securely tied. These saplings are strong enough to bear the weight of several hundred pounds. Over the framework are heaped blankets and robes to such a thickness that no smoke or steam can pass from the interior. A fire is started in a hole in the ground several feet from the small entrance to the sweat-lodge, and twenty or thirty good-sized stones are placed therein to be heated. When these rocks have become suffieciently hot, the young men who are to partake of the bath, strip with the exception of the breech clout, and crawl through the door. They seat themselves in a circle, with their feet toward the center and their backs against the sides of the lodge. The attendant shoves some of the hot stones inside, and the young men pour water from a hide bucket upon the little stone heap. Steam and vapor arise, completely filling the inclosure. The attendant has meanwhile covered the opening so that no air from the outside may penetrate. As the vapor condenses, the attendant thrusts more stones within, and thus the operation is continued as long as the youths can stand the confinement. The pipe is also smoked during the sweat. When the young men issue from their bath the perspiration is fairly streaming from every pore. If it is not cold weather they plunge into a pool in the creek near by, but if it be chilly they wrap blankets about their bodies.

Several sweat-houses are erected in order to prepare the young men for the dance. When a good number of young men, say fifty or sixty, have thus prepared themselves, the high priest and his assistants come forward. The high priest wears eagle-feathers. The dancers wear no ornaments whatever and enter the circle without their blankets, many of them only wearing their ordinary clothes.

That Indians should lay aside all ornaments and finery and dance without the trappings which they so dearly love, proves conclusively that some powerful religious influence is at work.

"SITTING BULL"
The celebrated Uncapapa Sioux Chief, killed in 1891.