The ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890

In tlie fall of 1890 the author was preparing to go to Indian Ter- ritory, under the auspices of the Bureau of Ethnology, to continue researches among the Cherokee, when the Ghost dance began to attract attention, and i>ermission was asked and received to investigate that subject also among the wilder tribes in the western part of the terri- tory. Proceeding directly to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, it soon be(!ame evident that there was more in the Ghost dance than had been suspected, with the result that the investigation, to which it had been intended to devote only a few weeks, has extended over a period of more than three years, and might be continued indeiinitely, as tlie dance still exists (in 1890) and is developing new features at every performance. The uprising among the Sioux in the meantime made necessary also the examination of a mass of documentary material in the files of the Indian Office and the War Department bearing on the outbreak, in addition to the study in ..