Indians 101: American Indian religions 100 years ago, 1920

Since the founding of the United States, there had been an assumption that American Indians should abandon their religions and become Christians. By 1920, Indian religions were still illegal but, in spite of constant pressure by the U.S. government and government-sanctioned Christian (primarily Protestant) missionaries, some traditional practices continued.

Briefly described below are some of the American Indian religious events from 100 years ago, in 1920.

Taos Pueblo

In New Mexico, Mabel Dodge took social worker John Collier to watch the Red Deer Dance at Taos Pueblo. Collier was astonished at what he saw. This was a life-changing experience for him. He would later write:

“I was rocked; it was like a hallucination or earthquake; a sudden dread-fear; the time-horizon pushed back in a moment and enormously… That solitary experience of ‘cosmic consciousness’ had been mine, that forever solitary translation.”

Hopi

In Arizona, the non-Indian principal of the Oraibi School interrupted a Hopi ceremony when he saw a clown dancer with a huge artificial penis. In the words of the principal, he stopped the ceremony and told the dancer

“that if he ever did a thing like that again, I would put him in jail. He told me that he did not know it was wrong, that it was a Hopi custom.”

Shoshone

In Wyoming, the Shoshone under the spiritual leadership of Morgan Moon openly revived the Sun Dance on the Wind River Reservation. The reservation superintendent had banned the dance and when John Truhujo spoke with him about it, Truhujo was threatened with five years in Leavenworth Prison.

An Indian Office supervisor from Washington, D.C. watched the dance and took pictures. Anthropologist Fred Voget, in his book The Shoshoni-Crow Sun Dance, reports:

“At the end of the dance, the special supervisor told the agent in Truhujo’s presence that there was no regulation in Washington that gave the superintendent power to prohibit such a ceremony. Moreover, he himself saw nothing wrong with it.”

Fort Peck Reservation

In Montana, the superintendent of the Fort Peck Reservation writes regarding Indian dances:

“The dance itself is extremely demoralizing because when they dance they insist upon giving away property. More than one-half of these Indians if allowed to would give away all of their property. The Indian dance has a direct influence against the Church influence.”

He also mentioned that the Indians had imported the Owl Dance from the Standing Rock Reservation. In a chapter in The History of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Montana, 1800-2000, David Miller reports:

“The social dance, the Owl Dance or Kahomani, were often done in secret in isolated places where boys, girls, men, and women danced all night, beyond the control of the superintendent, the farmers, and the agency police.”

In Montana, the Assiniboine of the Fort Peck Reservation received the Rabbit Dance from the Pine Ridge Sioux. Among the Assiniboine, the dance became the Owl Dance and involved couples dancing to lyrics of songs which celebrated the victory of Indian soldiers over the Germans in World War I.

Peyote

The Native American Church arose in the late nineteenth century as a pan-Indian religious movement. It incorporates many Christian elements as well as Indian elements. The difficulty that the church encounters is that it uses peyote as a sacrament. In an article in This Week From Indian Country Today, Ruth Hopkins writes:

“Peyote grows in northern and central Mexico, and in parts of America’s southwest. Native people have been ingesting peyote as a part of spiritual ceremonies for thousands of years.”

Christian missionaries and government officials opposed this Native religion claiming that the consumption of peyote was harmful. Those opposing the peyote religion sought to have laws against it passed in state legislatures and in Congress.

An attempt to insert a ban on peyote into the Nebraska state constitution was defeated.

With regard to the spread of the peyote religion throughout Indian country, religion professor Philip Jenkins, in his book Dream Catchers: How Mainstream American Discovered Native Spirituality, writes:

“The movement spread through missionary tactics borrowed from the Mormons, as pairs of young men wandered the country, converting Indians to the new message.”

In Idaho, the peyote religion was brought to the Shoshone and Bannock of the Fort Hall Reservation by Shoshone spiritual leader Jack Edmo and by Sioux spiritual leader Cactus Pete. The new religion rapidly spread across the reservation and alarms agency officials.

The Indian agent arrested Jack Edmo and others as he viewed peyote meetings as a form of immorality. He then contacted the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to see if he was authorized to try them for violating Indian Office Regulations against the practices of medicine men.

Jack Edmo had first encountered peyote at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during his summer travels. He soon began leading regular Saturday night peyote meetings.

Paiute

In Nevada, Paiute healer Fish Lake Joe, also known as Wodziwob, died. He had the ability to send out his soul to bring back a patient’s soul into its body and thus bring the patient back to life.

Northern Cheyenne

In Montana, the Catholic order of Capuchins took over the care of the St. Labre Mission among the Northern Cheyenne. According to Dave Hopkins, in his Master of Education Thesis A Brief History of Indian Education on the Tongue River Reservation: