Indians 101: American Indian religions 150 years ago, 1872

The policies of the United States government regarding Indian nations are based on the Discovery Doctrine which states that Christian nations have a right to rule over non-Christian nations. During the nineteenth century it was assumed that, as a Christian nation, the United States had an obligation to convert Indians to Christianity as a way of “civilizing” them.

While there are some histories which portray Indians joyfully becoming Christians, this was not usually what happened. In response to the intense pressure of the government to abandon their aboriginal religions, particularly their ceremonies, Indians often responded by incorporating some Christian concepts into their own religions resulting in blended indigenous/Christian religions, or by segregation in which aboriginal practices went underground and became invisible to non-Indian eyes. In some cases, revitalization movements arose. In his book Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America, Peter Silver explains:

“A revitalization movement occurs whenever a charismatic leader uses a divinely revealed system of rituals to channel the dissatisfactions that come with cultural change—and its worrisome half-digestion of new ways—toward a reawakening of traditional ideas and customs.”

Briefly described below are some of the events of 1872 that impacted Indian religions.

Christianity Required

In the 1870s, in an attempt to overcome the corruption in the Indian Office (the forerunner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs), President Ulysses Grant instituted his Peace Policy in which the administration of reservation services was turned over to Christian (primarily Protestant) missionary groups. Sonciray Bonnell, in her Dartmouth College M.A. Thesis Chemawa Indian Boarding School: The First One Hundred Years, 1880-1980, summarizes Grant’s Peace Policy this way:

“The Peace Policy aimed to place Indians on reservations, provide agency personnel appointed by church boards of various religious organizations, provide churches and schools and authorize the president to appoint a group of philanthropists to a Board of Indian Commissioners whose responsibility was to review and administer Indian policy with the Secretary of the Interior.”

Under this policy, many reservations allowed only one Christian sect: all others were barred from proselytizing on the reservation. Since most of the reservations were given to Protestant groups, even when there had been Catholic missionaries working on the reservation for generations, the Catholic priests were removed from the reservation. Writing in 1893 in his book Indian and White in the Northwest: A History of Catholicity in Montana 1831 to 1891, Lawrence Palladino, S.J., writes:

“Without regard to the religious influences that had Christianized them, the tribes of Indians were parceled out among different denominations. Catholic Indians were confined to Protestant preachers; the Catholic missionary was debarred and driven off the reservations, and what good had been done by Catholicity was soon destroyed by contrary influences.”

In an article in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, Frederick Hoxie writes:

“Grant had based the civilization program on the work of religious groups, but from the outset jurisdictional squabbles between Catholics and Protestants had undermined its success.”

With regard to Grant’s Peace Policy, historian Donna Akers, in her chapter in American Indians/American Presidents: A History, writes:

“In reality, the policy rested on the belief that Americans had the right to dispossess Native people of their lands, take away their freedoms, and send them to reservations, where missionaries would teach them how to farm, read and write, wear Euro-American clothing, and embrace Christianity. If the Indians refused to move to the reservation, they would be forced off their homelands by soldiers.”

By 1872, 63 of the nation’s 75 Indian reservations were being administered by Christian religious denominations. Under the policy of faith-based reservation administration, Indians on many reservations were required to convert to Christianity. The traditional religions were not only discouraged, but they were also declared illegal, and their followers could be punished severely.

Skolaskin

For many of the Salish-speaking tribes of the Columbia Plateau area, prophecy was an important part of their spirituality. Regarding prophets among the Plateau tribes, historian Larry Cebula, in his book Plateau Indians and the Quest for Spiritual Power, 1700-1850, reports:

“Prophets were usually men and women who had ‘died’ and come back to life.”

Larry Cebula goes on to say:

“After returning from death, the prophet would announce that he or she had received a vision or had journeyed to the land of the dead.”

The Sanpoil prophet Skolaskin (also known as Kolaskin) had become ill at about twenty years of age and was unable to straighten his legs. After about two years, he died, and the people began to prepare his body for burial. However, he came back to life with a new song. He declared that his pain was gone and that he had experienced a great revelation while he was dead.

In 1872, Skolaskin began teaching a message of escape and salvation. His way was against drinking, stealing, dancing, gambling, and the traditional practice of native cultures. People were to be kind and friendly to everyone. His teachings combined some traditional native concepts and practices with some which were borrowed from Christianity.

Anthropologist Paula Pryce, in her book ‘Keeping the Lakes’ Way’: Reburial and the Re-Creation of a Moral World among an Invisible People, reports:

“Kolaskin appears to combine shamanistic ideas of death, resurrection, and prophecy and winter ceremonial practices along with Christian rituals such as Sunday prayer meetings and an avoidance of work, dancing, or gambling during the Sabbath.”

Anthropologist Lillian Ackerman, in her book A Necessary Balance: Gender and Power Among Indians of the Columbia Plateau, writes:

“Meetings were held once or twice on Sunday during which Kolaskin taught prayers and songs addressed to the deity Sweat Lodge.”

His teachings were opposed by the government, Catholic missionaries, the Sinkiuse chief Moses, and the Nez Perce Chief Joseph.

Smohalla

Another prophet who emerged in the Columbia Platea area in the nineteenth century was Smohalla, a Wanapan medicine man whose teachings led to a religious movement known as the Dreamers. By today’s standards, we might consider Smohalla as a psychic. He had an ability to predict the future, to foretell the coming of storms, to know when the salmon run would start, and to predict the eruption of volcanoes. To the Indian people living along the Columbia River, he was simply known as a prophet, a powerful spiritual leader.

Smohalla’s spiritual strengths were enhanced through two afterlife experiences. In the first afterlife experience, Smohalla died, travelled to the land in the sky, and conversed with the Creator (Nami Piap). He was not permitted to enter eternal life and was told that he was to return to his people and tell them to reject American culture. Indian people, he was told, were to return to the Indian social, economic, political, and religious traditions.

In a second incident, Smohalla again died and made the journey to the land in the sky. Once again, he visited the Creator and was given a special dance (washat) and over 120 religious songs.

In 1872, a major earthquake struck in the area occupied by the Chelan. The prophet Smohalla had predicted this earthquake by announcing that the Great Spirit would show displeasure by shaking the earth. Many in the area, including those who had not heard Smohalla’s words, believed that Mother Earth was angry with them. The Catholic priests used this as an opportunity to increase their missionary efforts. Chief Nmosize, a follower of the traditional ways, burned down a Catholic mission house.

Ghost Dance

While many revealed religions die with their prophet, there are some cases in which the prophet realizes that the revelation was false. One case involved the nineteenth-century Paiute prophet Wodziwob in Nevada. In 1868, Paiute healer Fish Lake Joe, also known as Wodziwob, had a dream which empowered him to lead the souls of those who had died in previous months back to their mourning families.

He exhorted the people to paint themselves and to dance the traditional round dance. In this dance, men, women, and children joined in alternating circles of males and females dancing to the left with fingers interlocked with the dancers on each side. As the dancers stopped to rest, Wodziwob fell into a trance. When he returned, he reported that he had journeyed to the land of the dead, he had seen the souls of the dead happy in their new land, and that he had extracted promises from them to return to their loved ones in perhaps three or four years.

In 1872, Wodziwob had another dream in which he realized that the souls of the dead which he had seen were only shadows. Anthropologist Alice Beck Kehoe, in her book The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization, reports:

“Wodziwob realized with horror that his prophecy was no more than a cruel trick of the evil witch owl. He confessed his sad disillusion to the Paiutes, and they ceased dancing to attract back their loved ones.”

While the “Ghost Dance” inspired by Wodziwob’s vision failed to bring back the dead, it did result in a new determination to maintain Indian culture and to establish new ways compatible with the contemporary world. According to Alice Beck Kehoe

“They worked out new ceremonies, amalgamations of old, borrowed, and newly invented rituals, and made these the center of community life.”

While Wodziwob had realized that his vision was false, the Ghost Dance continued to spread among different tribes. In 1872, it diffused from the Paiute in Nevada to the Pomo in California. The new religious movement was brought to the Pomo by Lame Bull, a Patwin prophet, and a Southwestern Pomo called Wokox. According to Sally McLendon and Michael Lowy, in their chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians:

“In its original form it was a revivalist movement that promised its followers that the Whites would be killed by a natural disaster and the traditional Indian ways would return again.”

Earth Lodge Religion

The Earth Lodge Religion was a variation of Wodziwob’s Ghost Dance which began among the Wintun and Hill Patwin in California about 1871. In their book The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin report:

“Among the beliefs associated with the religion was the imminent end of the world, the return of the dead, and the punishment of nonbelievers. It was believed that the adherents would be protected from the approaching catastrophe in subterranean earth lodges, constructed for that purpose.”

The religion spread among the tribes of northern California and Oregon, adapting to local cultures by adding some features and dropping others.

In 1872, the Wintu-Yana doctor Norelputus introduced the Earth Lodge Religion to the Pomo in Round Valley. The message, preached by Little Toby (Yuki), Charlie Gray (Yuki), and Santiago McDaniel (Pomo), reached the Indian migrant workers at the hop ranch where workers harvested hops for making beer. According to William Bauer, in an article in the Western Historical Quarterly:

“Indian preachers preached in migrant labor camps, and their message spoke to the Indians’ role as migrant workers in Mendocino Country.”

The Earth Lodge preachers promised that the Indians would become the employers.

Wintu

In California, a group of Wintu went to the Fall River because the dead were supposed to return there. They stayed for two nights, but nothing happened and they returned home.