WOVOKA


"I, Jack Wilson, love you all, and my heart is full of gladness for the gifts you have brought me. When you get home I shall give you a good cloud which will make you feel good. I give you a good spirit and give you all good paint. I want you to come again in three months, some from each tribe there."
"There will be a good deal of snow this year and some rain. In the fall there will be such a rain as I have never given you before."
"Grandfather says, when your friends die you must not cry. You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight. Do right always. It will give you satisfaction in life. This young man has a good father and mother."
"Do not tell the white people about this. Jesus is now upon the earth. He appears like a cloud. The dead are still alive again. I do not know when they will be here, maybe this fall or in the spring. When the time comes there will be no more sickness and everyone will be young again."
"Do not refuse to work for the whites and do not make any trouble with them until you leave them. When the earth shakes do not be afraid. It will not hurt you."
"I want you to dance every six weeks. Make a feast at the dance and have food that everybody may eat. Then bathe in the water. That is all. You will receive good words again from me some time. Do not tell lies."


"You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest."

"You ask me to dig for stones! Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again."

"You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men, but how dare I cut my mother's hair?"

"I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits ready to meet them in the bosom of our mother."

May it always be so


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