Chapter 28The Ghost Dance did not arrive on the Lakota Reservations until the summer of 1890, mostly because Sitting Bull was reluctant to permit it. Apparently, he had the same sort of questions as I about this dance sweeping across Indian country like a wind. An ill wind, I feared. My gold-flecked black eyes could clearly see what Wovoka preached was nothing but superstition. No amount of dancing would put us on a par with the white man, bring back our dead, and as now claimed, restore the buffalo to the land.
Sitting Bull had bowed to pressure and sent two emissaries named Kicking Bear and Short Bull to the Paiute reservation to speak to the prophet and see the dance for themselves. When they returned, they brought a perverted form of Wovoka’s dream. From all I had heard, the prophet p
