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23 BAD TROUBLE COMING While these things were happening, the summer (1890) was getting old. I did not then know all that was going on at other places, but some things I heard, and much more I heard later. When Good Thunder and Kicking Bear came back in the spring from seeing the Wanekia, the Wasichus at Pine Ridge put them in prison awhile, and then let them go. This showed the Wasichus were afraid of something. In the Moon of Black Cherries (August) many people were dancing at No Water’s Camp on Clay Creek,¹ and the agent came and told them to stop dancing. They would not stop, and they said they would fight for their religion if they had to do it. The agent went away, and they kept on dancing . They called him Young-Man-Afraid-of-Lakotas.² Later, I heard that the Brules were dancing over east of us; and then I heard that Big Foot’s people were dancing on the Good River reservation; also that Kicking Bear had gone to Sitting Bull’s camp on Grand River, and that the people were dancing there too. Word came to us that the Indians were beginning to dance everywhere. The people were hungry and in despair, and many believed in the good new world that was coming. The Wasichus gave us less than half the beef cattle they promised us in the treaty, and these cattle were very poor. For a while our people would not take the cattle, because there were so few of them and they were so poor. But afterwhile they had to take them or starve to death. So we got more lies than cattle, and we could not eat lies. When the agent told the people to quit dancing, their hearts were bad.³ Bad Trouble Coming 157 From the dancing on Wounded Knee I went over to the Brules, who were camping on Cut Meat Creek at this time, and I took with me six shirts like those I had seen the twelve men wearing in my vision, and six dresses like the twelve women wore. I gave these to the Brules and they made others for themselves. We danced there, and another vision came to me. I saw a Flaming Rainbow , like the one I had seen in my first great vision. Below the rainbow was a tepee made of cloud.⁴ Over me there was a spotted eagle soaring, and he said to me: “Remember this.” That was all I saw and heard. I have thought much about this since, and I have thought that this was where I made my great mistake. I had had a very great vision, and I should have depended only upon that to guide me to the good. But I followed the lesser visions that had come to me while dancing on Wounded Knee Creek. The vision of the Flaming Rainbow was to warn me, maybe; and I did not understand. I did not depend upon the great vision as I should have done; I depended upon the two sticks that I had seen in the lesser vision. It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those shadows men get lost.⁵ When I came back from the Brules, the weather was getting cold. Many of the Brules came along when I came back, and joined the Ogalalas in the dancing on Wounded Knee.⁶ We heard that there were soldiers at Pine Ridge and that others were coming all the time. Then one morning we heard that the soldiers were marching toward us,⁷ so we broke camp and moved west to Grass Creek. From there we went to White Clay and camped awhile and danced. There came to us Fire Thunder, Red Wound⁸ and Young American Horse with a message from the soldiers that this matter of the ghost dance must be looked into, and that there should be rulings over it; and that they did not mean to take the dance away from us. But could we believe anything the Wasichus ever said to us? They spoke with forked tongues.⁹ We moved in closer to Pine Ridge and camped. Many soldiers were there now, and what were they there for? There was a big meeting with the agent, but I did not go to hear. He made a ruling that we could dance three days every moon, and the rest [18.218...

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