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Show THE PIUTU INDIANS. Wai-M-wnub, tbe New Prophet-Some Prophet-Some of hi Sayings and Doings Singular mlngllnfi of History, Religion, Re-ligion, Superstition, Prophecy and Nonsense. About noon, yesterday, an ordinary looking but very intelligent Piute Indian In-dian walked into our sanctum and said he wished to interview the local editor, lie introduced himself as Johnson, brother (o the late captain Charley and cousin to tieorge Queep, the government gov-ernment interpreter; said he was brought up by Dick Sides, and had lived at Franktown since ISjT, until a short time since, when he took up his residence at Steamboat Springs; that lie had been out to the Walker river reservation to attend a grand fandango, and while there had sat under the eloquence elo-quence of Waz-ze-waub, the new prophet, and had witnessed some strange phenomena supposed to have been the prophet's inspiration; that he had heard- the particulars (from both sides) of the aLVair in Churchill county, and that he was here lor the purpose of consulting with captain (governor) Bradley. "I'll tell you what is coming to pass," said he, when we had spread our paper pa-per and drawn our pencil; "this world is coming to an end; it ia to be destroyed de-stroyed by a flood same as that eighteen hundred and seventy-one years ago (mistaking the epoch of the birth of Christ for that of the completion comple-tion of Noah's boat); for Waz-ze-waub, the boy-prophet of the Walker river reservation says so; and whoever Believes Be-lieves the word of Waz ze waub will be restored to life eternal on the earth renewed, reborn; but whoever disbelieves disbe-lieves his word will bo left in the perpetual per-petual embrace of death." (This is his exact language.) "Why, Johnson," said we, looking up in astonishment; "you don't believe be-lieve such nonsense as that, do you?" "Damfino," he replied, in hia own poetic tongue- "But," we continued, "don't you think this Waz-ze-waub is crazy, or a humbug?" "Maybe so; guess lie is," said the Indian; "but I wouldn't say so, because be-cause he would know it. He knows , everything L say or think." We tried to dissuade him from this belief, but without success. Here we give the statement of Johnson, John-son, nearly' as it came from his lips: "I stopped about ten days on the upper up-per side of Walker Lake, and there mot, conversed with and listened to Waz ze-waub. He ia all the same as a Mormon, though he was never in Uuh, and none of the Mormons have ever been to Walker Lake. He ia a mere boy; a small young man; was born and brought up in the vicinity of the lake, has never traveled, and was' remarkable for nothing until last fall, when he began to prophesy. He does not speak English, but is au eloquent speaker in his own language; has a soft, sweet voice, and sometimes spends whole nighta in singing. He makes money by the pocket lull, nobody knows how by magic, I reckon. 1 did not seo his money, but both his pockets bang heavy and low, and he rattled the coin, lie said the secret of making money had been cjntided to him by the gods, and that the time had not yet come for dividing with "the boys," and that if he should do so now the gods would be displeased and the whole thing (modus operandi) would be spoiled. He denounces whisky in the strongest terms, admonishes admon-ishes the Indians not to touch it, and says that after the flood there will be no whisky in the new born world. He is a devout boy, hates war, dislikes warriors or lighting Indians, and does not waut them to come to see him. (But he adds, in view of possible contingencies, con-tingencies, that when he "talks war," then the warriors can come and hear him.) He says the world is too old and Loo bad, and hence must pass away, and that in the new, to which all believers will be restored, the whites and Indians will have, as before be-fore Noah's flood, but one father, one mother and one God. Unliko the French poet, who had a startling vision of the terrestrial globe shooting madly from its orbit and plunging through the endless abysses of the universe, no longer under the rein of centrifugal and centripetal forces, and sang : "Ail, ye, poor orb, go, mixing up mid jiimbiin g, In topsy-turvey style, thy nigltU and days, And, like a kite with broken string, fall tumbling, And sinking, turn, and turning sink always. Spin through all space that hath no paths nor periods, Kusli at a sun, and smash thyself to snuff Or, say you quench it, there aro others, myriads, Let us have donc'tliis world is old enough" |
