From the Forward:
In this study, Dr. Garold Barney has done an excellent job of reflecting both Mormon thought and the Indian concepts behind the Ghost Dance Religion. These two phenomena have existed in the history of the American West for a long time but it has taken Dr. Barney, following the footsteps of Dr. Coates, to make a good case for their relationship. I would recommend Barney's work to anyone interested in Mormons, the Plains Indians, the Ghost Dance Religion, or anyone with a general interest in the religious movements in the American West.
Paul M. Edwards, Baker University
Garold D. Barney was born and raised in western Oklahoma. In the late 1890s, his great-grandfather and grandfather were the third people to file for Homestead land in a portion of Cherokee Strip land that would become Dewey County, Oklahoma. For their first few years the family lived in an earthen dugout in Cheyenne and Arapaho-ceded land. Barney's mother and father were born before Oklahoma became a state in 1907. The fourth child of pioneer-tenant farmers, the pulling of broomcorn and picking of cotton were a way of life. Barney served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean conflict, received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Central Missouri State University, and his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley. The publication of Mormons, Indians, and the Ghost Dance Religion of 1890 represents over ten years of research and writing.