Bannock Indian's Vision of Ancestors and Divine Message

“A Bannock Indian, who had been traveling to visit the Nez Perces, had been without food for several days, and was almost famished. He wandered into a region where buffalo had not been seen for many years, and to his great surprise, he found a fat buffalo. He killed it, and while he was dressing it, a personage appeared to him, in the open day, and told him he was a father of the Indians, and gave him a small stick covered with some kind of writing, which he said was the writing of the forefathers of these Indians. He also told him that there was another one of their forefathers coming and they would see him. He charged him solemnly to send an account to all the Indians of what he should see and hear that day, and hide nothing from them. He then waved his hand, and it seemed as if a door opened, and he could see the nations of the dead. He saw vast numbers of them, and they were embracing each other, and seemed to be very happy. The personage told him that he must go and tell the Indians what he had seen, and that if they did not believe him, he could bring a delegation of them to that spot, and he would show them the same things. The Indian, after he had finished his meat, took a portion of it to the Nez Perces camp, and told the chiefs what he had seen and heard. They were very skeptical, and did not believe him, but he told them that if they would go with him to the place where he had seen the vision, he would prove to them that he had told them the truth. They went with him, and he showed them the place, and they were convinced that he had told them the truth.”

— Bannock Indian, as reported in The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, Vol. 38, No. 17