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Noted in historical accounts as the Ghost Dance of 1890, the '''Ghost Dance''' was a religious Ritual incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems beginning in 1889. First performed among the Paiute Native Americans in Nevada , the practice swept throughout much of the American West quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma . As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, Native American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs often creating change in both the Society that integrated it and the ritual itself. At the core of the movement was the Prophet of peace Jack Wilson , known as Wovoka among the Paiute, who prophesized a nonviolent end to Euro-American expansion while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation. Perhaps the best remembered facet of the Ghost Dance movement is the role it reportedly played in instigating the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 that killed 391 Lakota Sioux Native Americans. History most vividly notes this Sioux sect of the Ghost Dance which displays extensive distortion toward Millenarianism , thus driving it away from the religion’s core principals. BIRTH OF THE GHOST DANCE Jack Wilson, the prophet formerly known as Wovoka until his adoption of a Euro-American name, experienced a Vision on the 1st of January, 1889 during a Solar Eclipse . It was not his first time receiving this vision directly from God, but now as a young adult he was better spiritually equipped to handle his profound message. Jack had received training from experienced Shamen in his community under his parent’s guidance after they realized he was having difficulty interpreting his first vision. Jack was also training to be a weather doctor, following in his father’s footsteps, and had established himself throughout Mason Valley as a gifted and blessed individual. He often presided over circle dances symbolizing the sun’s heavenly path across the sky while his captive audience listened to his preaching of universal love. spiritual leader and creator of the Ghost Dance]] Anthropologist James Mooney conducted an interview with the charismatic messiah in 1892. Stories and beliefs that Jack talked about were later validated as the same preaches that he told his fellow Native Americans. This has been documented by letters between tribes and by notes that Jack asked his pilgrims to take upon their arrival at Mason Valley. Jack told Mooney that when in heaven he was before God, amongst of his ancestors who were engaged in their favorite pastimes. The land was filled with wild game and God showed it to him before instructing him to return home to tell his people that they must love each other, not fight, and live in peace with the whites. God continued that Jack’s people must work, not steal or lie; and that they must not engage in the old practices of war. God said that if his people abide by these rules, they would be united with their friends and family in this the other world. With God, he proclaimed, there will be no sickness, disease, or old age. Jack continues that he was then given a dance and commanded to bring it back to his people. If his people performed this dance, which lasted for five day, in the proper intervals then the performers would secure their happiness and hasten the reunion of the living and deceased. Lastly, God gave Jack powers over weather and told him that he would be the deputy in charge of affairs in the Western United States leaving current President Harrison as God’s deputy in the East. Jack was then told to return home and preach God’s message. Jack Wilson left the presence of God convinced that if every Indian in the West danced the new dance to “hasten the event”, all evil in the world would be swept away leaving a renewed earth filled with food, love, and faith. Quickly accepted by the Paiute the new religion was termed “dance in a circle”. Although the first time Euro-Americans encountered the practice from contact with the Sioux, the expression “spirit dance” was used which was translated into ghost dance. HISTORY FOUNDATIONS Paiute Backround Paiutes living in Mason Valley , at the time of settlement by Euro-American homesteaders, are collectively known as the Tövusi-dökadö , “Cyperus-bulb Eaters.” The Northern Paiute community thrived upon a Foraging subsistence methodology through this locally plentiful food source for a portion of the year, while also augmenting their diets with fish, Pine Nuts , and the occasional clubbing of wild game. The Tövusi-dökadö lacked any permanent Political Organization and officials, instead operating within a less stratified social system of self-proclaimed spiritually blessed individuals organizing events or activities for the betterment of the group as a whole. Usually, the community event organized was centered on the observance of a ritual at a prescribed time of year or was intended to organize activities like harvests or hunting parties. One such extraordinary instance illustrating this system occurred in 1869 when a Paiute named Hawthorne Wodziwob organized a series of community dances as a way to announce his vision. He told the Paiutes that he had traveled to the land of the dead, and about the promises that the souls of the recently deceased made to him there. They promised to return to their loved ones within a period of 3-4 years. Wodziwob’s peers accepted this vision, probably due to his already reputable status as a healer, as he also urged the populace to dance the common circle dance as was customary during a time of festival. He continued preaching this message for 3 years with the help of an admiring local weather doctor named Tavibo , Jack Wilson’s father. Previous to Wodziwob’s religious movement, a devastating Typhoid epidemic struck in 1868, coupled with other European diseases one tenth of the population was killed. Not taking into consideration the excessive individual psychological stress this event placed on community members, it more importantly caused grave disorder in the Economic System by preventing many families from being able to continue their Nomadic lifestyle following pine nut harvests and wild game herds. Without any other options, most of these partial families ended up in Virginia City seeking wage work. Round Dance Precursors The physical form of the ritual associated with Ghost Dance can neither be claimed to have originated from Jack Wilson, or to have died with him. Referred to as round dancing, it characteristically includes a circular community dance held around an individual that leads the ceremony. Often accompanying the ritual are intermissions of Trance , exhortations, and prophesying. The term “prophet dances” was applied and an investigation of Native Americans practices was carried out by anthropologist Leslie Spier , a student of Franz Boas , who discovered that types of round dances were present throughout much of the Pacific Northwest including the Columbia Plateau (including the States of Washington , Oregon , Idaho , and parts of Western Montana ). However Spier’s study was conducted at a time when most of these rituals had already incorporated Christian elements, further clouding the issue of the round dance’s origin. Difficultly in acquiring absolute pristine data concerning North America societies during its pre-historic or proto-historic eras has presented itself due to Europeans impact on native populations long before they ever physically reached more remote areas. Changes in Native American society before physical contact can be attributed to severe disease epidemics, an increased frequency and volume in trade caused by the introduction of European goods or by Europeans purchasing local resources, and the introduction of the horse which revolutionized the foraging lifestyle for some Aboriginal societies. Enculturation and Diffusion (anthropology) are not the only explanations for the common circle dance rituals. Anthropologist James Mooney was one of the first to study circle dances and observed striking similarities in rituals between tribes. However he also claimed that “a hope and longing common to all humanity, manifests through behavior rooted in human physiology and common experience”, therefore alluding to either the notion of universal imprints on the human mind or a ubiquitous behavior drawn from universal life course events. ROLE IN WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE Through a parade of Native Americans and some Euro-Americans, Jack Wilson’s message spread across much of the Western portion of the United States. Early in the religious movement many tribes sent members to investigate the self-proclaimed messiah, other communities sent delegates only to be cordial. Regardless of why people were coming to visit Jack, many left believers and returned to their homeland preaching his message. The Ghost Dance was even incorporated by many Mormons who, residing in Utah , traveled to Jack to evaluate whether or not he was the messiah that Joseph Smith Jr . predicted would arrive in the year 1890. While most individuals recognizing the Ghost Dance understood the messiah as a teacher of pacifism and peace, like many other prophets of peace these ideals always elude some. A representation of the Ghost Dance’s misinterpretation is the image of the Ghost Shirt, a special garment rumored to repel bullets through spiritual power. While it is uncertain where the belief originated, James Mooney pointed out that the most likely source is the Mormon endowment robe, which members of the Mormon Church believed would protect the pious wearer from danger. Despite the uncertainty of who created the belief, it is certain that chief Kicking Bear brought the concept to his own people, the Lakota Sioux in 1890. In February of that same year the United States government broke a treaty by adjusting The Great Sioux Reservation of South Dakota , an area that formally encompassed the majority of the state, into five relatively smaller reservations. This was done to accommodate Homesteaders from the east and was in accordance with the government’s clearly stated “policy of breaking up tribal relationships” and “conforming Indians to the white man’s ways, peaceably if they will, or forcibly if they must.” Once on the half-sized reservations, tribes were separated into family units on 320 acre plots, forced to farm, raise livestock, and send their children to boarding schools that forbid any inclusion of Native American traditional culture. To help support the Sioux during the period of transition, the Bureau Of Indian Affairs (BIA), was delegated the responsibility of supplementing the Sioux with food and hiring Euro-American farmers as teachers to the once proud hunters. By the end of the 1890 growing season, the Sioux farmer’s hard work trying to cultivate crops in semi-arid South Dakota failed due to the inability of the land to produce agricultural yields without 20th century irrigation during a time of intense heat in addition to lack of rain. Unfortunately for them, this was also the time when the government’s patience supporting the “lazy” Indians also failed resulting in rations to the Sioux being cut in half. With the bison virtually eradicate from the plains a few years earlier, the Sioux had no option but to starve. Starve and perhaps observe the Ghost Dance because after everything they had been put through at the mercy of the Euro-Americans, they realized that there was nothing to lose. ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES SEE ALSO Movements with similarities
REFERENCES
SUGGESTED READINGS Kehoe, B Alice ''The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization'' Thompson publishing; 1989 EXTERNAL LINKS |
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