In the development years of the United States where
American exploration lead to westward expansion the Native American tribes who
once occupied various territories across North America were systematically
culled and relocated to reservations often far from their native lands.
Stripped of their liberties to roam and hunt freely, to practice their own
culture and spirituality proudly, denied their roots in place of a English
education, their land and dignity robbed of them, their tribes slaughtered in
the Indian Wars and through disease, Native Americans were suffering through
cultural and physical genocide at the hands of their white neighbors. Each
tribe had experienced the promises of the government and each had felt the
sharp pangs of deceit as those promises were left broken or altered beyond
their original intent. However, in the hearts of what appeared to be a defeated
people resided a glimmer of hope. Spread as quickly as wild fire and with
implications just as grand, a new Messiah came forward with a message and gave
the western tribes of America something they could believe in that was wholly
their own. The Ghost Dance was a movement that returned a piece of autonomy to
Native Americans as well as rekindled a bond with the traditions and power of
their cultures prior to the interference of European influences. For this
reason, the Ghost Dance was viewed as dangerous and a threat to the American
Government, one that needed to be shut down immediately.
In January of 1889, Wovoka, a Paiute from Nevada, had a
vision where he met with his ancestors and God in heaven.[1] He
instructed his native brethren to no longer engage in the behavior of lying,
stealing, cheating, drinking, and fighting.[2]
Stating that resistance to such base behaviors would gain them entrance to
heaven and, through an apocalypse, bring about the destruction of the white man
and the return of the land and wild game such as buffalo “to their original
condition.”[3] His vision and the Ghost
Dance ritual to follow, was rooted in both Native American traditions such as
“meditation, prayer, and ritual cleansing”[4]
and Christian teachings as in his references to Heaven. The combining of these
traditions could have been inspired by Wovoka’s childhood and upbringing. He was
a mystic among his community and likely influenced by an elder Paiute mystic,
Tavibo, who preached similar prophesies in the 1870s.[5]
When he was a child, Wovoka was sent to live on an English under the influence
of the ranch owners who practiced Presbyterianism.[6] Before
the end of the year, the Ghost Dance ritual had made its way across the western
half of the United States spreading from one tribe to the next including the
Utes, Mohave, Caddo, Pawnee, Shoshone, Cheyenne, and Arapaho[7] to
the Plains reservations of the Sioux. A call to action spread amongst the
tribes stating “There is a new Messiah, and he is an Indian. There is a sacred
dance you must learn, and songs you must sing.”[8] Delegations,
often consisting of different tribes, strangers to each other, and even, at one
time, enemies, attended meetings with Wovoka, the freshly minted Messiah, where
he lectured on his vision and taught them the ritual of the dance.[9] Wovoka
instructed the delegations as such, “When you get home you must begin a dance
and continue for five days. Dance for four successive nights, and on the last
night continue dancing until the morning of the fifth day, when all must bathe
in the river and then return to their homes. You must all do this in the same
way… I want you to dance every six weeks. Make a feat at the dance and have
food that everybody may eat.”[10] The
members of the delegations then returned to their home tribes and shared what
they learned from Wovoka. Among the new converts was the Sioux medicine chief,
Sitting Bull, who quickly became a priest under the tutelage of Kicking Bear,
an apostle of Wovoka,[11]
and who hosted the first Ghost Dance for the Sioux on October of 1890.
The Ghost Dance was intended to bring together the
spirits of deceased ancestors and those of the living with the intention of
utilizing this power in battle against the United States Army.[12] Wovoka
explained that the Great Spirit would return the Earth to the way it once was
by purging the land of the whites by way of a soil tsunami. So long as the
Native Americans continued the dance, they would be kept safe from the
catastrophic wave by floating in the sky as it passed beneath them.[13]
Although Wovoka preached patience and peace, the Sioux soon took it upon
themselves to alter the Ghost Dance in such a way as to fit their personal
rituals. This included the creation of the Ghost Shirt which was believed to
repel bullets as well as holding firearms while participating in the dance.[14]
Wovoka’s message, however, was straight forward, “You must not fight. A good
time is coming. Be good, love one another, do not quarrel. Live in peace with
the whites. Word hard, put away everything of war. And dance to hasten the
coming of what I have promised.”[15]
The Ghost Dance was more than just a physical act. Those
who participated found themselves transitioning between reality and the spirit
world where they were able to speak with the ancestors and see for themselves
the potency of the dance. The dance itself was far from disorganized and
frenzied. Rather, it was a quiet affair of participants holding hands while
their bodies swayed and they circled the center pole.[16] The
dance drove many to exhaustion as the Sioux were comprised of many starving and
weak individuals due to life on the reservation. As they crossed over to the
spirit world many returned, but not all had the strength to do so. Rather than
perform their traditional burial and grieving ceremonies, the Sioux abided by
Wovoka’s instructions regarding grief and carried on with the dance, fully
believing their loved ones would be resurrected soon.[17] The
Ghost Shirts were part of a formal dress that the Sioux put together made of
either buckskin or died cloth and beaded fringe down the sides.[18]
Additionally, men and women wore a single feather in their hair, a first for
women to be allowed to be adorned as such.[19] Sitting
Bull further defied Wovoka’s instructions by allowing tribal members to speak
openly about their reason for the dance. This, coupled with the mass
cooperation of tribes across the Plains, brought the dance to the attention of
the United States Government and became cause for alarm in the thick of the
Indian Wars.
The Ghost Dance was viewed by the government to be the
precursor to a Native American uprising[20]
and eventually war. The gathering of differing tribes, the act of a
choreographed dance and its purpose, and the presence of a new faith which
empowered the Native Americans made those who sought control through the
reservations nervous. This created a foundation of suspicion against the
peaceful religious ritual which ultimately culminated in the Massacre of
Wounded Knee. James McLaughlin, an agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
demanded Sitting Bull to stop his tribe’s participation in the Ghost Dance, but
Sitting Bull refused.[21] As
a response, McLaughlin sent in the Indian Police to apprehend Sitting Bull, but
instead of arresting him, he was killed along with some of the officers in a
skirmish.[22] This would ultimately
mark the beginning of the end of the Ghost Dance as the Seventh Cavalry were
called in to disarm the Sioux and take control of the situation and
reservation. On December 29, 1890, over 400 soldiers participated in the
massacre of more than 200 Sioux Indians including men, women, and children.[23]
The Wounded Knee Massacre did not stop at the main encampment, rather, after a
blizzard had passed it was seen that as far as three miles away from the main
scene of the atrocity, women and children were hunted down, mutilated, and
murdered as they tried to escape.[24] The
failure of the Ghost Dance and Ghost Shirts to protect the people against the
American soldiers sounded a death knell of the Ghost Dance religion among the
Sioux.
It is of no wonder why
the United States government, particularly the amped up agents of the Indian
Wars, felt threatened by the birth of the Ghost Dance religion and its ability
to bring together a tribe they had once believed defeated. Not only was the idea
that the son of God, the Messiah, was a Native American offensive to their
Christian sensibilities, but the perceived militaristic congregation of the
Sioux coupled with the overall message of the Ghost Dance prophecy that there
would be a purging of the white people from the lands gave the government cause
to be concerned. This does not, however, justify the ruthless mass murder of
the Sioux in what stands out as one of America’s darkest marks in history.
Although the Wounded Knee Massacre marked the end of the Indian Wars and left
the Sioux battered and hopeless, it would not mark the end of further
persecution nor the resiliency of the native peoples of America. Wovoka’s
message still lives on among many tribal members and the Ghost Dance is still
practiced today, albeit, in private ceremonies.
Bibliography
1. Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian
History. Boston, MA:
Bedford/St. Martins, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016.
2. Johnson,
Dorothy M. "Ghost Dance: Last Hope of the Sioux." Montana: The
Magazine of Western History 6, no. 3 (1956): 42-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4516093.
3. Stein, Rebecca L., and Philip L.
Stein. The Anthropology of Religion,
Magic, and Witchcraft.
London: Routledge, 2016. 239-240.
4. "The Ghost Dance - A Promise of
Fulfillment." Legends of America. Accessed November 16, 2018. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-ghostdance/.
5. "The Ghost Dance and Wounded
Knee." Khan Academy. Accessed November 16, 2018. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-gilded-age/american-west/a/ghost-dance-and-wounded-knee.
6. "Wovoka." PBS. Accessed
November 28, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/wovoka.htm.
[1]
Rebecca L. Stein, and Philip L. Stein. The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and
Witchcraft. London: Routledge, 2016. 239.
[2]
Ibid, 239
[3]
Ibid, 240
[4]
Ibid, 240
[5]
"Wovoka." PBS. Accessed
November 28, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/wovoka.htm.
[6]
Rebecca L. Stein, and Philip L. Stein. The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and
Witchcraft. London: Routledge, 2016. 240.
[7]
Dorothy M. Johnson. "Ghost Dance: Last Hope of the Sioux." Montana:
The Magazine of Western History 6, no. 3 (1956): 42-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4516093.
42.
[8]
Ibid, 42
[9]
Rebecca L. Stein, and Philip L. Stein. The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and
Witchcraft. London: Routledge, 2016. 240.
[10]
"The Ghost Dance - A Promise of Fulfillment." Legends of America.
Accessed November 16, 2018. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-ghostdance/.
[11]
Dorothy M. Johnson. "Ghost Dance: Last Hope of the Sioux." Montana:
The Magazine of Western History 6, no. 3 (1956): 42-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4516093.
43.
[12]
"The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee." Khan Academy. Accessed December
02, 2018.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-gilded-age/american-west/a/ghost-dance-and-wounded-knee.
[13]
Dorothy M. Johnson. "Ghost Dance: Last Hope of the Sioux." Montana:
The Magazine of Western History 6, no. 3 (1956): 42-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4516093.
45.
[14]
Ibid, 45
[15]
Ibid, 45
[16]
Ibid, 47
[17]
Ibid, 46
[18]
Ibid, 45
[19]
Ibid, 45
[20]
Colin G. Calloway. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History.
Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016.
[21]
Dorothy M. Johnson. "Ghost Dance: Last Hope of the Sioux." Montana:
The Magazine of Western History 6, no. 3 (1956): 42-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4516093.
46.
[22]
"The Ghost Dance - A Promise of Fulfillment." Legends of America.
Accessed November 16, 2018. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-ghostdance/.
[23]
Ibid, 1
[24]
Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian
History. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016.
334-335.
