A Paiute man had a vision: A ritual dance would reunite his people with their dead. The Ghost Dance swept across other North American tribes, until fear and violence brought it to a tragic end.
A Paiute man had a vision: A ritual dance would reunite his people with their dead. The Ghost Dance swept across other North American tribes, until fear and violence brought it to a tragic end.This wood engraving of members of the Sioux Nation engaging in the Ghost Dance was printed in the Illustrated London News in 1891.
On the afternoon of January 1, 1889, a dark circle cut into the sun above Nevada’s Mason Valley. As the moon eclipsed more and more of the solar disc, shadows swept across the sagebrush, birds grew quiet, and a young Paiute man named Wovoka lost consciousness. In this state, he said later, he had a vision. He was taken up to heaven, where he saw God, as well as those who had died long ago, alive and happy. God instructed him to return to the world and tell his people to live in peace so they could be reunited with their loved ones in the next world. To bring this about, God told him, Wovoka must teach his people a dance.Orphaned as a teen, Wovoka was taken in by white ranchers, who named him Jack Wilson and taught him about the Christian Messiah. In adulthood, he reconnected more fully with his Paiute heritage. Wovoka, meaning “cutter,” became a spiritual leader known for his shamanic techniques, healing, and leading round dances. Following his vision and the spread of his Ghost Dance, there were false claims that the ritual dance was going to unite Native Americans in violence. Wovoka’s initial instructions included a call to peace with white people, even after friends and loved ones had died: “Do right always. It will give you satisfaction in life.” After the Wounded Knee Massacre, Wovoka, saddened and discredited, lived the rest of his life in Mason Valley, Nevada. He held on to his belief that he had spoken to God; he died in 1932. Upon awakening, Wovoka spread the word of his vision. So began the Ghost Dance, a ritual that raced like a brushfire from the Paiute through other tribes of the Great Basin and Plains, including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux. The ceremony blended traditional teachings, earlier ritual dances, and Christian theology; and its promise of peace and reunification with the dead gave hope to beleaguered Native Americans, many of them confined to reservations. Across the West, they began performing the Ghost Dance. In a letter to various tribes, Wovoka outlined the marathon-like ritual. “You must make a dance to continue five days,” he said. “Dance four successive nights, and the last night keep up the dance until the morning of the fifth day, when all must bathe in the river and then disperse to their homes.”Different Native American nations interpreted the dance, and the vision, in their own ways, while remaining peaceful. Indeed, Wovoka’s letter explicitly stated, “You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight.” To the Lakota Sioux, though, the ceremony seemed to promise the eventual end of the white man. As they danced, some Sioux wore decorated garments known as ghost shirts, believed to protect them from harm. Federal agents, frightened by the dance and what they saw as its implications, ignored expert opinions, and in 1890, placed some Sioux Ghost Dancers on a list of Native Americans to be relocated.On December 29 of that year, Army troops surrounded a Lakota encampment at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. As the troops searched the encampment for weapons, some of the Lakota men began singing and performing the Ghost Dance. Precisely what happened next is unclear, but by most accounts, a shot rang out, prompting the soldiers to open fire into the encampment. They killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children in what came to be known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Ghost Dance movement never truly recovered from the slaughter at Wounded Knee, although it continued in altered forms into the 20th century.The ghost dance was meant to occur frequently, with more instructions to come. In his message to the tribes, Wovoka said, “I want you to dance every six weeks. Make a feast at the dance and have food that everybody may eat. Then bathe in the water. That is all. You will receive good words again from me some time.” Unfortunately, the appeal of the new religious movement swiftly dwindled after the Wounded Knee massacre.Related Topics
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