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The Ghost Dance of 1889–1891 by the Oglala Lakota at Pine Ridge. Illustration by western artist Frederic Remington, 1890.
The Ghost Dance (Caddo: Nanissáanah,[1] also called the Ghost Dance of 1890) was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka (renamed Jack Wilson), proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples throughout the region.[2]
The basis for the Ghost Dance is the circle dance, a traditional dance done by many Native Americans. The Ghost Dance was first practiced by the Nevada Northern Paiute in 1889. The practice swept throughout much of the Western United States, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma. As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, different tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs.
The Ghost Dance was associated with Wovoka’s prophecy of an end to white expansion while preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation by Indians. Practice of the Ghost Dance movement was believed to have contributed to Lakota resistance to assimilation under the Dawes Act. In the Wounded Knee Massacre in December 1890, United States Army forces killed at least 153 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa from the Lakota people.[3] The Lakota variation on the Ghost Dance tended towards millenarianism, an innovation that distinguished the Lakota interpretation from Jack Wilson’s original teachings. The Caddo still practice the Ghost Dance today.[4]
History
Paiute influence
Cyperus esculentus, a root that the Northern Paiutes used to eat
The Northern Pautes living in Mason Valley, in what is now the U.S. state of Nevada, were known collectively as the Tövusi-dökadö (Tövusi-: “Cyperus bulb” and dökadö: “eaters”) at the time of European contact. The Northern Pa community at this time was thriving upon a subsistence pattern of fishing, hunting wild game, and foraging for pine nuts and roots such as Cyperus esculentus.
The Tövusi-dökadö during this period lacked any permanent political organisation or officials, and tended to follow various spiritual leaders and community organizers. Community events centered on the observance of seasonal ceremonies such as harvests or hunting. In 1869, Hawthorne Wodziwob, a Paiute man, organized a series of community dances to announce a vision. He spoke of a journey to the land of the dead and of promises made to him by the souls of the recently deceased. They promised to return to their loved ones within a period of three to four years.[5]
Wodziwob’s peers accepted this vision, likely due to his reputable status as a healer. He urged the populace to dance the common circle dance as was customary during a time of celebration. He continued preaching this message for three years with the help of a local “weather doctor” named Tavibo, father of Jack Wilson.[5]
Prior to Wodziwob’s religious movement, a devastating typhoid fever epidemic struck in 1867. This and other European diseases killed approximately one-tenth of the total population,[6] resulting in widespread psychological and emotional trauma. The disruption brought disorder to the economic system and society. Many families were prevented from continuing their nomadic lifestyle.
Round Dance influence
A round dance is a circular community dance held, usually around an individual who leads the ceremony. Round dances may be ceremonial or purely social. Usually the dancers are accompanied by a group of singers who may also play hand drums in unison. The dancers join hands to form a large circle. The dancers move to their left (or right, depending on nation or territory) with a side-shuffle step to reflect the long-short pattern of the drum beat, bending their knees to emphasize the pattern.
During his studies of the Pacific Northwest tribes the anthropologist Leslie Spier used the term “prophet dances” to describe ceremonial round dances where the participants seek trance, exhortations and prophecy. Spier studied peoples of the Columbia plateau (a region including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of western Montana). By the time of his studies the only dances he was allowed to witness were social dances or ones that had already incorporated Christian elements, making investigation of the round dance’s origin complicated.
The “Prophet”
Wovoka–Northern Paiute spiritual leader and creator of the Ghost Dance
Jack Wilson, the “prophet” otherwise known as Wovoka, was believed to have had a vision during a solar eclipse on January 1, 1889. It was reportedly not his first time experiencing a vision; but as a young adult, he claimed that he was then better equipped, spiritually, to handle this message. Jack had received training from an experienced holy man under his parents’ guidance after they realized that he was having difficulty interpreting his previous visions. Jack was also training to be a “weather doctor”, following in his father’s footsteps. He was known throughout Mason Valley as a gifted and blessed young leader. Preaching a message of universal love, he often presided over circle dances, which symbolized the sun’s heavenly path across the sky.[citation needed]
Anthropologist James Mooney conducted an interview with Wilson prior to 1892. Mooney confirmed that his message matched that given to his fellow Indians.[2] This study compared letters between tribes. According to Mooney, Wilson’s letter said he stood before God in heaven and had seen many of his ancestors engaged in their favorite pastimes, and that God showed Wilson a beautiful land filled with wild game and instructed him to return home to tell his people that they must love each other and not fight. He also stated that Jesus was being reincarnated on earth in 1892, that the people must work, not steal or lie, and that they must not engage in the old practices of war or the traditional self-mutilation practices connected with mourning the dead. He said that if his people abided by these rules, they would be united with their friends and family in the other world, and in God’s presence, there would be no sickness, disease, or old age.[7]
Mooney writes that Wilson was given the Ghost Dance and commanded to take it back to his people. He preached that if the five-day dance was performed in the proper intervals, the performers would secure their happiness and hasten the reunion of the living and deceased. Wilson said that the Creator gave him powers over the weather and 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 claims that he was then told to return home and preach God’s message.[2]
Jack Wilson claimed to have 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 his Paiute brethren, the new religion was termed “Dance In A Circle”. Because the first European contact with the practice came by way of the Lakota, their expression “Spirit Dance” was adopted as a descriptive title for all such practices. This was subsequently translated as “Ghost Dance”.[2]
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