Ghost Dance

Ghost Dance
Public domain · source
Name	Ghost Dance
Caption	Ghost Dance ceremony, late 19th century
Type	Religious movement
Origin	Indigenous peoples of North America
Regions	Great Basin, Plains Indians, Pacific Northwest, California

Ghost Dance The Ghost Dance was a late 19th-century Indigenous religious movement that spread among many Native American nations and sought spiritual renewal, social cohesion, and the restoration of ancestral ways. It emerged in contexts shaped by encounters with United States, Hudson's Bay Company, Mexican–American War aftermaths, and settler expansion, interacting with treaties, reservations, and missionary activity. Leaders, prophets, and communities adapted the movement across diverse nations, linking ritual practice with responses to dispossession and epidemic disease.

Origins and Beliefs

Origins trace to prophetic figures whose teachings synthesized visions, scripture, and local cosmologies, including earlier prophets associated with Tecumseh, Neolin, Pehua, and nineteenth-century revivalists. Beliefs incorporated expectations of ancestral return, renewal of lands taken after the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie and 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, and transformation following events like the California Gold Rush and Indian Appropriations Act of 1871. Teachings promised reversal of dispossession, healing from smallpox and influenza pandemics, and removal of settler presences such as Transcontinental Railroad corridors and Homestead Act settlers. Prophetic narratives often referenced figures linked to Pawnee, Shoshone, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, Hopi, Pueblo, Yakama, Nez Perce, and Ojibwe communities, creating syncretic frameworks that drew upon biblical motifs encountered via Methodist Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church, and Baptist missionaries.

19th-Century Movements (Wovoka and the 1890 Ghost Dance)

The 1890 movement, associated with the Northern Paiute prophet known as Wovoka, emerged amid broader late-19th-century mobilizations alongside figures such as Kicking Bear, Big Foot (Si Tȟáŋka) affiliates, and spokespeople from the Lakota and Cheyenne nations. Wovoka's teachings spread along routes linked to Fort Hall Reservation, Walker River Reservation, and migrant circuits connecting Nevada and Montana. The diffusion intersected with federal Indian policy debates in Washington, D.C., and responses from officials including agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and officers from the United States Army, crews associated with Fort Laramie and Fort Yates. The 1890 momentum followed earlier revivalist awakenings such as the movements linked to Smohalla, Wovoka (Jack Wilson), and other prophets whose teachings circulated alongside references to events like the Battle of the Little Bighorn and treaties such as the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

Practices and Ceremonies

Ceremonial life featured communal dances, songs, and regalia that varied among Lakota Sioux, Crow, Pawnee, Hopi, Comanche, Shoshone, and Ute practitioners, often occurring at dance rings, camp circles, and reservation grounds near posts like Fort Peck Indian Reservation and sites referenced in oral histories. Ritual elements included drumming patterns associated with Sioux hand drums, song forms paralleling Hopi prayers, and clothing sometimes called "dance shirts" that referenced protective iconography discussed in survivor testimonies from encounters with United States Cavalry detachments. Ceremonies incorporated fasting, communal feasts, and storytelling that invoked ancestors named in tribal genealogies, connecting performance to intertribal networks spanning Plains Indians and Plateau peoples.

Cultural and Political Impact

The movement influenced intertribal solidarity, shaping pan-Indigenous responses to policies enacted under figures such as President Benjamin Harrison and administrations negotiating land with signatories to the Medicine Lodge Treaty and other accords. Ghost Dance networks intersected with legal challenges before courts in St. Louis and petitions delivered to political centers in Washington, D.C., affecting advocacy by leaders associated with Red Cloud lineage and spokespeople who later corresponded with missionaries from Presbyterian Church (USA) and journalists from publications in Chicago and New York City. Cultural outputs—songs, visual motifs, and oral narratives—fed into later ethnographic work by scholars connected to institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, and university departments at Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Suppression and Wounded Knee Massacre

Authorities perceived rapid spread as a security threat, prompting deployments of United States Army units including detachments linked to 7th Cavalry Regiment and officers associated with operations near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Tensions culminated in the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, involving combat between soldiers and Oglala Lakota participants under leaders such as Big Foot (Si Tȟáŋka)'s band, with casualties recorded among men, women, and children. The event involved tools and munitions issued via supply lines tied to Fort Yates and precipitated congressional hearings and press coverage in outlets from The New York Times to regional newspapers in South Dakota, provoking debates in the United States Congress and among reformers in organizations like the Indian Rights Association.

Revival and Contemporary Significance

During the 20th and 21st centuries, ceremonial forms associated with the movement experienced revivals among communities including Lakota, Hopi, Shoshone, Paiute, and Pomo, and they influenced cultural activism in contexts such as the American Indian Movement, legal actions involving the National Congress of American Indians, and cultural preservation initiatives at museums such as the National Museum of the American Indian. Contemporary practitioners engage across reservations like Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rosebud Indian Reservation, and urban communities in Los Angeles, Denver, and Minneapolis while collaborating with ethnomusicologists at Indiana University and legal advocates before courts including the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The movement endures as part of heritage programs, intertribal gatherings, and educational curricula in tribal colleges affiliated with networks like the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.

Category:Native American religion Category:19th-century social movements Category:American Indian history