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A ceremonial religious dance connected with the messiah doctrine, which
originated among the Paviotso in Nevada about 1888, and spread rapidly
among other tribes until it numbered among its adherents nearly all the
Indians of the interior basin, from Missouri river to or beyond the
Rockies. The prophet of the religion was a young Paiute Indian, at that
time not yet 35 years of age, known among his own people as Wovoka
('Cutter'), and 'commonly called by the whites Jack Wilson, from having
worked in the family of a ranchman named Wilson.
Wovoka seems already to
have established his reputation as a medicine-man when, about the close
of 1888, he was attacked by a dangerous fever. While he was ill an
eclipse spread excitement among the Indians, with the result that Wovoka
became delirious and imagined that he had been taken into the spirit
world, and there received a direct revelation from the God of the
Indians. Briefly stated, the revelation was to the effect that a new
dispensation was close at hand by which the Indians would be restored to
their inheritance and reunited with their departed friends, and that
they must prepare for the event by practicing the songs and dance
ceremonies which the prophet gave them. Within a very short time the
dance spread to the tribes east of the mountains, where it became known
commonly only as the Spirit or Ghost dance.
The dancers, men and women
together, held hands, and moved slowly around in a circle, facing toward
the center, keeping time to songs that were sung without any
instrumental accompaniment. Hypnotic trances were a common feature of
the dance. Among the Sioux in Dakota the excitement, aggravated by local
grievances, led to an outbreak in the winter of 1890-91. The principal
events in this connection were the killing of Sitting Bull, Dec. 15,
1890, and the massacre at Wounded Knee, Dec. 29. The doctrine has now
faded out, and the dance exists only as an occasional social function.
In the Crow dance of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, a later development from
the Ghost dance proper, the drum is used, and many of the ordinary
tribal dances have incorporated Ghost-dance features, including even the
hypnotic trances.
The belief in the coming of a messiah, or
deliverer, who shall restore his people to a condition of primitive
simplicity and happiness, is probably as universal as the human race,
and takes on special emphasis among peoples that have been long
subjected to alien domination. In some cases the idea seems to have
originated from a myth, but in general it play safely be assumed that it
springs from a natural human longing. Both the Quichua of Peru and the
Aztec of Mexico, as well as more cultured races, had elaborate messiah
traditions, of which the first Spanish invaders were quick to take
advantage, representing themselves as the long-expected restorers of
ancient happiness. Within the United States nearly every great tribal
movement originated in the teaching of some messianic prophet.
This is
notably true of the Pontiac conspiracy in 1763-64, and of the
combination organized by Tecumseh and his brother, the prophet Tenskwatawa, shortly before the War of 1812. Of similar nature in more
recent times is the doctrine formulated on Columbia river by Smohalla.
Handbook of American Indians, Frederick W. Hodge,1906
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/history/indianghostdance.htm
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