Ghost Dance Religion
I. Ghost Dance religion was born at a time when the U.S. Government was not honoring treaties. For example the Umatilla Reservation agency only received $200 of the $44,000.00 promised over two year period.
A. In 1859 Tavibo (means White Man), Paiute shaman, began religion in Nevada
1. Three teachings prophesied the end of the world, and the sure destruction of whites followed by rebirth of earth, ancestors, and herds in a return to precontact paradise.
2. Started in north central Nevada, spread rapidly to northern California all of Oregon and Nevada.
3. Tavibo dies and Wovoka, his son, leaves to work for whites and takes Anglo name, Jim Wilson. No one to perform rites and rituals.
B. Jim Wilson works for whites but reads bible every night. Finally leaves Wilson’s to join a band of landless Paiutes, resume identity as Wovoka.
1. During peregrinations met apostles of other Indian religions.
a. Blowers who exhaled the bad form them selves upon greeting.
b. Shakers of Peugeot Sound who eschewed white introduced evils, but used the sign of the cross, bells, and candles.
c. Dreamers who believed labor was for fools like white men and sought enlightenment in reflection. Most of the Nez Pierce who followed Chief Joseph were Dreamers.
2. Wovoka combines aspects of new religious ideas, his heritage and his own ideology. Restarts Ghost Dance in 1886.
a. Began in Mason Valley, soon spread, began to falter, even though Wovoka made three trips to the mountains for messages from God.
3. Wovoka died and was reborn
a. Said he carried a message from God of the coming of a new world where Indians will not be slaves, where the Indian dead would return to life, where the earth would be renewed.
b. His recovery coincided with an eclipse of the sun, dates were widely published in almanacs.
c. Caused other “miracles” like ice in summer, astrologic events.
4. Religion resurges in popularity. Wovoka begins wide travels.
a. Crossed Rockies Unitahs and Utes in Colorado.
b. Crossed Sierras to visit Lava beds Modocs, Yokuts and Pit River peoples.
c. Into Arizona to visit Mojave and Chemehuevi.
d. Into Idaho to visit the Grosiute and Shoshone.
d. Required special clothes embellished with special signs which made the wearer impervious to bullets and were painted with a powdered red ocher, gathered from sacred Mount Grant. Wovoka had the pigment made into cakes which he gave to all visiting delegates. Some believe the clothing aspect was borrowed from the Mormons who believed the Indian people were the lost tribe of Israel, the Lamenites, and made a special effort to mormonize the Indian people (The Latter Day Saints believe that American Indians are the lost ribe of Israel). The mormon initiates wore sacred white robes with mystical symbols and some believed their robes made them invulnerable. The Ghost Dance clothing was likewise believed to make the wearer invulnerable.
e. Into Wyoming to visit the Arapaho who were at the time being visited by some Sioux and Crow people. Was similar to existing Arapaho dance.
5. The dance was a circle dance performed by both men and women.
a. Was an ecstatic dance of peace, lasting many days and nights.
b. Dance was accompanied by singing of dancers.
c. At some locations the dance was punctuated by an icy plunge.
C.Most well known scholar - James Mooney