THE GHOST DANCE AND THE SIOUX

Alfred Rockefeller, Jr., Tells Westerners of the Origins of the Messiah Movement Among the Indians and Its Social Significance

Alfred Rockefeller, Jr., instructor in American history, Northwestern University was the speaker as Westerners gathered for the first fall roundup of 1948 at the old corral, Ireland's, on September 27. The subject was "The Ghost Dance," which led to the battle and, or massacre of Wounded Knee that was subject for debate at a former roundup.

Mr. Rockefeller, who is preparing a doctoral thesis on the Ghost Dance, approached it as an anthropologist, and classified it as a nativistic movement, characteristic of those adopted by minority peoples under stress, some passive and some belligerent; this one perhaps both. It was originally religious, and was known locally as the spirit dance, the dance to Christ, and by other names, but Ghost Dance is now the generally accepted name.

Leslie Spier ("The Prophet Dance of the Northwest and Its Derivatives") believes the idea may have derived from teachings of the Iroquois who went west to live among the Blackfeet after the American Revolution. This may account for the interest of northwest tribes in wanting missionaries, whom they called Black Robes. The Smoholla cult of the Columbia River and the Dreamer cult of this region may be related.

However, something more close akin to the Ghost Dance arose in the years 1869-1871 in western Nevada, and a prophet appeared on the Walker Lake reservation. He may have been the father of the later prophet; the relationship is not clear. He taught that the present world would end; that the whites would be swept from the earth by a flood or a sea of mud; that the dead would return to earth; that the game would also return; and that the Indians must do certain things, among which the ghost dance was the most spectacular, in order to inherit the earth when the Messiah returned. It was usually added that the first to be drowned would be the military commander currently oppressing the tribe.

This movement spread throughout the Great Basin, particularly among the Paiutes and other demoralized tribes of the deserts who taxed their resources to the extent that as many as 300 Indians attended some of these meetings - a large assembly for primitive desert conditions. The ghost dance also spread among the California Indians, but when nothing happened after a few years the movement died away.
 

Wovoka, the New Prophet
The movement revived spectacularly about 1888-1889 when a new prophet arose on the same reservation. He was known as Jack Wilson or Wovoka, or [ Quoit_ O_ ]. Wovoka means "The Cutter" and Wilson derives from the fact that he grew up among whites on Wilson's ranch. He was said to be the son of Tavibo, one of the founders, if not the prophet, of the earlier movement.

Wovoka was described in 1892 by James Mooney as being nearly six feet tall, well dressed in white man's clothes, with an open, firm countenance and with broad and heavy features. He lived the life of an average Paiute, destitute of even the ordinary comforts of life normally obtained in trade - he had no iron pot or steel knife. Pinon nuts and the small game of the Great Basin were the support of his family - he had married young and had two children.

Wovoka started his teaching in 1886, but he received little attention until the eclipse of Jan. 1, 1889, when he "saw the sun die" and had a vision, which Mooney describes:

"He saw God, with all the people who had died long ago engaged in their old time sports and occupations, all happy and forever young. It was a pleasant land, full of game. After showing him all, God told him he must go back and tell his people that they must be good and love one another, have no quarreling and live at peace with the whites; that they must work, and not lie or steal; that they must put away all the old practices that savored of war; that if they faithfully obeyed his instructions they would at last be re-united with their friends in this other world, where there would be no more death or sickness or old age. He was then given the dance which he was commanded to bring back to his people. By performing the dance at intervals, for five consecutive days each time, they would secure this happiness to themselves and hasten the event."

A phenomenal feature of this revival of the Ghost Dance was its rapid spread. It came at a time when the entire Indian economy had changed. The last buffalo hunt was in 1883. The reservation system with its subsistence farming was being forced on the Indian, who objected strenuously to farming, although not to grazing. By the spring of 1890 most of the Indians of the western United States, and some est of the Mississippi River, had heard of the Ghost Dance, and many were practicing it. Its acceptance or rejection depended much on tribal cultural traits - the Navajo, for example, who had a fear of the dead, rejected it. It was most largely accepted by the Sioux and by the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma, who had legendry that would lead to its acceptance.
 

Rapid Spread of Dance
The rapid spread of the Ghost Dance - 1,500 miles in a year - was made possible because of modern conditions - Indians could ride free on railroads, and sometimes were even fed in dining cars. A few could read and write, and graduates of Hampton and Carlisle, often appointed to positions in post offices, wrote letters. Tribal Councils of the Sioux and the Arapaho sent delegations to visit the Messiah. A Northern Cheyenne group was led by Porcupine, a survivor of Dull Knife's band, who was aided in telling his story by Capt. George Sword. Porcupine told how he heard at Pyramid Lake that Christ was coming and that "eleven of his children were also coming from a far land," a possible reference to the disciples. With delegates representing 15 or16 tribes he went to Walker Lake. He was told Christ would be there in two days. A great crowd gathered, and the Messiah explained the Ghost Dance. "He was not so dark as a Indian nor so light as a white man," the account states. "I had heard that Christ had been crucified, and I looked to see, and I saw a scar on his wrist, and one on his face, and he seemed to be the man. I could not see his feet. He would talk to us all day."

The Sioux heard the reports of unofficial ambassadors with interest, and appointed a new delegation in the fall of 1889 to report further. This group included Good Thunder, Flat Iron, Yellow Breast, and Broken Arm from Pine Ridge; Short Bull from Rosebud, and Kicking Bear from Cheyenne River. The Sioux were inclined to accept the Ghost Dance because it offered a solution of their difficulties. Since 1882 they had been sharply divided into conservative and progressive factions.

Troubles of the Sioux
The conservatives opposed any further sales of lands and the Dawes act policies. In these years rations and annuities were spotty and farming failed, particularly in the drought years of 1888-89. The Indians were crowded on their reservations - one per square mile was crowding in accordance with the possibilities for sustenance, and there was much disease - measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis and scrofula, all causing many deaths. There is indication that the death rate was about 10 per cent rather than the 1 or 2 per cent reported officially. The effort of the government to break down the power of the chiefs caused dissatisfaction. Sitting Bull, a true conservative statesman, was affected by this policy. The Sun Dance, which had been the only festival where all the bands of the Sioux assembled, had been forbidden since 1883, and the Ghost Dance fulfilled a need.

The dance itself was no complicated ceremonial. Men and women both took part, forming a circle and taking hold of hands. "They would go as fast as they could, their hands moving from side to side, their bodies swaying, their arms, with hands gripped tightly in their neighbors' swinging back and forth with all their might," until many fell exhausted and had visions. They chanted, in a monotonous tone

Father, I come;
Mother, I come;
Brother, I come;
Father, give us back our arrows.

And another chant went thus:

The whole world is coming
A nation is coming; a nation is coming,
The eagle has brought the message to the tribe
The father says so, the father says so.
Over the whole earth they are coming.
The buffalo are coming, the buffalo are coming;
The crow has brought the message to the tribe.
The father says so, the father says so.

Perhaps some leaders, such as Kicking Bear of the Ogallallas at Pine Ridge, saw in the Ghost Dance a chance to organize a belligerent movement. The ghost shirt that was supposed to be bullet-proof is an indication of this. But for the most part it appears to have been a simply religious movement of a passive kind that might have proved harmless had it been ignored. The story was over-written by the newspapers, and the influence of Kicking Bear was exaggerated.

The massacre at Wounded Knee was not, in fact, a part of the Ghost Dance movement - the internal struggle of conservatives and progressives was more responsible.
 

Campfire Comment

Elmo Scott Watson agreed that the Wounded Knee affair was a newspaper war. In the discussion the importance of Short Bull was clarified. Courtney Ryley cooper paints Short Bull as the religious leader and Kicking Bear as the hostile. Elmo pointed out that they served as models for the Fort Dearborn monument while prisoners of war at Fort Sheridan, but that Kicking Bear posed as the hero of the occasion and Short Bull as the villain, much to the amusement of the Indians themselves. A war dance at Fountain Square, Evanston, was also recalled as a feature of the imprisonment.

In response to questions, Mr. Rockefeller said that there was little further information from Wovoka other than that he appeared at the San Francisco exposition of 1893 and died early in the 20^th Century. He believed the term Ghost Dance was first used by the Omaha Bee in 1890 ... There were other Messiahs, among them Albert Hopkins who appeared at Pine Ridge. Hopkins, a Civil War veteran, was otherwise notable as president of the Panay Society of America an carried on a long agitation to make the pansy the national flower. He was also interested in a calender reform ... A contemporary theory that the Ghost Dance was a Mormon plot was scoffed at by Mannel Hahn, who noted, however, that Mormon theology might give some basis for suspicion.