A Triangle of Influence:
The Ghost Dance Movement, Revitalization, and Xenophobia
Jeremy Hillberry
HIST 300KK
Professor Ferrell
Apr 02, 2015
Abstract
The Ghost Dance movement of 1890 was prophesized by Wovoka, the son of Tavibo,
one of the founders of the first Ghost Dance movement of 1870. Through Wovoka’s prophecies,
Native Americans united under a banner of peace and love that sought to end the use of violence
and committed to only doing right. White American fear of foreign cultures, known as
xenophobia, further intensified the conflicts involved in Indian religions. Looking at the
catastrophic events of the Indian Wars, revitalization theory proposes that the catastrophes
allowed Wovoka to influence Native American tribes who were seeking inspiration to escape
their despair. The Ghost Dance Movement, xenophobia, and revitalization all began to influence
each other, combining into a triangle of influence in which each segment perpetually influenced
the next.
1
The Ghost Dance movement is a Native American religion that dates back to 1870
through the prophets Tavibo, a Paiute Indian from Nevada known to Americans as “White Man”,
and Wodziwob. 1 Tavibo began his prophecies after meeting the Great Spirit while journeying
through the mountains of Nevada. During this period, he prophesized that the world would be
engulfed and that only nature, living creatures, and faithful Indians would return.2 Tavibo would
eventually have a son named Wovoka who would continue his father’s prophecies, becoming the
messiah of the Great Ghost Dance of 1890. 3 The Ghost Dance movement rose out of catastrophic
events against Native Americans, including the Wood River incident of 1872 and the Wounded
Knee massacre of 1890, which created a void in their culture that was supplemented by religion.
Because of the American fear of foreigners, the Ghost Dance movement increased tension and
created even more conflicts within already opposing cultures. These conflicts manifested in
physical battles that erupted from the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century, creating even more
catastrophes against Native Americans and setting in motion a perpetual triangle of influence
between the Ghost Dance, revitalization, and xenophobia.
Before the Ghost Dance Movement of 1890, Wovoka’s father Tavibo and Wodziwob had
first began the religious movement while preaching around 1869, shortly before Tavibo’s death
in 1870 and Wodziwob’s death in 1872.4 The basis for the Ghost Dance Movement of 1870 was
a belief that Native Americans could return to their old ways, a world filled with bountiful game,
1
Gregory Smoak, Ghost Dances and Identity (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 114.
2
Weston La Barre, The Ghost Dance: Origin of Religion. (London: Allen and Unwin LTD, 1970), 227.
3
Ibid., 229.
4
Smoak, Ghost Dances and Identity, 114-53. The analysis in this section incorporates the history of the
Ghost Dance Movement of 1870 including the influences of Tavibo and the spread of his doctrine throughout the
western territories of the United States, including the first conflict related to the Ghost Dance in the Camas
Prairies, Idaho, 1872.
2
food to harvest, and reunite all Indians, alive and dead, on a renewed earth. The prophets
prescribed ceremonies where Native Americans could transform the present through supernatural
methods involving the Paiute round dance. The ceremonies involved men, women, and children
in a circle of interlocked arms, shuffling in one direction while singing a variety of songs
revealed to individuals through visions. These dances occurred over a period of time, up to a
succession of five days, and were repeated up to twenty times a year. The Ghost Dance
Movement created a community curing rite that sought the return of the deceased and an growth
rite that would return the earth to its original condition. The ideals of the new movement opposed
the prior religious beliefs that avoided ghosts because they were omens of disease and death, and
because only the most powerful shamans were spiritually capable of handling contact with them.
By incorporating all Native Americans, not just the spiritually powerful, the Ghost Dance
Movement provided inspiration for a new future that involved the glory of the past, when Indians
ruled over all the territory now controlled by the white man. Three messages from the Paiute
prophet Tavibo formed the foundation to their return to glory. In his 1870 prophecy, Tavibo
spoke of meeting the “Great Spirit” who told him there would be a great earthquake that would
swallow up all white men and leave only their homes and property. The second message noted
that Indians swallowed up with the whites would return after three days and that they would
resurrect and live forever to enjoy a renewed Earth full of life. The third message stated that only
Indians who believed in the prophecy would resurrect, and all the non-believers would be stuck
in the Earth forever with the whites. The new inspiration to the splendors of the past allowed the
movement to expand throughout Native American territory, spreading north and west into
California and Oregon from its origins in Nevada. The movement influenced the tribes of the
3
Washoes, Pyramid Lake Paiutes, Surprise Valley Pauites, Klamath Reservation, Tule Lake
Modocs, Shastas, and Karoks.
Christian missionaries and white medical doctors tried to convince Native Americans that
spirits were only superstitions. For the Indians, this meant the end of their personal identities and
acceptance of a new life as Christian Americans. Native Americans, however, fought against
these new ideals and united around an American Indian existence. An unintended consequence
of efforts at Christian assimilation was a stronger Native American identity, harbored by the
expression of and control over one’s personal identity as a form of resistance amongst the Native
peoples. Native Americans decried that wearing white man’s clothing, cropping their long hair,
and learning how to farm did not destroy Indian culture. The attempts by Christians to impose
white culture onto Native Americans only set a precedent for a shared experience amongst
Indians that reinforced how similar each of the different tribes and Indian peoples were, only
increasing the apparent differences and tensions between Native Americans and Christian whites.
What would come to be called the Wood River incident began on June 23, 1872, when
two Indian tribes, the Umatillas and Nez Perces, broke camp on the Great Camas Prairie near the
Big Wood River to dig roots and trades horses. A conflict broke out when a number of white
stockmen, who were camped nearby, fought a group of young Indians, ending in the death of one
white man and the wounding of two others. After an initial investigation, the young Indian
warriors were found guilty of committing premeditated murder, instigated by the medicine men
or shamans of the tribe. In a complete misconstruction of the Native American religion, the
investigating agent, Johnson High, concluded that the medicine men were necromancers and not
actual doctors. He described the men as having supernatural powers that could manipulate
rainfall, cause sickness and death upon whomever they wanted and as being impervious to
4
bullets. Although these powers represented the same claims brought up by the prophets of Ghost
Dance, agent High claimed that their goals were to create an influence and obedience over the
band of Indians in order to excite malicious passions and frenzy in the savage nature of their
followers. Agent High’s claims also involve the Indian’s belief in witchcraft and in the power of
charms and incantations, which granted power over others in order to willingly complete the
orders of the medicine men. Agent High’s recommendation as punishment was to publicly
execute several of the shaman in order to disprove their claims of invulnerability to bullets and to
prevent a new group of dangerous individuals from emerging.
During the trial, the chiefs of the tribes involved promised to control the young Indian
warriors in the future, but the judge, Clitus Barbour, had doubts they would keep their word.
Judge Barbour’s skepticism came about because he believed the chief of the tribe would try to
instigate a riot of his tribe against the whites through their religion and superstitions. He argued
that it was the doctrine of the Ghost Dance Movement that inspired others to turn religious
passion into violence. This theory of conspiracy, brought on by the fear of the Ghost Dance
Movement and xenophobia of Native American culture, led to many outbreaks of war between
Indians and white Americans until the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 ended the Indian Wars.
The Ghost Dance Movement would eventually become one of the most important
indigenous expressions of identity, noting the similarities between different tribes and the
disparities with whites. What the Ghost Dance Movement taught them was that Indians were a
distinct group of people with unique origins and a way of life that separated them from the
whites of America, providing a wave of excitement that bridged separate Indian tribes together
under one doctrine. Although the splendor of the original Ghost Dance Movement of 1870 did
not last, slowly declining until 1873 due to the failure of the prophecies, the dances inspired
5
revivals of preexisting religions, noted as a success as one of the original ideals was returning to
the old ways. Although diminished, the Ghost Dance Movement was not forgotten, and by 1890
the emergence of Wovoka and the reemergence of Ghost Dance took place by the followers of
the new Messiah.
The messiah of the Ghost Dance Movement of 1890 was born in the Colony District of
Smith Valley or Mason Valley around the year 1856 to Tavibo, the founder of the earlier Ghost
Dance religion.5 When his father had died around his teenage years, Wovoka was taken in by the
Wilsons, a white family that lived in Mason Valley. 6 In the home of the Wilsons, Wovoka
received an all familiar American name, Jack Wilson. By taking the white man’s name and
living amongst the white families, Wovoka became a white man in everything but color.
Growing up, Wovoka maintained a good relationship with his new family, a transition made
easier because William Wilson, the oldest son of the head of the household David Wilson, was
the same age as Wovoka, and to a lesser extent a relationship with William’s two younger
brothers Joseph and George.
Living with the white family, Wovoka lived his earlier life, not as a Paiute, his Native
American tribe, but as a white Presbyterian, and he was taught how to ride a horse, how to rope,
brand and nut a calf, how to pitch hay, how to clean a stable, and how to plow a straight furrow,
all necessities when living on a Ranch in Mason Valley, Nevada. By raising Wovoka, the Wilson
family taught him the manners of a white family, ideals such as sitting in a chair instead of
5
Michael Hittman, Wovoka and the Ghost Dance ed. Don Lynch (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1997), 27.
6
Paul Bailey, Ghost Dance Messiah (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1970), 11-18. The analysis from this
section incorporates the doctrine of Wovoka’s Ghost Dance movement that included the Christian gospels of
peace and love and outlines the history of Wovoka and the Wilson Family as well as how he would be influenced
by Christianity.
6
squatting, dressing him in jeans instead of rabbit skins, cropping his long black hair, and even
commanding him in English, a language that Wovoka quickly learned. Being close to the family,
Wovoka observed the advantages white men had, constantly studying them, copying them, and
even going so far as to outdo them in their everyday labors. Closely monitoring white families in
Mason Valley also gave Wovoka insight toward the white man’s religion, with Presbyterianism
being the main influence in the Wilson household. Moving through the white man’s circles,
Wovoka listened closely to conversation about their many possessions and, more importantly,
about their great God. While dining at the Wilsons’ dinner table, Wovoka observed how the
family prayed with bowed heads to David Wilson’s prayers, mannerisms he himself copied out
of admiration for what the family called “good Presbyterians.” Learning the white American
ideals as a Native American gave Wovoka an understanding of both cultures and religions, ideals
and virtues that would one day influence Wovoka as the prophet of the Ghost Dance Movement
of 1890.
Before becoming the new prophet of the Ghost Dance Movement, Wovoka experienced
his first vision in 1889 during a solar eclipse, bringing a glimpse of heaven in which he saw all of
the deceased living together in harmony forever without aging. Wovoka reported that God
commanded that he go back to earth and tell everyone to love each other and be good, promising
that, if they obeyed his instructions, they would reunite with their family and friends in heaven,
living there forever without death, sickness, or old age. After his vision, Wovoka began to preach
to the Numu tribe in the Smith and Mason Valleys of western Nevada, displaying his claims of
the power to control weather and his own invulnerability. Including the successful prediction of
rain during a prolonged drought, these claims won him a following of Native Americans from
7
the Walker River Reservation, beginning his journey as the prophet and messiah of the Ghost
Dance Movement.
By the spring of 1889, Wovoka started the first dances, beginning with a local attendance
of the Numus and then quickly spreading to the Indians of Fort Hall. Although Wovoka’s Ghost
Dance was similar to his father’s ceremonies in 1870, the important variations that provided the
key to his success were the differences in his doctrine. While the prophecies of the 1870 Ghost
Dance Movement were transformative, Wovoka instilled redemptive values that sought out “a
state of grace in a human soul, psyche, or person” while in search of a new inner state. From his
experiences growing up in a Presbyterian household with the Wilson family, being exposed to
Bible readings and prayers, many of Wovoka’s prophecies exhibited a greater amount of
Christian influence than any Native American religion. His expressions of God, heaven, and
even his reported claims of being a reincarnated Jesus all tied back to his connections to
Christianity in the Wilson household. Wovoka’s doctrine brought a renewal of earth and a
reunification of all people that included the values of peace, love, and elimination of internal
conflicts.
To remake the earth and return it to its pristine and glorious past, Wovoka revealed to his
followers what he learned from his personal visit to heaven. The rituals he instructed his people
to conduct involved the circle dance performed precisely as God instructed, songs prescribed by
the Messiah, and the holy garments that provided invulnerability to the white man’s bullets. His
gospel preached ideals in which believers must not fight, harm anyone, and do right always. By
following these orders faithfully, the earth would emerge from its current state of despair. The
lands of Native Americans would be swept clean of the cruel and diabolical. Once again, the
earth would be lush and beautiful, and the population would be Native Americans, saved from
8
death and returned to their lost ancestors and loved ones. Instilling these virtues allowed the
Indian communities to strengthen their bonds between each other and each tribe.
The emphasis on Native American culture and a reemergence of the old ways, both
beliefs found in the prophecies of Wovoka, can be seen as a revival of Native American identity.
This revival has connections to a theory proposed by Anthony Wallace in 1956, which argues the
idea that a specific set of outside stressful factors can trigger prophetic leadership, contributed by
the emergence at specific moments in time in response to a significant impact to a community. 7
For revitalization to take place a culture must be seen as unsatisfactory and new innovation must
go beyond the merely discrete items, establishing new relationships with their culture.
8
For
Native Americans from Nevada in 1890, the failure of the first Ghost Dance was unsatisfactory
because it did not accomplish the promises that were prophesized, and a new connection to
Native American culture was necessary to bring back the glory of previous generations that were
successful in allowing the Native Americans to dominate their land.
The revitalized movements, as described by Wallace, “emphasize the institution of
customs, values, and even aspects of nature which are thought to have been in the mazeway of
previous generations but are not now present.” 9 Along with a longing to connect to the past,
revitalization also incorporates the “disruption of massive changes, triggered by the disease,
economic collapse, defeat in war, climate change, or the encroachment of aggressive Western
7
Mark A. Nicholas, “Prophets of the Great Spirit: Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern
North America,” The Journal of Military History 71, no. 3 (2007): 919.
8
Anthony F.C. Wallace, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologists 58, no. 2 (1956): 265.
9
Ibid, 267.
9
cultures.” 10 The defeat of Native Americans during the Indian Wars and the encroachment of
western culture brought on by Christianity were two of these massive changes that increased the
levels of stress of their current religious beliefs and culture. The loss of faith from the 1870
Ghost Dance as well as the disruptions of war and western culture allowed Wovoka to imbue his
charismatic leadership and spread his prophecy to Native Americans more than willing to accept
a new cultural view that aimed to restore the lost customs and values of previous generations. 11
Wovoka emerged during a period of time in which Native American tribes were suffering
under the collapse of the first Ghost Dance Movement, where the prophecies of Tavibo and
Wodziwob failed to come to fruition. To a beaten, shattered, and defrauded people forcefully
moved into wastelands known as Indian reservations by the cunning and mischievous white man,
Wovoka’s Ghost Dance Movement provided one last and final hope for Native Americans. 12 To
the already beaten and distressed Plains tribes of 1890, the prophecies and promises of Wovoka
connected almost instantly. After hearing word of his prophecies, the Sioux, Arapahoes,
Cheyennes, and Kiowas went to Nevada to investigate the Messiah and his promises. Soon, even
against the opposition of the white man, an estimated ten thousand Native Americans
participated in the Ghost Dance rituals across the nation. Through the widespread belief in the
Ghost Dance Movement, white Americans became irritated by and suspicious of this new
religion, instilling paranoia that the once mighty Plains tribes, especially the Sioux, would
10
John Haddad. “The Wild West Turns East: Audience, Ritual, and Regeneration in Buffalo Bill’s Boxer
Uprising.” American Studies 49, no.3 (2008): 15.
11
12
Ibid.
Paul Bailey, Ghost Dance Messiah, 7-9. This section is an analysis that explains the misconceptions that
white men had with recognizing the movement as an uprising and not a religious ritual as well as a description of
reasons why the second Ghost Dance movement took hold of Native Americans in 1890.
10
attempt to accomplish the goals of Wovoka not by his virtues of peace and love, but through uprisings and gunfire.
The final culmination of this fear of the new religion, the xenophobia of a foreign culture,
would end in infamy with the massacre at Wounded Knee, finally breaking the spirit and heart of
the American Indian, removing the final resemblance of collective dignity they had left, and
killing one of the last great Indian chiefs, Sitting Bull. Although the first conflict related to the
Ghost Dance began with the Wood River incident of 1872, the massacre at Wounded Knee in
1890 would demonstrate how disastrous the conflicts between white men and the Ghost Dance
would develop into.
The Wounded Knee Massacre began on the morning of December 29, 1890, as the 7 th
Cavalry were ordered to disarm the local Indians and escort them to a railroad for movement to
Omaha. Tensions arose out of suspicions that taking the Indians’ rifles meant removing one of
their most treasured possessions, while the Native Americans feared that, once disarmed, they
would be open to being slaughtered by the cavalry troops.13 The cavalry herded the Indians into a
crowded line opposite Chief Big Foot’s tent, where Colonel Forsyth, commander of the 7th
cavalry, tried to negotiate a peaceful plan. After deliberation with Chief Big Foot and finding no
cooperation, Colonel Forsyth decided he had no choice but to search the entire village for
weapons, including knives, axes, hatchets, bows, arrows and rifles. During the search, the Indian
men in the village were rounded into a circle, along with the tribe shaman, Yellow Bird, who was
outfitted in the ceremonial costume of the Ghost Dance and performing a rhythmic dance around
13
Robert Utley, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 205-30. This
section outlines the Wounded Knee Massacre and describes in detail what instigated the events that took place
December 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee.
11
the group. This ceremony represented the connection the Native Americans had with their
culture and the little identity they had left after enduring the shame of surrendering their
possessions to the white men. During this ceremony, an Indian named Black Coyote, refusing to
give up his rifle, accidentally fired into the air while struggling against two soldiers. Hearing the
gun shot, Yellow Bird erupted out of his dance and his tribesman followed suit. With the
mistaken assumption that the Indians were preparing to defend themselves, a lieutenant set off a
volley of rifle fire instigating the bloody massacre between the Sioux and the 7th cavalry, which
finally ended around noon.
During the fight, 153 Indians were killed: 91 men and boys, 44 women, and 18 children,
among them chief Big Foot. Total white deaths numbered 25: one officer, six noncommissioned
officers, and 18 privates. In the media headlines, the Wounded Knee Massacre was seen from
two angles, as a triumph of heroic soldiers against treacherous Indians and as a buildup of
outrage, seen as revenge for a regiment that was defeated at Little Big Horn. Fear and suspicion
between the two sides created a tense and nervous atmosphere in which any incident or
misunderstanding would spark a conflict.
Wounded Knee is viewed my historians as a regrettable tragedy that neither side
intended, a misunderstanding between cultures that was aroused during a religious gathering,
with the intent being a peaceful surrendering of arms, but developed through tense relationships
into a massacre. Unfortunately, throughout American history, conflicts between religions are not
unique to Native Americans, as xenophobia has created religious intolerance between Christians
and non-Christians alike, even from the very beginning of colonial America.
12
Xenophobia with white men in America pre-dates the Ghost Dance conflicts by centuries,
when in 1648, the largely Protestant settlers of the British colonies viewed Catholics as powerhungry, morally wicked despots who were cruel, deceitful, and seductive, casting them as
enemies of their religion. 14 In 1884, during an Independence Day parade in Philadelphia, a mob
of thousands attacked the Catholic church of St. Philip Neri, and a battle ensued between
Protestants and Irish Catholics that resulted in the deaths of twenty individuals with dozens more
injured. This episode reflected many of the violent religious outbreaks that plagued America in
the nineteenth century.
Mormons were also part of the oppressed, as anti-Mormonism had been marked since
Joseph Smith helped establish Mormonism as a religion in 1830. In 1831 Smith was forced to
flee from the increasingly hostile areas of New York to Ohio, only to fall under the suspicions of
Ohioans who feared he was becoming too dangerous with his growing religious influence. In
1832, after receiving a severe beating from a mob, he was forced southwest to Missouri, where
the religious oppression of Mormons continued. Mormonism eventually moved into the western
United States, establishing itself in the territory of Utah, where the link would unintentionally
connect back to the Ghost Dance Movement. Reports from Indian reservations suggested that
Mormons played roles in the Ghost Dance religion, being counted as many of the white men who
actually participated in the dance.15 White observers of the religions noted the similarities
between the Mormons and Indian prophecies, but were only concerned with who to blame in the
14
Lynn Neal and John Corrigan, Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 50-74. This section is an analysis of the history of religious intolerance in
America which involves Catholics and Mormons.
15
Smoak, Ghost Dances and Identity, 166.
13
aftermath of Wounded Knee. 16 They could not accept the Ghost Dance as a Native American
inspired and led movement, believing that white Mormon men “designed” the religion. From this
thought process, Mormons became the scapegoat due to their history and relationships with the
Indian peoples, only to be reinforced by their bitter relationship with Protestant America. 17
The Ghost Dance Movement was prophesized by Wovoka to unite the Native Americans
and provide inspiration for a culture that had been persecuted, beaten, and nearly annihilated.
Wovoka preached peace, love, and a reemergence of the old ways that incorporated both his
native religion and Christianity. He envisioned a heaven where all believers would live forever in
harmony, no matter their color as long as they followed God’s commands. The catastrophes that
involved the Native Americans since the beginning of colonial America eventually left a void
that Wovoka was able to fill with his prophecies. He used what is now referred to as
revitalization theory to spread his newly inspired religion. The catastrophes that the Native
Americans faced came out of fear and misunderstandings from the white men of America, and
religious oppression that dated back to the founding of the British Colonies. In hindsight, the
Ghost Dance Movement, xenophobia, and revitalization all influenced each other, combining
into a triangle of influence.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., 167.
14
Bibliography
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Works Consulted
Beneke, Chris and Christopher Grenda, eds. First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and
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