American Academy of Religion
Before and beyond the Sioux Ghost Dance: Native American Prophetic Movements and the
Study of Religion
Author(s): Joel W. Martin
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 1991), pp. 677701
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Relgion. LIX/4
Before
Ghost
and
Beyond
the
Sioux
Dance
Native American Prophetic Movements and
the Study of Religion
Joel W. Martin
W
ITHINTHE STUDYof religion,the Sioux Ghost Dance is the
exemplar of Native Americanprophetic movements. It is the religious
revolt and millenarianmovementmost familiarto scholarsof religionin
America, who invariablyinvoke it in discussions of Native American
religions (Albanese: 36; Porterfield:735; Williams: 33). Although the
Sioux Ghost Dance surelydeservesserious attention,its persistentstatus
as privilegedexample limits the way studentsof religionunderstandand
interpretNative Americanmovements.'
Fixationupon the Sioux Ghost Dance encouragesstudentsof Native
Americanreligionto remainunversedin the many insurgenciesof colonial history. The foregroundingof the Sioux Ghost Dance deflects attention from earlier Native American religious revolts that are equally
significant for the study of religion in America, Native American religions, and cultural contact. For just the Eastern Woodlands, these
include the Creek millenarian movement of 1813, the Shawnee prophetic movementof 1805, the Delawarerevoltof 1763, the Yamaseewar
of 1715, the Powhatanrevolts of 1644 and 1622, and many others that
historians continue to uncover (Wright; Dowd; Hunter; Thurman;
Fausz;Spicer;Stefanco-Schill). Ratherthan ignore these movements,or
Joel W. Martinis AssistantProfessorof ReligiousStudiesat Franklinand MarshallCollege, Lancaster, PA 17604.
1
This essay is a revisedversion of papers given at the AmericanAcademyof ReligionConvention
in 1988, the AmericanStudiesAssociationConventionin 1989, and the FacultyColloquiumof the
Departmentof Religion at the Universityof Pennsylvaniain 1991. I would like to thank Phyllis
Rogers, Ines Talamantez, Mary Farrell Bednarowski, Catherine Albanese, Kenneth Morrison,
Amanda Porterfield,Stephen Dunning, and Robert Kraftfor their comments. I especially thank
Jane MariePinzino for her careful readingof this essay in all of its stages. Portionsof this essay
appear in SacredRevolt. TheMuskogees'Struggle
for a New World.
677
678
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
assumethattheyareadequately
by the SiouxGhostDance,
represented
scholars of religion should seek to recovertheir history and meaning.
A DISCOURSEOF DISAPPEARINGINDIANS
If the neglect of other Native Americanreligiousrevoltswere merely
a matter of scholarly oversight, we could accomplish this project of
recoverythrougha kind of historiographicaffirmativeaction. Unfortunately, we deal not with an accidental shadow-zone in our knowledge
system,but with a significantintellectualaporia. The gap in our knowledge concerning Native Americanreligious revolts results from our dis-
course on Native Americanreligions,which resistsimaginingNative
Americanreligionsin creativecontactwithhistory.This meansthat our
scholarshipdiscountshistoricalmovementsin which NativeAmerican
religions demonstratedresiliency,improvisationand/or "nontradiin contactwithEuropeans
or Africans.Thestudyof
tional"assimilation
NativeAmerican
religionvalorizesonly what looks like "traditional"
by incomingrelispirituality,
pristineformsof religionuncontaminated
gions and peoples. This puristpreferenceis evidentin at least two
ways: 1) the canonicalstatusgivento the bookBlackElkSpeaks,and
2) thewaysurveysof religionin AmericaincludeNativeAmericanreligions in theirbeginningchapters,but nowhereelse.
In recentimportanttextbookson religionin America,NativeAmerican religionsare typicallytreatedin an earlychapter,often the first
chapter(Albanese;Carmodyand Carmody;Ruetherand Keller;Williams;Gill [in Lippyand Williams]).Suchplacementhas the salutary
effectof acknowledging
the chronologicalpriorityof NativeAmerican
in
America.
However,by placingNativeAmericanreligions
religions
at
the
of
only
beginning thework,thesetextbooks,as diverseas theyare
in methodsand intents,all implyat a formallevel thatthese religions
belong only at the beginningof the story of religionin America.
Althoughthe contentsof that initialchaptermay explicitlyaffirmthe
andpersistenceof NativeAmericanreligions(Albarichness,creativity,
nese;Gill),theveryformof thesebooksconveysto readersa different,if
not contradictory,message. Native Americansappear "beforethe
whites,"but thenvanishas the textsprogressto treatEuropeans(Lippy
and Williams;Carmodyand Carmody;Ruetherand Keller)or African
newcomers(Williams;Albanese). Thus, these books, despite their
authors'best intentions,can imply that NativeAmericansdisappear
fromhistory.
The idea of "disappearing"
NativeAmericansis directlypresentin
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
679
the contents of the extremelypopular primarysource, BlackElkSpeaks.
Nicholas Black Elk's story, as told by John G. Neihardt, powerfully
involves readersin some of the intense strugglesof a Lakotaman born
in 1863. Although BlackElk Speaksis an extraordinarynarrativethat
deserves reading and rereading,the book does not necessarilyprovide
an accurateportraitof BlackElk or his religion. To the contrary,it gives
a highly selective and romanticvision of the man and his religiouslife.
As William Powers (1990) argues, Neihardt communicated only the
"traditional"side of BlackElk's story,the side that confirmedEuropean
American expectations regarding Native American religions. At the
time when Neihardtinterviewedhim, Nicholas BlackElk had servedthe
Catholic church as a catechist for two decades and was a godfatherfor
more than one hundred and twenty five people. Nicholas Black Elk's
devotion to Catholicismwas deep and longstanding,yet Neihardtminimized it. Readersof the "autobiography"encountera man who fit the
image of a pure traditionalistand was far less a Christianthan was the
real Nicholas Black Elk.
Given the bias of Neihardt'srepresentation,we must inquire why
among all books by and/or about Native Americansthis romanticautobiographyhas become the preferredtext of scholars and teachers. Why
has BlackElk Speaksbecome "the most influentialbook ever published
on American Indian religion" (43)? Could the book be so popular in
partbecause the text supportsthe idea of "disappearing"Native Americans? As the publisher'sfrontispiecestates: BlackElkSpeaksrelates"the
magnificentprimitivedrama no people can ever live again." With its
tragic tone, painful descriptionsof human suffering,melancholic musings on the Sioux Ghost Dance, systematicsuppression of Black Elk's
participationin Christianity,and sad ending in which the protagonist
laments for the death of his people, the autobiographysuggests that
Native American religions and peoples were tragically incompatible
with modernity. The way its contents seemingly confirm the suppositions and claims of our reigningdiscoursesurelyhas helped make Black
ElkSpeaksa canonical text for the study of religion.
Our academic discourse advances regularities of inclusion and
exclusion that discount the ability of Native American religions to
change in response to history. Ratherthan mere oversight,this discursive system itself, the kinds of Native Americanreligious expressions it
magnifies,the canon of texts it selects, and the sort of readingsit authorizes, prevent deeper academic contact with histories of innovation,
transformation,and resiliency. Consequently,the full recoveryof the
history of radical Native American religious movements requiresmuch
680
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
more than remedialhistoricalresearch;it presupposes disciplinaryand
discursive self-criticism and should evoke new interpretative
experiments.
THE FUNCTION OF THE GHOST DANCE
We can initiate the needed self-criticismby concentratingupon a
crucialnode in the entire discursivesystem, the Sioux Ghost Dance. In
the discourse of the contemporarystudy of religion, the Sioux Ghost
Dance inevitablystands for a long series of revoltsthat emergedin other
culturalcontexts,times, and places. This practiceis problematic,particularly as we realize that it does not foregroundthe entire Ghost Dance
movement. That movement extended all across the West and included
many groups well before the Sioux (Jorgensen, 1985:102-110). However, our reigningdiscoursefixates narrowlyupon the Sioux "outbreak"
of 1890 and the massacre at Wounded Knee. Moreover,the Sioux
Ghost Dance is all too often describedin pejorativelanguagethat does
not grapple with the movement's internal dynamics and motivations.
Weston LaBarredescribes the Sioux Ghost Dance as a "grotesque,"
"pathological" movement and blames it on shamanistic influence.
Accordingto LaBarre,shamansare usuallychildlike,insane, and effeminate, and the Sioux Ghost Dance emergedwhen "frightenedand infantilized" people acceptedthe "paranoid"visions of "psychotic"shamans
(41-43, 107, 229-231). Amanda Porterfield repeats, though less
harshly,some of the key themes of LaBarre'sinterpretationof the Sioux
Ghost Dance: "A similar incident occurredduringthe Sioux 'outbreak'
of 1890, which was triggeredby the religiousfervorof the Ghost Dance.
At the massacre of Wounded Knee, many Indians wore Ghost Dance
shirts on which picturesof visions of the spirit world were drawn. The
wearersbelieved the shirtswould make them invulnerableto the bullets
of the U.S. army. Although the Army's overeaction [sic] to the Ghost
Dance was the precipitatingcause of the massacre,the delusion of invulnerabilitypromotedby the shamanismof the Ghost Dance helped many
Indians to an early and violent death" (Porterfield:735). As with
LaBarre,this description tends to portraythe Sioux Ghost Dance as a
kind of mental contagion ("religious fervor"). The movement appears
to be a form of irrationalism("delusion") fostered by false prophecy
("shamanism")that made the Sioux complicit in their own massacre.
In his signal revisionistwork, RaymondDeMallie (1982: 385-405)
argues persuasively for a different understandingof the Sioux Ghost
Dance. DeMalliefocuses on the symbolicexpressions of the Dance, and
Martin:NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
681
shows that the Sioux Ghost Dance was a religious movement that had
clear resonances with, and deep roots in, the Sun Dance of the prereservationbuffalo days. Participantsin the Sioux Ghost Dance drew
upon the pre-existing ritual forms and mythic meanings of their religious tradition. They did not abandon their tradition in an act of
desperation. DeMallie's work seriously questions interpretationsthat
equate the Sioux Ghost Dance with psychosis or view it as a religious
aberration. His work alerts us to the way scholarshiphas been shaped
by a particularand powerfuldiscourse. Byvalorizingan incompleteversion of the Sioux Ghost Dance, this discoursehas excluded other Native
American movements and short-circuitedconsiderationof the discursive, interpretive,and political problematicstheir study would evoke.
AN INTERDISCIPLINARYAPPROACH
To move beyond these representationsand exclusions and toward
more inclusive histories and interpretationsscholars of religion must
immerse themselves more deeply in original historical research and
broaden the range of movements considered. This projectwill require
scholars of religion to draw upon a variety of approachesto the data,
including those of other branchesof the humanitiesand social sciences.
A Social Scientific Typology of Native American Movements
David F. Aberle provides scholars with a very useful typology of
NativeAmericanreligiousmovements. Aberle'stypologydoes not tryto
define and accommodatethe manifold labels that scholars have variously applied to these movements, nor does it rely on terms such as
"nativistic,""reform,""cargocult," "crisiscult," "acculturationalcult,"
"utopian community,""revival,""messianic," "millenarian,""chiliastic," "eschatological,"or "revitalization"(Wallace, 1956: 264; LaBarre:
43). Rather,Aberle uses two basic categoriesto establish his typology:
1) "transformative"movements, which seek total change in the social
order,and 2) "redemptive"movements,which seek total change, but at
an individuallevel. This simple typologyenables Aberleto make meaningful distinctionsbetween movements such as the Sioux Ghost Dance
and the Peyote religion. The former is interpretedas a transformative
movement and the latteras a redemptivemovement (315-323). Applying this typology,Joseph Jorgensen(1972) has providedan illuminating
interpretationof the modem Sun Dance as a redemptive movement.
Unfortunately,few scholars have attemptedto study the other category
682
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
of movements delineated in the typology-transformative movements.
NativeAmericanmovementsthat sought "totalchange to the total social
or natural order" (Jorgensen:7) have been strangelyneglected. Only
two transformativemovements have managedto gain significantscholarly attentionand secure a prominentplace in the discourseof religious
studies: the Sioux Ghost Dance and Handsome Lake's Movement of
1799-1815 (Wallace 1970).
We have reviewedthe prominenceof the Sioux Ghost Dance in our
discourse. We need now account for the visibility of Handsome Lake's
movement. Handsome Lake's movement was creative, historically
important, and deserves serious study. However, Handsome Lake's
movement was not typical of other majorprophetic movements in the
EasternWoodlands. Where many other prophets spurned dependency
upon Europeansand rejectedChristiansymbols, Handsome Lake sanctified ChristianEuropeanvalues and ways of life. Could this explain in
part why the movement is attractiveto religious studies' scholars? The
Handsome Lake movement provides the discipline's discourse with a
useful foil to set against the Sioux Ghost Dance. Byjuxtaposinga successful Handsome Lake movement and a tragicSioux Ghost Dance, the
discourse implicitly celebrates accommodation and condemns resistance. Most important,by focusing upon these two movementsand persistentlyyoking them together(see Williams: 26-34; Albanese:36), the
discourseblocks considerationof a whole range of movements. In this
excluded middle range,we find a rich diversityof transformativemovements that did not alwaysend so tragically,but did demonstrateinnovation and inspire deep anti-colonial resistance.
Revisionist American History's Contribution
Over the past two decades, American historians have documented
with vigor and detail the histories of Native American peoples (Axtell
1981; Brownand Peterson;Galloway;Jennings 1975; Merrell1989; Salisbury; Trigger;Wood, Waselkov, and Hatley; White 1983; Wright).
Historians also have begun the important work of studying Native
American prophetic movements (Dowd; McLoughlin;White 1989).
Such scholarshiphelps us appreciatethe power, creativity,and originality of these movements by acknowledgingtheir great frequency. Well
before the Sioux Ghost Dance, Native American peoples engaged in
large-scaleand dramaticmovements of prophecy and rebirth. We have
alreadymentioned severalsignificantexamples from the EasternWoodlands. In addition, among the indigenous peoples who faced Spanish
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
683
invaders in the Southwest, a prophetic resistance movement arose in
1616 among the Tarahumarasin the greatTepehuanrevolt. In Spanish
mission provincesin the Southeast,an importantreligious revolt shook
the Guale missions from 1576 to 1585 and again in 1597, followed by
similar revolts in Apalachee in 1647 and Timucuain 1656.
The critical comments of the Chibcha Indians of what became
Colombia clearly indicate that a pattern of spirit-based revolt extends
back to the first half of the sixteenth century. In 1541, their leader
rejectedthe Spanish peace offer, saying, "You desecratethe sanctuaries
of our gods and sack the houses of men who haven't offended you.
Who would choose to undergo these insults, being not insensitive?
Who would not omit to rid himself of such harassment,even at the cost
of his life? Note well the survivorswho awaityou, to undeceiveyou that
victoryis always yours" (Brotherston:48).
As the timing of most of these movementsreveals,full-fledgedprophetic movements almost never occurred in the initial encounter
between Native Americansand Europeans. Rather,they emerged after
several generations of either direct or indirect contact. They emerged
most often within the kind of unequal and exploitative relations that
characterizedfull-fledgedcolonialism. Severalof these movements,particularlythe later ones in the EasternWoodlands, occurredin a context
in which Native American groups experienced a severe depletion of
marketablegame and a rapid loss of land to Europeans. Game depletion and land loss were concerns explicitly and prominentlyaddressed
by prophets among the Delawares (Neolin), Ottawas (The Trout),
Shawnees(Tenskwatawa)and Creeks(Hillis Hadjo)as well as the Senecas (Handsome Lake). For instance, in 1763 the great Delaware
prophet Neolin revealedthat the Masterof Life had told him, "Ye have
only to become good again and do what I wish, and I will send back the
animals for your food ... As for those [British]that come to troubleyour
lands, drive them out, make war upon them ... Send them back to the
lands which I have created for them and let them stay there" (Quaife:
15).
The apparentlink between painful contact experiencesand the timing of these movementsmight tempt us to assume the formercaused the
latter. Indeed, this is the conclusion of some social scientists (LaBarre;
Aberle), who assert that contact produced among Native Americans a
bitter experience of deprivation,"a negativediscrepancybetween legitimate expectation and actuality,or between legitimate expectation and
anticipatedactuality,or both" (Aberle:323). Frustratedand threatened,
the victims of negative economic and political experiences, Native
684
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
American groups responded to innovative prophets, radically transformed their cultures, and sometimes rebelled.
This kind of explanation is problematic for several reasons. It
ignores the fact that these negativeexperiences were practicallyubiquitous, experiencedby almost all NativeAmericans. Thus, the theorycannot explain why other groups that sufferedcomparabledeprivationdid
not revolt. Additionally,deprivationtheoryfocuses so narrowlyon negative experiences that it neglects to consider that these movements may
have been motivatedby positive experiences,visions, and hopes, some
derived from the contact context, others springing from renewed connection with tradition. This does not minimize the sufferingcaused by
contact, but affirms that these movements may not have been solely
fueled by ressentimentor loss of cultural coherence. Colonialism may
have been a necessarypreconditionof these movements,but colonialism
and the deprivationthat colonial relationsproducedwere probablynot
the only causes (Jorgensen 1972:8). In addition to the experience of
land loss and game depletion, we should also call attention to the
impact and power of new visions, visions discerned through ecstatic
contactwith spirits of water, earth, and sky and amplifiedin communal
discussions.
In contrast to deprivation theory, this approach affirms the full
humanityof Native Americansby assumingthat they were actorsin history rather than merely victims. They not only reacted and rebelled
againstcolonialism,they also innovatedtraditionand initiatednew ways
of life within the world created by contact. As James Merrell(1984;
1989) assertsin his studies of the CatawbaIndianexperiencein colonial
South Carolina, contact brought Native Americansjust as surely as it
broughtEuropeansand Africansinto a "new world." Merrellcounsels
historians to think of "a 'world' as the physical and cultural milieu
within which people live and a 'new world' as a dramaticallydifferent
milieu demandingbasic changes in ways of life" (1984: 538). Because
of contact with European diseases, the Catawbas experienced severe
demographiclosses. Becauseof contactwith Europeantraders,the Catawbas acquired livestock and poultry, steady supplies of very useful
materials,tools, and weapons (iron, cloth, glass, firearms),as well as
novel luxuries (silk, rum). Because of conflicts with Europeansettlers
and armies, the Catawbaslost most of their land and retained only a
small reservationin Carolina. In short, because of these and other
experiencesbroughtabout by contact,the Catawbashad to learn how to
survivein "a dramaticallydifferentmilieu demandingbasic changes in
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
685
ways of life." Along with Africans and Europeans, the Catawbas
entered a "new world."
New Religious Worlds
Merrellinvests a greatdeal of significancein the metaphorof "a new
world." He believes that it providesa narrativelypowerfulway of linking the story of Native Americans with the stories of Europeans and
Africansin America. Since all of these peoples found themselves in a
new world, he argues,historians can no longer fail to integrateNative
American history with the rest of American history. Whether or not
Merrell's metaphor will alter historiographyin the ways he hopes
remains to be seen.2
Yet the metaphorgives rise to thought,and might fruitfullybe taken
up in the study of religion to foster a fresh perspective upon Native
American religious movements. Merrell'smetaphor could be blended
with William Paden'simage of differentreligionsas inhabitingand constructingdifferentlife worlds (52-65). Scholarsof comparativereligion
have the task of studying and comparing the plurality of "religious
worlds" (Paden: 53).
Blending the perspectives of the colonial historian James Merrell
and the historianof religionsWilliam Paden,we can arguethat the new
world enteredby Native Americanswas also a new "religiousworld," a
generativelocus in which new gods revealedthemselves, and old gods
were rediscovered;a creativetime when new systems of puritydisplaced
old ones, and new myths and rites arose. This new religious world
emergedwhen various "primordial"religiousworlds-Aboriginal, African, and European-were fused by contact,colonialism, and capitalism.
Learninghow to think and live in this new world along with its various
inhabitantsconstituteda great religious projectfor every people in this
world, and this project found one of its earliest and most original
expressions in Native American transformativemovements. In these
movements, Native Americans engaged new prophecies, dances, and
stories to find and forgenew religionsand new religiousidentitiessuited
to the transformingrealities of colonial and modem contact.
2The weakness of Merrell'sargumentis that it does not provide an integrativeperspective (cf.
Meinig) nor advance a theoreticframework(cf. White 1983) capable of articulatingthe historical
forces bringing various Atlantic societies into contact. Merrell'sargumentrelies too much upon
metaphor,and not enough upon metonymy.
686
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
Divining the Path
Cognizantthat tribaltraditionalone could not provide adequateorientation, participantsin these movements considered multiple options
and energeticallyborrowed ideas and forms of non-native neighbors
(including Christians)and other Native Americangroups (often from a
great distance). The Delawares of 1760, the Shawnees of 1805, the
Creeks of 1813, and the Sioux of 1890 used a wide range of cultural
resources. FromEuropeans,they appropriatedChristianideas aboutthe
sacredbook and the savior.3 From other Native Americangroups, they
borrowedpurificationpractices. Of course, as they innovated,they took
pains to insure that the new religiousformsmeshed well with traditional
indigenous forms. Among the Delawaresand Shawnees, the Christian
ascent to heaven was correlatedwith the shaman's sky journey. The
Sioux Ghost Dance clearlyresembledthe old Sun Dance. In all of these
movements, the participantswere rigorouslyconcerned with divining
gestures and disseminatingrepresentationsof a "path"that would lead
to a meaningfulfuturefor themselvesand their children. These kinds of
divinationemerged from traditionalshamanistictravels as well as new
kinds of pan-NativeAmericancontactand organizing;the dissemination
process employed rumors, speeches, new dances, and "books."
Since theirhistoricalexperienceswere partlynegative,the divination
of this path included and developed a sharply focused analysis of the
specific social and economic practices that jeopardized the people's
future. Propheticshamans explicitlyattackedcommercethat led to economic dependency, consumption of alcohol, disruption of clan relations, and land cessions.4 They linked disregardfor the ancestorswith a
sterile or counter-productivefascination with "white" ways. In many
cases, especially among the Native American groups still powerful
because of numbers or territory,the movement rose to the level of a
thoroughgoingcritique of colonialism. At this point these movements
manifestedthemselves as politically revolutionary.
In almost all these revolts,the critiqueof colonialismbegan at home
with self-critique. This self-critique brought to consciousness major
ways in which the people had collaboratedwith colonialist forces. In
some of these revolts, it was not just collaborativepractices that were
criticizedand rejected,but particularpeople. In the Delaware,Shawnee,
3Exemplifiedmost clearlyin the Delawarepropheticmovementwith its "Indianbible," the Book
or the absence of the book (and literacy) appears also in the prophetic discourse of the Creek
prophets (Martin).
4For an example of how these themes were united, see Pontiac'scharge (Ford:30-32).
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
687
and Creek revolts,prophetsverballyand sometimes physicallyattacked
the indigenousinsiderswho had acceptedand were imposing a "white"
understandingof civilizationupon their own people. For example, the
Creek prophetsdemandedthe assassinationof "all the Chiefs and their
adherentswho are friendly to the customs and ways of the white people" (Hawkins: 652). As these prophetic movements gained popular
support,there came into ever sharperfocus a class of Native American
people who had betrayedtheir people. These traitorsappearedto be
"red people" when judged by clan ties and culture,but with the advent
of propheticdiscourseit became possible to specify preciselyhow their
collaboration with colonialist forces jeopardized the people's future.
These traitors,many of them chiefs, had agreedto land cessions, delivered their own people over to EuropeanAmericanagents for justice, or
had personally profited from their mediating position in the
rum/fur/skin trades,but failed to redistributethe wealth in accordwith
the mainstreamethic (Martin1991; cf. Thurman:163-165). Within the
millenarian movement, these chiefs were for the first time unmasked
and named "maliciousenemies." They were not scapegoatsrandomly
selected, but a class of internalenemies identifiedthroughcriticalvision.
Violent attackson these enemies appearedearly and ferocious in both
the Shawnee and Creekrevoltsand relativelylate and small-scalein the
Delawareprophetic movement (Hunter:47).
This self-purge signals that these movements were very much concernedwith internaldevelopmentsand dynamics,not just with responding to "external" pressures. Among the Shawnees and Creeks, for
instance, the prophets' greatest passion was not to vilify European
Americans, but to identify and purge those natives who had betrayed
traditionin order to pursue personal wealth. In these cases, we must
reverseMarxisttheoryand assertwith EdwardP. Thompson that it was
strugglethat gave rise to class consciousness. "People find themselves
in a society structured in determined ways . . . , they experience
exploitation . . . , they identify points of antagonistic interest, they com-
mence to strugglearound these issues and in the process of struggling
they discoverthemselvesas classes, they come to know this discoveryas
class-consciousness"(Thompson: 149). Out of the profound spiritual
struggle to secure and incarnate a viable identity in their new world,
violent and unprecedented class conflict often ensued within these
transformativemovements. In sum, attacks on colonial collaborators
were the indigenous modes for articulatingand deepening an emerging
consciousness of class inequalities.
The internal struggle,which sometimes became civil war, demon-
688
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
strated yet again that transformativemovements were movements in
which Native Americans reclaimed their power to shape their own
futureas they saw fit, in accord with their understandingsof power(s).
For participantsin these movements, history was understoodnot from
the perspectiveof passive victims confrontinga monolithic and inevitable invasion. Rather,they affirmedthat their situationwas partlytheir
responsibilityby assertingthat their situationresultedfrom the action of
traitorswithin,traitorswho had neglected traditionsor, even worse, had
activelyadvancedcolonialist forces. Highly chargedwith a millenarian
spirit, the prophets asserted that these traitorscould be vanquishedby
the active interventionof a new kind of anti-colonialwarrior,a dancer
guided by fresh contact with the sacred. Their millenarianperspective
acknowledged that the European American invasion had created the
conditions for new kinds of identities, but it assertedeven more vigorously the people must now decide to walk the road to destructionthat
would result from passive accommodationor the "red"road evoked by
conscious and critical resistance and informed by spiritual interpretation. Millenarianprophetscalled people to imagine the outlines of, and
participateactivelyin, the creation of a post-colonial future. Colonialism may have pushed, but even more important,the sacredpulledNative
Americanpeoples into a new religious world.
MILLENARIAN INITIATION
Though terms such as class consciousness, colonialism, and anticolonialism imply a political reading, we should not lose sight of the
way these movementsremainconcernedwith spiritualissues and organized as spiritualprocesses. Herewe can demonstratemore fully how the
studyof religionwill contributeto, and perhapseven criticize,the works
of revisionisthistorians. Revisionisthistoriansdo a superbjob of uncovering primary sources and recovering details of everydaylife (Axtell
1981; White; Salisbury). However, because they do not employ comparativeperspectivesdeveloped in the study of religion, they tend not to
examine religiousforms such as myth, ritual,and symbol, and they generally underestimatethe importanceof these forms in Native American
societies and popular movements. This is especially problematic,for
within colonial Native Americansocieties the political was tightlyintertwined with the religious. The interpretationof Native Americantransformativemovements as rites of passage makes this interrelationclear.
Coined by Arnold van Gennep in 1908, the term "ritesof passage"
has gained enormous importancein anthropologyand the study of reli-
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
689
gion. Unfortunately,the scope of the term's applicationhas been constricted in a significant way. In contemporaryscholarship, rites of
passage means first and foremost ceremonies that mark momentous
transitions in the life of the individual, "birth, adulthood, religious
membership, marriage,death" (Paden: 113). Scholars usually do not
think of collectivesocial movements as rites of passage. Because such
usage goes against the grain of contemporarypractice, it needs to be
defended logically and empirically. The late Victor Turner(1986: 386)
provided the germ of such a defense in one of his final writings. He
remindedus that Van Gennep delineatedtwo categoriesof rites of passage: "1. Rites that accompanythe passage of a person from one social
status to anotherin the course of his or her life, and 2. Rites that mark
recognizedpoints in the passage of time (new year, new moon, solstice,
or equinox)." Turnercontinued, "The term has come to be restricted
to the former type, which are now sometimes called 'life-crisis
S. .
rites.' " Significantly,Turnerwas "not in agreementwith this [restriction],"and did not let it constrainhis use of the term "ritesof passage."
Rather,he applied the term to a very rich arrayof social phenomena,
including collective historicalmovements.
In his study of the liminal or transitionalphase of rites of passage,
Turner(1969: 94-112) remarkedthat millenarianmovementsbear striking homologies to rites of passage. If the traditionalrite of passage is
connectedto crises in the human life-cycle, the millenarianmovementis
connected to phases of history that impose great changes upon people.
Both rites of passage and millenarianmovements enable their participants to reduceinternaldifferencesand increasesolidarity(communitas).
Further,rites of passageand millenarianmovementsrequireparticipants
to performactions symbolizingthat they are betwixt and between ordinary social states (liminality). Homologies such as these led Turnerto
conclude that millenarian movements "are essentially phenomena of
transition"(112).
Following Turner'slead, we can examine Native Americanmillenarian movements as rites of passage-specifically, ceremonies of collective initiation-performed on a grand scale. Although this line of
interpretationhas not been so explicitly stated before, some students of
millenarian movements have implied it. In his discussion of Native
American "new religions," Sam Gill notes that these movements enabled groups from many differentbackgroundsto recognize a common
identity(1983: 144-145). Outsideof the Americancontext, PeterWorsley finds something similar in his important study of Melanesian
"cargo"cults. Worsley finds that these movements "weld previously
690
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
hostile and separategroups togetherin a new unity"(228). What needs
to be emphasizedin the case of NativeAmericanmovementsis that this
"welding"of previouslyseparategroups came about as a resultof a process that very much resembled an initiation ceremony. To be sure, it
may have been an initiation ceremonyon an unusuallylarge scale, displaying a great degree of improvisation,and fusing itself more openly
with political agenda,but it is nonetheless recognizableas a rite of passage experiencedon a collective level.
Employingthis perspective,we would expect careful study of these
movements to reveal that homologies exist between them and preexisting rituals, either indigenous or imported. For example, initiation
ritualsor annual rites of renewalmay have informedthe structure,symbolism, and timing of these movements. Though these and other possible homologies warrant a level of review much greater than can be
providedin this brief article,we can at least allude to one of the more
strikingparallels. Considera single aspectof these movements,the concern for purification. This driveexpresseditself in variedforms. Classical forms included withdrawalinto the wilderness, vision-seeking, and
sacreddances. Innovativeforms included destructionof the signs, symbols, and carriersof colonialist civilization(looting, pillaging, burning,
wrecking, assassinating). In their quest for purity, the Delaware militants advocatednot only that the people "quit all Commercewith ye
White People" but also practicesexual abstinence and a new diet that
included the use of an emetic beverage imported from the Southeast
(Kenny: 188). Delaware, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Creek prophets
urged their people to abandon European clothing and dispense with
ornamentsof silver and brass, glass and beads, and other tradegoods.
Delaware and Creek warriors attempted to rely less upon guns, and
more upon bow and arrow. Participantsin several of these movements
performedmany violent acts, killing chiefs and slaughteringlivestock
(Mooney:668; McLoughlin:146; Waselkov and Wood: 189-194; Dowd:
172, 296). Led by prophets, the Creeks killed and consumed cattle,
hogs, and fowl belonging to friendly chiefs and European American
traders. Even more significant,the Creek rebels killed their own hogs
and cattle, leaving much meat to rot, and then abandoned their corn
fields. At the height of this particularmovement, it appearedthat the
propheticfaction was determinedto "destroyevery thing receivedfrom
the Americans"(Hawkins:652).
To EuropeanAmericanobservers,acts of renunciationperformedby
the Delawares, Shawnees, Cherokees, and Creeks seemed purely
destructive, purely negative, and completely inexplicable. European
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
691
Americaneyewitnesseswere incredulous: "One thing surprisesme they
have totallyneglected their crops and are destroyingeveryliving eatable
thing ... They are daily perseveringin this mode of destruction(Hawkins: 656). Nevertheless,althoughacts of destructioninauguratedmany
of these movements, the great majorityof these movements were oriented towardsomethingbeyond destruction.5Within these movements,
acts of destruction, purification,and withdrawal were necessary, but
they were necessary as a kind of prelude, an opening phase within a
larger transformationdrama. As in most rites of passage, purification
was oriented towarda higher subsequentphase and a new kind of status. In these movements, diverse Native American groups ritually
rejected dependence upon European Americans and symbolically
affirmeda new status of pan-NativeAmericanidentity.
In doing so, they were not simply re-assumingan old identity that
had been forgotten,although their prophets claimed that was precisely
what they were doing. Ratherthan focusing upon their commonalities,
pre-contact Native Americans must have been most conscious of the
plethora of highly diverse religious, linguistic, political, social, and cultural forms that divided them into a great number of ethnic groups.
Thoughmany of these groupswere linked by broadculturalcommonalities, complex political arrangements,and significanttradenetworks,the
emphasis was probablyupon difference, not commonality. The situation changed dramaticallywhen these diverse peoples were collectively
misnamed "Indians" and then reconstructed as colonized subjects
within a world-systemdominated by Europeannation-states. Though
ethnic differences did not diminish, and intertribalconflicts did not
cease, very deep and widespread cultural and religious commonalities
could not help but become more apparent. As diverseNative American
peoples found themselves linked by unprecedentedtypes and levels of
trade and more rapid forms of transportation,many groups engaged in
"talks"and attemptedto unify their political strategies. As they found
their economies revolutionized,land bases threatened,and cosmologies
challengedas a resultof contactwith the invaders,it was almost inevitable that a self-conscious pan-Native Americanismwould emerge. Prophetic movements recognized this prospect most vigorously and
5Acts of destructionwere often importantin millenarianmovementsoutside of North Americaas
well. In Burridge'sinterpretation,these acts serve as a kind of "hinge"between two social orders.
"Destructionof crops, livestock and other means of gaining a livelihood, throughwhich men and
women express and dischargetheir obligationsto each other, representor symbolizethe millenium
... No rules and new rules meet in the prophetwho initiatesthe one whilst advocatingthe other"
(Burridge:165-166).
692
Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion
dramatically. In these movements, prophets beckoned diverse peoples
to put aside their differences and forge a new common identity. The
Ottawa prophet urged Native Americans "to cultivate peace between
your differenttribes, that they may become one great people." Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, arguedthat "all the lands in the western country
was the common propertyof all the tribes." His brother,the Prophet,
affirmedthat "no sale was good unless made by all the tribes" (Dowd:
635, 628). A Creekprophet said, "If the red people would unite nothing could withstand them" (Hawkins:666).
In justifyingpan-NativeAmericanism,several prophets employed a
theoryof racialpolygenesis (McLoughlin:253-261; Lankford:140-141).
Developed by Native Americansduringthe eighteenthcentury,this theory held that "red"people were fundamentallydifferentfrom "white"
people. Drawing upon this theory, the Shawnee prophet argued that
"the GreatSpiritdid not mean that the white and red people should live
near each other." In a similar vein, a Cherokee prophet said: "You
yourselves can see that the white people are entirely differentbeings
from us; we are made of red clay; they, out of white sand" (Dowd: 631,
709-110). Thus, the prophets asserted that pan-Native Americanism
was grounded ontologically. In their view, diverse peoples could unite
and hold onto their lands by identifyingthemselves as "red people" in
opposition to "white people."
Signifying Difference
The study of these movementsmay lead to an importantreformulation of Van Gennep's portrayalof initiation (Van Gennep: 65-115).
Van Gennep's analysis presupposes a stable society to which the initiand returnsin orderto assume a well-defined adult status. But for the
colonized person undergoingmillenarianinitiation, no traditionalreintegration is possible. Because society under colonialism is always
already distorted, millenarian initiation, unlike traditional initiation,
cannot terminatein the assumptionof a whole or self-same identity. No
return to the ordinaryworld is possible. Rather,if it is to cancel the
negativityof colonialism,the initiationprocess must grantto the initiand
actions, words, and meanings that signify an irreducibledifferencefrom
the identity that the colonial order has imposed or desires to impose
upon him/her. Colonizing "writing"must be overpoweredby an oppositional writing that is at once more primordialand post-colonial. Furthermore,if the post-colonial movement is to reach significantnumbers
Martin: NativeAmericanPropheticMovements
693
of people, its leadersmust devise strategiesfor transmittingand preserving this vital differencethroughtime and across space.
Prophetsand participantssymbolized, disseminated,and embodied
differencethrough a variety of means. Prophets developed innovative
strategies,including the productionof pictographic"books"or "maps"
and carved"prayersticks"to communicatecore meanings to wider constituencies (Mooney: 666-668, 694-697). In several significant Native
Americanreligious revolts, the prophets and the initiated attachedcrucial importanceto learning new bodily gestures, especially new sacred
dances. In 1811, for instance, when severalGreatLakes prophets traveled to the Southeastto enlist the supportof Chickasaw,Choctaw,Cherokee and Creek Indians,they not only relatedthe shamanisticvisions of
the Shawneeprophet,they also taughtconverts"The Dance of the Indians of the Lakes." More than any other ceremonialact, belief, or practice, dancing "The Dance of the Indians of the Lakes" distinguished
those SoutheasternIndians who joined the Shawnee intertribalmovement from those who remained friendly with European Americans.
Rebels performedthis imported dance at ritual executions of friendly
chiefs, and before battles. They even performedit duringbattles in the
face of cannon. Of course, the Sioux Ghost Dance movement also centered upon a dance that came from outside, from Native Americanpeoples far to the west. This suggeststhat one of the vital ways to symbolize
a pan-Native American identity was to borrow an expressive practice
from a group perceived to be more distant from and less dependent
upon EuropeanAmericans. As we study these movements more fully,
our method will necessarily move beyond simple historiographyto
employ disciplines and approaches devoted to the study of aesthetic,
phenomenological,and literaryforms, for it was throughgesture, symbol, and rhetoric that these movements communicated pan-Native
Americandifference.
PROSPECTS FOR COMPARATIVE STUDY
Closer study of Native American transformativemovements will
expand and deepen knowledge of Native Americanreligions, and it will
also open up interesting opportunitiesfor comparativestudies. Since
these movements were movements responding to modem contact,
scholars will want to compare them with importantforms of cultural
innovationpracticedby other New World populationssuch as European
American communitarianmovements, African American slave revolts,
and other forms of "popular"religion(Williams). Thoughtheir cultural
Academy
of Religion
Journalof theAmerican
694
differenceswere great, Native American,African American, and European Americanpopulations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
were unavoidablyinvolved in a common economic world-system,faced
tremendous changes in traditional orders, including crucial shifts in
gender relations, political organization,demographicprofile, and kinship systems. By comparing the religious responses of Native Americans, EuropeanAmericans,and AfricanAmericans,we will more fully
appreciatehow the contact situation imposed common challenges and
inspired very diverse responses. By performingcross-culturalcomparisons within the Americancontext, we will make Native Americansless
exotic and furtherbring the story of their creativeresponses to the contact experience into the story of religion in America.
Since these Native American transformative movements were
responses to colonialism, their study will also encourage comparison
with movementsin other colonial contexts. They will be fruitfullycompared and contrastedwith millenarianmovements, cargo-cultactivities,
and millenialistdevelopmentsin Africa,South America,Melanesia,and
early modem Europe (Fields; Diacon; Worsley; Burridge1960, 1969;
Thrupp;Hill; Bakand Benecke). NativeAmericantransformativemovements may also be productivelyjuxtaposedwith other forms of cultural
politics and resistance from what is now known as the Third World.
The parallelsbetween Native Americanpropheticmovements and subaltem resistancein India (Guha) and the IranianRevolution(Gilsenan;
Hooglund) are most striking and warrant much more detailed
exploration.
Finally, since these movements took place during a period when
modernitywas nascent, they should be juxtaposedwith subsequentreligious movements, including various forms of fundamentalism(Lawrence), that have emerged in the context of fully developed modernity.
Such a comparisonmight lead to a theory capable of relating types of
religiousmovementsto variousphases in the historyof capitalism. Such
a theorywould enable an importantinterdisciplinarydialogue to occur
between scholars of religion and neo-Marxist economists, historians,
and culture critics (Mandel;Wolf; Williams; Jameson).
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