The Ghost Dance Religion

Alice Beck Kehoe

 Background Information for Sioux
Native American involvement
Conflict Issues between Sioux and Euro-
Americans
Wholesale slaughter of buffalo for
sport/and commercial purposes
Construction of roads (Oregon Trail,
Bozeman Trail)
 Eschatology
Buffalo in the West
 Sioux Chronology
1865: Authorization for Bozeman Trail; Yellow Metal found in Idaho and Montana

1866-1868: Red Cloud Wars (Oglala Lakota)

1868: Fort Laramie Treaty

1874: General Custers expedition into Black Hills

12-6, 1875: All Lakota ordered onto government agencies

June 1876: Custer defeated at the Battle of Little Big Horn

Sept. 1877: Crazy Horse stabbed to death

1878: Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations established

1883: Henry Teller legislation Lakota religion criminalized

1888-1890: Intensive assimilation efforts

Sitting Bull 1885
 Ghost Dance Religion
Prelude
Wodziwob (N. Paiute) 1860s
Vision: disappearance of white men,
return of dead NAs and old ways of life
Institutes Ghost Dance, brief success
 Ghost Dance Religion
1889 Ghost Dance
Jack Wilson Wovoka (Paiute, Mason Valley NV.)
Reputation as a weather man
1-1-1889: Sun eclipse Wovokas vision
Message of peace, right living, and earthly salvation
Visionary Dance based on traditional round dance
Seen as the messiah by others
Dance, vision, message reaches the Oceti sakowin
(Sioux) wanagi wacipi
 Sioux Chronology Continued
1-1-1889: Death and Rebirth: of Wovoka and the
Sun; Beginning of the Ghost Dance

12-15, 1890: Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Lakota) killed

12-28, 1890: Big Foot (Mnikowoju) intercepted and

marched to Wounded Knee

12-29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre

approximately 160 Lakota, 30 US
soldiers dead