ETST 012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Acculturation, Fide, Active Phased Array Radar
ETST 012 Lecture 5: Native American Rituals: From the Ghost Dance to Peyote Religion
Lecture 1.1: Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee Part I
●Ghost Dance Origins
○Paiute holy man, Wovoka, aka Jack Wilson
○Prophesied a pan-Indian Messianic era
■Resurrection of Indian dead
■Life free of disease and hunger
■Removal of whites from the land
○Would occur with proper performance of Ghost Dance ritual
●Run up to Wounded Knee
○Enthusiasm for the Ghost Dance swept the continent’s tribes
○Carried particular resonance with the Lakota Sioux
■Had been fighting the US government (along with other Plains tribes) for a
number of decades
■Encroachment of white settlers and US forces onto tribal and sacred land
■Breaking of treaties
■Removal to reservations
●Kicking Bear
○Dance was brought to the Lakota by Kicking Bear who visited Wovoka
○Each tribe practiced the dance differently
○Among the Sioux was a belief that the dance and ritual garments =
imperviousness to bullets
○US Government responded as if it were a war dance
●Events of Wounded Knee
○Fall of 1890 reservation agents began messaging Washington
■Indians were dancing and ignoring warnings to stop
○By November, they reported that the Indians had become “wild and crazy”
○US government responded by sending 3000 troops to “disarm” the Indians
○In the morning of November 29, US forces began the disarmament process
○Exactly how it started remains a mystery
○A shot was fired, either accidentally or intentionally
○Soldiers opened fire instigating a one sided battle
■Most of the men were killed in close quarters
■Many women and children fled but were tracked down and killed
■200 Lakota dead, 30 soldiers
Lecture 1.2: Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee Part II
●Congress passed the General Allotment (Dawes) Act of 1887
○Purpose of this act was to break up reservation land into parcels which were to be
allotted out to individuals
○Intent stemmed from a belief that private property ownership was a necessary
virtue that would help native people “adopt the habits of civilization”
■Another purpose: to break up the tribes through a stipulation that land
could only be held by individuals who chose to separate from their
traditional tribes and communities, a process which was thought expedient
to assimilation and American acculturation
○Reinforced by offering citizenship for those who both accepted an individual
allotment, and forsook connection to their family and tribes
○After initial parceling, all left over territory was sold to white landowners and
corporations, or converted into military land or national parks
Lecture 1.3: Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee Part III
●The Ghost Dance movement can be characterized a number of ways
○Restoration movement which sought to return life to an older, Pre-Colonial and
Pre-Columbian era
■Desire for the removal of white settlement and government
○Movement which emphasized the “raising up” of native peoples where all would
live in a restored world, free of the imposition of alcohol, intermarriage,
reservations and other trappings of their colonial present
■The resurrection of the dead was integral to this view
●After the Red Cloud’s War, the US government and the Lakota entered into the Fort
Laramie Treaty
○Treaty established Sioux ownership over the entirety of the western South Dakota
and, most significantly, the Black Hills, the holiest site in Sioux culture and
religion
●Gold was discovered in the Black Hills, leading to an influx of encroaching settlers and
prospectors
○Lakota began forcibly removing the settlers
○US nullified the treaty and seized the Black Hills and the vast remainder of
Lakota land
●Lakota Sioux began to see Wovoka as a Messiah, and some even viewed him as the
second coming of Christ
Lecture 1.4: Native American Rituals
●Ghost Dance was a ritual that built solidarity between many different native nations
●Both myth and ritual contributed to the spread of the Ghost
○Wovoka’s prophecy became a myth which conveyed a common sentiment of
oppression and the desire of liberation experienced by native peoples
○Ritual served as a binding agent by literally bringing tribes together to dance and
carry out the prophecy
●The duality of discussing Native myth and ritual lies in the ubiquity of rites across the
various and diverse indigenous American cultures, but also identifying unique elements
which set each individual Native culture apar from one another
Lecture 1.5: Similarities Across Native American Religions
●Commonalities across Native Religions
○Traditional beliefs passed down through storytelling, oral histories, myths
○Ceremony and ritual (sometimes with healing shamans)
○Use of plants to enter higher mental or spiritual states
Document Summary
Etst 012 lecture 5: native american rituals: from the ghost dance to peyote religion. Lecture 1. 1: ghost dance and wounded knee part i. Paiute holy man, wovoka, aka jack wilson. Would occur with proper performance of ghost dance ritual. Enthusiasm for the ghost dance swept the continent"s tribes. Carried particular resonance with the lakota sioux. Had been fighting the us government (along with other plains tribes) for a number of decades. Encroachment of white settlers and us forces onto tribal and sacred land. Dance was brought to the lakota by kicking bear who visited wovoka. Among the sioux was a belief that the dance and ritual garments = imperviousness to bullets. Us government responded as if it were a war dance. Fall of 1890 reservation agents began messaging washington. Indians were dancing and ignoring warnings to stop. By november, they reported that the indians had become wild and crazy .