History Of The Ghost Dance

Firstly, the reason it has been kept alive is because Native American dance teaches values by incorporating them into their movements and themes. Dancing is a creative and entertaining way to continue teaching younger members of the tribe about what they are to believe. Secondly, Native American dance tells stories of their ancestors. Dances passed down from generation to generation allow the younger generation to understand and interpret the dances and learn about the past. Without dance some tribal members may not know about their history. Finally, Native American dance keeps tradition alive. Dance has been around since the beginning of the Native American people. It is a way to pass on messages and teachings from the earliest tribes. Dance is so essential to Native American history, that it has been transmitted since the earliest Native Americans.

All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in next spring Great Spirit come. He bring back all game of every kind…all dead Indians come back and live again. They all be strong just like young men, be young again. Old blind Indian see again and get young and have fine time. When Great Spirit comes this way, than all the Indians go to mountains, high up away from whites. Whites can't hurt Indians then. Then while Indians way up high, big flood like water and all white people die, get drowned! After that, water go way and then nobody but Indians everywhere and game all kinds thick… (Wovoka, The Paiute Messiah qtd. In Brown 416).

Christianity entered into the area and saw the Ghost Dance as a threat to the message they were trying to spread. The government wanted Indians to become more ingrained into the white man’s culture, so because of this the Ghost Dance became illegal. The Native Americans tried to stress that the Ghost Dance help Christian elements. The Indian Office of the government did not see this though. Threats came to the Native Americans if they participated in anyway with the Ghost Dance.

In 1973, Christopher Bruce heard about the murders going on in the small villages and towns of Chile on the orders of the government; just to show off their power, and how they were not afraid to use it. Bruce found out as a result of a letter received from a widow of a Chilean folk singer who had been murdered. He was asked to do work for the Chilean Human Rights Committee. The dance first premiered in 1988, the costume designer being Belinda Scarlett and the music being by Incantation, playing the song ‘Ojos Azules’ which is Spanish for ‘Blue Eyes’.

Most of the women and children in Big Foot's tribe were family members of the warriors who had died in the Plains wars. The Indians had agreed to live on small reservations after the US government took away their land. At the Wounded Knee camp, there were 120 men and 230 women and children. At the camp, they were guarded by the US Seventh Cavalry lead by Major Samuel Whitside. During the year 1890 a new dance called the Ghost Dance started among the Sioux and other tribes. The Sioux's Christ figure, Wovoka, was said to have flown over Sitting Bull and Short Bull and taught them the dance and the songs. The Ghost Dance legend was that the next spring, when the grass was high, the Earth would be covered with a new layer of soil, covering all white men. Wild buffalo and horses would return and there would be swift running water, sweet grass, and new trees. All Indians who danced the Ghost dance would be floating in the air when the new soil was being laid down and would be saved. The Ghost Dance was made illegal after the Wounded Knee massacre though. On December 28, 1890 the Seventh Cavalry saw Big Foot moving his tribe and Big

Throughout the world, there have been several different dances created and people do not fully know the origins of the dances. For example, the twist was created by Chubby Checker in the 60s. There have been several different ways to show the rhythmic ability as a whole and the most different thing that people were doing was several different ways of dancing. In the late 1700s and the early 1800s, African Americans were starting to do different dances as a whole. However, they were not fully called as a dance or as they were referred to as contra dances, reels, and jigs when the cadence was called out. The difference was when there was a change in general if there was no cadence, then the African Americans would be dancing. African Americans

The third Mexican cultural activity that has survived and influenced the development of Chicana cultural practices in the U.S. is the Folklorico dances. These dances can be seen in the U.S. especially when there is a Mexican celebration or event. I personally experienced begin part of a group that danced folklorico. The dresses we used for the dance were inspired by the Yucatan look. We also accessorized with a crown of flowers made with fabric, long earrings, and a necklace of perals. We also combed all our hair back, and used make-up. It took alot of time to learn the three dances, and a lot of practice for the dance to come out good. In the end it was all worth it because I learned how to dance and how the women dress to dance. This cultural

The American government felt threatened by the Ghost Dance and the prophecies that the Indians

One event brought death to over 225 Sioux Indians on December 29, 1890. The Sioux Indians were fighting against themselves until Wovoka created the Ghost Dance Ritual, which is for the peace of the Indians. Due to the frequent use of the rituals the Americans thought of it as a sign of hostility causing the Ghost Dance Wars. The Ghost Dance Wars caused the death of Sitting Bull which did lead to the start and finish of Wounded Knee Battle. The Battle of Wounded Knee lead to the end of the war, starting violence against the Indians, but lead to the Indians rights to return. The Battle of Wounded Knee, a horrific battle, ended The Ghost Dance Wars, and brought up A.I.M which helped the Sioux tribes gain their rights.

Response: I found Katherine A. Dettwyler’s, Dancing Skeletons; Life and Death in West Africa very interesting though I did not like the way in which it was written. To me it was written in a very scattered brain way, similar to how a hyperactive childs diary would look like. At times when Dettwyler was trying to explain something, she would go into tangents, mostly about her own personal opinions of the topic, which ruined the mood of the book, lessened the impact of whatever she was talking about at the time and frankly, it just annoyed me. I found it difficult to understand what was trying to be said and it made it difficult to read. I think if she didn’t try to cover so much in such a small book- malnutrition, female circumcision and other random topics- I would have enjoyed it more. One thing that I did like was how she wasn’t political on her trips to Mali, she just talked to people. She didn’t preach just talk and I think that’s what helped improve these people’s lives. It was interesting but I wouldn’t read it again or recommend it like I did for the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.

Many were driven from their homes to reservations, or forced to bend a knee to the "white man 's" ways. One tribe, the Cherokee, was compelled to leave their lands in Oklahoma by the United States Government. Compelled to march with the provisions and belongings they could carry upon their back or horse, many died of exposure, starvation, or disease. (Trail) This event came to be known as “The Trail of Tears”. These people were forced from their lands, homes, worship sites, and ancestral burial grounds in the name of progress. Foreign progress, to them, if I may add. They, at their core, did not care that Continental America was flourishing. They only wanted to be left alone in their ancestral homeland. Now, in their eyes, they were being persecuted for their faith and culture. One group of Sioux stood up against the tide of imperialism. They were victorious at the Battle of Little Bighorn, but were defeated at the massacre of Wounded Knee. Wounded Knee was the final major conflict that put the majority of the Native Americans in their “place”. The Sioux under Big Foot were ordered to give up their fire arms. They responded with a reply, saying they had none. The medicine man began to dance the “Ghost Dance” frantically, while wearing paint. The soldiers, fearing an outbreak of violence was about to occur, opened fire. When the haze of smoke had cleared, the bodies of men,

The Plains Native Americans lost hope after many failed attempts to win against the whites. The Ghost Dance that they learned, that was supposedly going to get rid of the whites and protect them from any harm of bullets, was the only hope they had. But when the massacre initiated, the Ghost Dance didn’t help them. Many Sioux Native Americans (A tribe that was a part of the Ghost Dance) died in the massacre and it lowered their moral drastically. According to the article The Wounded Knee Massacre, “When the smoke cleared almost all of the 300 men, women, and children were dead. Some died instantly, others froze to death in the snow” (TWKM, para. 8). This would be the last time that a major conflict would happen between the Native Americans and the

The Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 was a battle fought between the Sioux (a Native American tribe), and the U.S. government. The U.S. government was worried about the “Ghost Dance,” a dance that Natives performed in a hope that their Gods would create a new world without Indians or non-believers, because it

Crazy Horse was brutally murdered and the Sioux surrendered (“Battle”). In 1890 the government learned that the Native Americans were doing the Ghost Dance (Cayton 265). The Ghost Dance was a ritual in which people join hands and twirled in a circle (Cayton 265). When the government saw the Ghost Dance, they thought the Native Americans were crazy and trying to rebel, so they tried to arrest Sitting Bull (Cayton 265). In this conflict that came to be known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, soldiers killed Sitting Bull, 120 men, and 230 women and children (Cayton 265). These battles pushed Native Americans onto reservations and took away their basic human rights.

On the morning of December 29, 1890, many Sioux Indians (estimated at above two hundred) died at the hands of the United States Army near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Indians were followers of the Ghost Dance religion, devised by Wovoka, a Paiute prophet, as a spiritual outlet for Indian repression by whites. The United States Army set out to intercept this group of Native Americans because they performed the controversial Ghost Dance. Both whites’ and the Sioux’s misunderstanding of an originally peaceful Indian religion culminated in the Battle of Wounded Knee. This essay first shows how the Ghost Dance came about, its later adaptation by the Sioux, and