White Buffalo Calf Woman Bringing Back the Ghost Dance for Everyone (Four Directions We Are Going to Be Having Fun)
White Buffalo Calf Woman, your Twin Deer Mother
White Buffalo Calf Woman Bringing Back the Ghost Dance for Everyone (Four Directions We Are Going to Be Having Fun)
https://www.facebook.com/PublicFigureWhiteBuffaloCalfWoman/posts/10156643662544737
The Wounded Knee massacre was not the end of the Ghost Dance religious movement.
As the snow came down, froze her body and numbed her pain, she could see the sky open up, and White Buffalo Woman dancing in the clouds. She saw a land fresh and green, the prairie filled with buffalo, the campfires of happy villagers. She saw her dead loved ones smiling down upon her, and she knew she was coming home.
'Eighty-five years ago
the ghost dancers thought
that by dancing
they could change the earth.
We dance to change ourselves.
Only when we have done this
can we try to change the earth.
-Crow Dog, 1974-
Wounded Knee by Neiru2012 (drawn in markers)
Traditional Art / Mixed Media 2006-2019
She had danced the Ghost Dance to restore her world to the way it was before the soldiers came, before her people were cornered onto tiny reservations whereas they had always roamed free. She had danced to bring back the buffalo, her husband, her relatives, her heroes. She longed to be with them again. In trance and visions she had seen the New Earth coming: an Earth where the grass grew, the wind blew, and the streams did not run red with blood. But as she lay dying, one of hundreds of men, women, and children shot down along Wounded Knee Creek in 1890, she realized that in bittersweet irony, her prayers have been answered. She was glad that Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse) and Tatanka Iyotanka (Sitting Bull) were killed before this happened, before their spirits were broken, before they could rot away on a reservation. As the snow came down, froze her body and numbed her pain, she could see the sky open up, and White Buffalo Woman dancing in the clouds. She saw a land fresh and green, the prairie filled with buffalo, the campfires of happy villagers. She saw her dead loved ones smiling down upon her, and she knew she was coming home.
https://www.deviantart.com/neiru2012/…/Wounded-Knee-42199596
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The Ghost Dance (Caddo: Nanissáanah,[1] also called the Ghost Dance of 1890) was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka (renamed Jack Wilson), proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples throughout the region.[2]
The basis for the Ghost Dance is the circle dance, a traditional dance done by many Native Americans. The Ghost Dance was first practiced by the Nevada Northern Paiute in 1889. The practice swept throughout much of the Western United States, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma. As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, different tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs.
The Ghost Dance was associated with Wovoka's prophecy of an end to white expansion while preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation by Indians. Practice of the Ghost Dance movement was believed to have contributed to Lakota resistance to assimilation under the Dawes Act. In the Wounded Knee Massacre in December 1890, United States Army forces killed at least 153 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa from the Lakota people.[3] The Lakota variation on the Ghost Dance tended towards millenarianism, an innovation that distinguished the Lakota interpretation from Jack Wilson's original teachings. The Caddo still practice the Ghost Dance today.[4]
Round Dance influence
A round dance is a circular community dance held, usually around an individual who leads the ceremony. Round dances may be ceremonial or purely social. Usually the dancers are accompanied by a group of singers who may also play hand drums in unison. The dancers join hands to form a large circle. The dancers move to their left (or right, depending on nation or territory) with a side-shuffle step to reflect the long-short pattern of the drum beat, bending their knees to emphasize the pattern.
During his studies of the Pacific Northwest tribes the anthropologist Leslie Spier used the term "prophet dances" to describe ceremonial round dances where the participants seek trance, exhortations and prophecy. Spier studied peoples of the Columbia plateau (a region including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of western Montana). By the time of his studies the only dances he was allowed to witness were social dances or ones that had already incorporated Christian elements, making investigation of the round dance's origin complicated.
Wounded Knee
Main articles: Wounded Knee Massacre and Ghost Dance War
December 29, 1890 – Spotted Elk (Lakota: Unpan Glešká – also known as Big Foot) was a Miniconjou leader on the U.S. Army's list of 'trouble-making' Indians. He was stopped while en route to convene with the remaining Lakota chiefs. U.S. Army officers forced him to relocate with his people to a small camp close to the Pine Ridge Agency. Here the soldiers could more closely watch the old chief. That evening, December 28, the small band of Lakota erected their tipis on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. The following day, during an attempt by the officers to collect weapons from the band, one young, deaf Lakota warrior refused to relinquish his arms. A struggle followed in which somebody's weapon discharged into the air. One U.S. officer gave the command to open fire, and the Lakota responded by taking up previously confiscated weapons; the U.S. forces responded with carbine firearms and several rapid-fire light-artillery (Hotchkiss) guns mounted on the overlooking hill. When the fighting had concluded, 25 U.S. soldiers lay dead, many killed by friendly fire. Among the 153 dead Lakota, most were women and children.[18] Following the massacre, chief Kicking Bear officially surrendered his weapon to General Nelson A. Miles.
Aftermath
Outrage in the eastern United States emerged as the public learned about the deaths. The U.S. government had insisted on numerous occasions that the Indian had already been successfully pacified. Many Americans felt the U.S. Army actions were unduly harsh; some related the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek to the "ungentlemanly act of kicking a man when he is already down". Public uproar played a role in the reinstatement of the previous treaty's terms, including full rations and more monetary compensation for lands taken away.
Twenty U.S. soldiers received Medals of Honor for their actions (some sources state the number as 18 or 23).[19][20] American Indian and human rights activists have referred to these as "Medals of Dis-Honor" and called for the awards to be rescinded, but none of them have ever been revoked.[19][21][22][23]
Following the Wounded Knee Massacre, interest and participation in the Ghost Dance movement dropped dramatically for fear of continued violence against practitioners. Like most Indian ceremonies, it became clandestine rather than dying out completely.
Rejection
Despite the widespread acceptance of the Ghost Dance movement, Navajo leaders described the Ghost Dance as "worthless words" in 1890.[18] Three years later, James Mooney arrived at the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona during his study of the Ghost Dance movement and found the Navajo never incorporated the ritual into their society.
Kehoe believed the movement did not gain traction with the tribe due to the Navajo's higher levels of social and economic satisfaction at the time. Another factor was cultural norms among the Navajo, which inculcated a fear of ghosts and spirits, based on religious beliefs.
The Ghost Dance today
The Wounded Knee massacre was not the end of the Ghost Dance religious movement. Instead, it went underground. Wovoka continued to spread its message, along with Kicking Bear, Short Bull and other spiritual leaders.[24]
During the Wounded Knee incident of 1973, Lakota men and women, including Mary Brave Bird, did the ghost dance ceremony on the site where their ancestors had been killed. In her book, Ms. Brave Bird writes that ghost dances continue as private ceremonies.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance
White Buffalo Calf Woman Ghost Dancer Wounded Knee by Neiru2012 deviantart.jpg