During the 1870s, as European-American settlers took over the land cultivated by the Paiute Indians in America’s West, a teenager called Wovoka worked for a family who renamed him Jack Wilson. Wovoka had been born around 1860 in western Nevada, where his father was a “medicine man” healer and spiritual leader. Although he joined the settler’s family in Christian worship, Wovoka refused to forgo his Paiute heritage.
An eclipse of the sun occurred on New Year’s Day 1889, and Wovoka prayed for the restoration of his people’s world. He fell unconscious, and believed God then instructed him to lead the Indians in a “clean, honest life.” They must work for the Americans but retain their own faith, and worship with song and a joyous circling dance.
Wokova began preaching his doctrine of peaceful coexistence and personal morality. It was said that if enough Indians prayed and danced together, the invaders would disappear, buffalo would cover the land again, and all their people recently dead from epidemics and battles would come back to life. This last hope gave the name “Ghost Dance” to the religious movement. Word of Wovoka’s revelation spread quickly among Indians all over western North America.
The notion of dancing Indians sweeping invaders off the earth unnerved the authorities, who feared a rebellion, particularly by the Sioux who had defeated Custer’s troops 14 years earlier. Government agents ordered Sioux leaders to surrender. At Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890, a fight broke out between inexperienced US soldiers and resentful Sioux. The soldiers fired into tepees, killing well over 200 men, women and children.
After the Wounded Knee massacre – the last military action against American Indians – Wovoka continued to teach that the ancestral religions of the diverse North American Indians were good. He was spiritual leader to thousands of Indians in his home valley and beyond. When he died in 1932, an earthquake around the holy Mount Grant of the Paiutes signified to them that Wovoka’s soul had arrived in heaven.
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