The Ghost Dance Religion (Jesus, ritual, Earth, Messiah, tradition)

[Green Gaia]

Thanks! I'm gone for the weekend, but will get back to you about this on Monday.

[painted wolf]

Like any Native spirituality it was highly personal. Each got from the Ghost Dance what they needed. Some saw a violent end, some a peacefull end. Both saw hope for the survival of the First Nations. The hope that was/is gained from the Ghost Dance was/is a nessisity for surviving through such evil times.

I can't give anything more helpful I'm afraid. I don't know much about Ghost Dance in practice and honestly I don't trust most of what is written, either in book or on the net.

Native Spirituality 99% of the time must be experienced to really be understood.

wa:do

[kreeden]

From the little that I understand about Native Spirituality , I agree with you Painted Wolf . And that is what bothers me about the Ghost Dance . So many shared Visions that were related . Ok , on the surface one could say that it was nothing but wishful thinking ... but I believe otherwise . Or at lest there is more too it then that . No doubt that wishful thinking plays a part in all of other lives .

I have heard it said that to understand Native Spirituality , one has to speak the language . Which may be true as many concepts just don't translate well . I find it interesting that Black Elk called his " ghost dance " visions " lesser visions " compared to his earlier Vision . Of course , that has said after the fact .

Interesting too that Jack Wilson { Wovoka ** lifed on to 1932 , even appearing in a few silent movies ... but his " vision " more or less died after Wounded Knee . And still , so little is known of the man .

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Wovoka03-804-g.jpg

And so much of what we know appears to be based on that one letter ...

An interesting sidenote , in 1856 a young girl called Nongqawuse in South Africa had a vision . She told her people to kill all of their cattle , and if they did , their dead would raise bringing herds of cattle with them and driving the British from their land . During 1857 and 1858 the population of British Kaffraria dropped from 105,000 to 27,000 because of famine ...

[kateyes]

I kind of stumbled across this thread but noticed that some of the posters are still part of the forum. My grandmother was born in northern Nebraska in November 1890--(during what was known as the Ghost Dance Uprising), because of this she was given a lakota middle name (keya) and that was passed on to me. Anyway I have tried to do some research on the ghost dance since. There was a researcher for the Smithsonian who observed and documented the Ghost Dance on the reservations in Oklahoma. His name was James Mooney (he did write a book but it is hard to track down):

This web-site talks about his research and has some pictures based on his observations and photos.

http://php.indiana.edu/~tkavanag/visual5.html

You might also find this description interesting:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/reso...t/gddescrp.htm