Native American Ghost Dance religion (audio)

Mitch Jeserich (KPFA); Louis Warren; (Goodreads); Xochitl, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Disposal of the corpses in a mass grave after Wounded Knee Massacre. U.S. Soldiers put away frozen Indians after slaughter, South Dakota (Northwestern Photo Co./Library of Congress).

Wovoka taught Paiutes the Ghost Dance (indigenousleaders.wikispaces.umb.edu).

The Ghost Dance Religious Movement (Letters & Politics, Sept. 4, 2017/KPFA.org)

 

The Ghost Dance Religious Movement

Medicine man and prophet Wovoka taught many tribes how to live (crystalinks.com)

.

God's Red Son

In 1890, on Indian reservations across the West, Native American followers of a new religion danced in circles until they collapsed into trances and saw the other world, the world of spirits next to this one, a dimension over.

• AUDIO: The Ghost Dance Religion

In an attempt to suppress this new American faith, the US Army killed over 200 Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee.

Wovoka (1856-1932), Paiute Medicine Man, charismatic leader (iloveancestry.com)

.

Ghost Dance (legendsofamerica.com)

Louis Warren's God's Red Son offers a startling new view of the religion known as the Ghost Dance, from its origins in the visions of a charismatic Northern Paiute named Wovoka to the tragedy in South Dakota.

To this day, the Ghost Dance remains widely mischaracterized as a primitive and failed effort by Native American militants to resist US imperial conquest and return to their old pre-colonial ways.

 

In fact, followers of the Ghost Dance sought to thrive in modern America by working for wages, sending their children to the white man's schools, and farming the land as farmhands for white landowners, tenets that helped the religion endure for decades after Wounded Knee.

A depiction of the sacred Ghost Dance, chanting and moving in a circle until trance

God's Red Son powerfully reveals how "evangelical" Ghost Dance teachings helped Native Americans retain their identity and reshape the modern world. More

• Rating details ·  13 Ratings  ·  6 Reviews