Wovoka
Wovoka (c. 1856 - September 20, 1932), also known as Jack Wilson, was the Northern Paiute mystic who founded the Ghost Dance movement.
Early life
Wovoka was born in the Smith Valley area of western Nevada around the year 1856. It is believed that his father may have been the religious leader variously known as “Tavibo“ or “Numu-Taibo”, whose teachings were similar to those of Wovoka.
Little else is known about his early life, only that when he was about fourteen years of age his father died, leaving Wovoka to be raised by the family of David Wilson, a nearby white rancher. Wovoka worked on Wilson’s ranch, taking the the name Jack Wilson, especially when dealing with whites. He was eventually broadly known by this name within the Indian community as well.
Wovoka learned to speak English while on the Wilson ranch. He also studied Christian theology with the deeply religious David Wilson. Wovoka eventually left the Wilson household and returned to live among the Paiute.
Vision and prophecy
Wovoka gained a reputation as a powerful shaman early in adulthood as he was adept at magic tricks. One trick he often performed was being shot with a shotgun, which may have been similar to the bullet catch trick. Reports of this trick probably convinced the Lakota that their “ghost shirts” could stop bullets. Wovoka also performed a levitation trick.
Wovoka claimed to have had a prophetic vision during the solar eclipse on January 1, 1889. Wovoka's vision entailed the resurrection of the Paiute dead and the removal of whites and their works from North America. Wovoka taught that in order to bring this vision to pass the Native Americans must live righteously and perform a traditional round dance, known as the Ghost dance, in a series of five-day gatherings. Wovoka's teachings spread quickly among many Native American peoples, notably the Lakota. The Ghost Dance movement is best known for its role in the Wounded Knee Massacre, in which it caused Indian Agents, Soldiers, and other Federal officials a great deal of consternation and helped to predispose them towards a cautious, wary, and defensive posture when dealing with the Sioux. Important to note is that Wovoka’s preachings included messages of non-violence, but that two Miniconjou, Short Bull and Kicking Bear, instead emphasized the possible elimination of Whites which contributed to the already defensive attitude of the federal officials who were already reacting with fear of the unknown to the Ghost Dance movement.
Wovoka died in Yerington on September 20, 1932 and is interred in the Paiute Cemetery in the town of Schurz, Nevada.
Ghost Dance
The Northern Paiutes living in Mason Valley, Nevada thrived on a subsistence pattern of foraging for cyperus bulbs for part of the year and augmenting their diets with fish, pine nuts, and occasionally wild game killed by clubbing it. Their social system had little hierarchy and relied instead on shamans who as self-proclaimed spiritually-blessed individuals organized events for the group as a whole. Usually, community events centered on the observance of a ritual at prescribed times of year, such as harvests or hunting parties.
A devastating typhoid epidemic struck in 1867. This, and other European diseases, killed approximately one-tenth of the total population, resulting in widespread psychological and emotional trauma, which brought grave disorder to the economic system preventing many families from continuing their nomadic lifestyle.
An extraordinary instance occurred in 1869 when the shaman Wodziwob organized a series of community dances to announce his vision. He spoke of a journey to the land of the dead and of promises made to him by the souls of the recently deceased. They promised to return to their loved ones within a period of three to four years. Wodziwob’s peers accepted this vision, probably due to his already-reputable status as a healer, as he urged his people to dance the common circle dance as was customary during a time of festival. He continued preaching this message for three years with the help of a local "weather doctor" named Tavibo, the father of Wovoka.
Wovoka was believed to have experienced a vision during a solar eclipse on January 1, 1889. Wovoka had received training from an experienced shaman under his parents' guidance after they realized that he was having difficulty interpreting his previous visions. He was also in training to be a "weather doctor," following in his father’s footsteps, and was known in Mason Valley as a gifted young leader. He often presided over circle dances, while preaching a message of universal love. In addition, he had reportedly been influenced by the Christian teaching of Presbyterians for whom he had worked as a ranch hand, by local Mormons, and by the Indian Shaker Church. He also adopted the Anglo name, Jack Wilson.
According the report of Anthropologist James Mooney, who conducted an interview with Wilson in 1892, Wilson had stood before God in Heaven, and had seen many of his ancestors engaged in their favorite pastimes. God showed Wilson a beautiful land filled with wild game, and instructed him to return home to tell his people that they must love each other, not fight, and live in peace with the whites. God also stated that Wilson's people must work, not steal or lie, and that they must not engage in the old practices of war or the self-mutilation traditions connected with mourning the dead. God said that if his people kept by these rules, they would be united with their friends and family in the other world.
According to Wilson, he was then given the formula for the proper conduct of the Ghost Dance and commanded to bring it back to his people. Wilson preached that if this five-day dance was performed in the proper intervals, the performers would secure their happiness and hasten the reunion of the living and deceased. Wilson claimed to have left the presence of God convinced that if every Indian in the West danced the new dance to “hasten the event,” all evil in the world would be swept away leaving a renewed Earth filled with food, love, and faith. Quickly accepted by his Paiute brethren, the new religion was termed “Dance In A Circle." Because the first Anglo contact with the practice came by way of the Sioux, their expression "Spirit Dance" was adopted as a descriptive title for all such practices. This was subsequently translated as "Ghost Dance."
Wovoka prophesied an end to white American expansion while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life, and peace between whites and Indians. The practice swept throughout much of the American West, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma. As it spread from its original source, Native American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs, creating changes in both the society that integrated it and the ritual itself.
The Ghost Dance took on a more militant character among the Lakota Sioux who were suffering under the disastrous US government policy that had sub-divided their original reservation land and forced them to turn to agriculture. By performing the Ghost Dance, the Lakota believed they could take on a "Ghost Shirt" capable of repelling the white man's bullets. Another Lakota interpretation of Wovoka's religion is drawn from the idea of a "renewed Earth," in which "all evil is washed away." This Lakota interpretation included the removal of all Anglo Americans from their lands, unlike Wovoka's version of the Ghost Dance, which encouraged co-existence with Anglos. Seeing the Ghost Dance as a threat and seeking to suppress it, U.S. Government Indian agents initiated actions that tragically culminated with the death of Sitting Bull and the later Wounded Knee massacre.
After that tragedy, the Ghost Dance and its ideals as taught by Wokova soon began to lose energy and it faded from the scene, although some tribes still practiced into the twentieth century.
Resources
- Toledo, Robert A. Wovoka the Paiute Messiah Viewzone. Retrieved December 10, 2007.
- Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Wovoka, Jack Wilson 1856-1932 Retrieved December 10, 2007.
- Hittman, Michael, and Don Lynch. 1997. Wovoka and the Ghost Dance. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803273088
- Norman, John. 1979. Ghost dance. New York: DAW Books. ISBN 0879975016
External link
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