Ghost Dance

What it is

The Ghost Dance is a circular communal ceremony that spread through many Indigenous nations across the American West in the late nineteenth century. Initiated by the Northern Paiute spiritual guide Wovoka, the movement taught that sincere practice of the dance would bring back deceased ancestors, restore herds of bison, and end colonial encroachment. Participants linked hands, stepped in a clockwise circle, and sang without drums or rattles. Through days of continuous movement, dancers sought spiritual trances to visit departed kin and witness a renewed world. While adopted across many communities, each nation adapted its principles to their own traditions.

Where it comes from

In 1869, following a severe typhoid outbreak that devastated Mason Valley in Nevada, a Northern Paiute healer named Hawthorne Wodziwob shared a revelation that the dead would return in several years. Two decades later, Wovoka, the son of a weather doctor named Tavibo, experienced his own defining spiritual revelation on New Year's Day in 1889 during an eclipse. After standing before God and seeing ancestors in a flourishing realm, Wovoka was instructed to share the circle dance along with teachings of honesty, hard work, peace, and non-violence. The movement quickly expanded from Nevada into California, Oklahoma, and the wider Plains.

How it is done

Before the gathering, participants abstain from food for one or two full days. On the opening day, men and women cleanse in separate sweat lodges. The dance itself continues across several days. Hundreds of people join hands, turn their faces toward the sky, and slowly shuffle sideways in a clockwise direction. Participants chant songs without drum accompaniment while spiritual leaders wave eagle wing fans near their faces. As exhaustion sets in, individuals collapse into the circle's interior. In these trance states, dancers report travelling to the spirit world, reuniting with lost kin, and observing lands rich with game.

Tools and materials

The ceremony uses sweat lodges for preliminary cleansing before the dance begins. Spiritual leaders hold fans crafted from eagle wings to fan the faces of dancers. While traditional gatherings avoid drums or rattles during the dance itself, some Plains participants crafted specialized garments known as ghost shirts. These decorated shirts were believed by warriors to possess protective power capable of turning away bullets in times of confrontation.

What it is for

The ceremony sought to heal deep communal distress, reunite living communities with departed ancestors, and usher in a renewed earth. Followers believed proper observance would halt westward territorial expansion, end sickness and aging, and restore plentiful herds of wild game. In addition to spiritual revival, Wovoka taught the importance of mutual love, moral integrity, and peaceful cooperation between different Native communities, while Lakota adherents also found within it a source of collective strength against assimilation policies.

Who does it

Ceremonial leadership was held by spiritual practitioners, including weather doctors, healers, and shamans who guided participants into trance states. Wovoka trained under an experienced spiritual elder in Mason Valley to interpret his visions, following the tradition of his father Tavibo. During ceremonies, shamans stood among the crowd to attend to those who collapsed from exhaustion, listening to the visions recounted upon awakening. Entire communities participated in the communal dance, with both men and women joining hands in the circle.

Peoples and places

The ceremony began among the Northern Paiute of Nevada, known locally as the Tövusidökadö. It quickly found followers among diverse nations across the American West, including the Lakota and Caddo. Different groups combined the ceremony's core structure with their existing traditions. The Lakota placed a strong emphasis on millenarian renewal as they resisted government assimilation under the Dawes Act. Delegations from numerous tribes travelled to Mason Valley to meet Wovoka, while Mormon observers in Utah also took an active interest in his prophetic teachings.

What people believe

Wovoka taught that God commanded people to live harmoniously, avoid theft or deceit, and abandon warfare and traditional self-inflicted mourning practices. In the prophet's vision, faithful performance of the dance would prompt God to renew the world, banishing sickness and sorrow while returning the souls of the deceased. Followers held that deceased ancestors and lost game animals, particularly the bison, would return to live among the people. Some groups also viewed the ceremony as an invocation of ancestral spirits to assist living communities.

When it is done

Paiute communal gatherings historically aligned with seasonal events, including harvest periods and communal hunts. The Ghost Dance was held over cycles of two to five consecutive days. Wovoka experienced his primary revelation amidst a solar eclipse on the first day of 1889, and foretold a major spiritual transformation coinciding with the arrival of 1892.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Anthropologist James Mooney travelled west before 1892 to interview Wovoka directly, confirming that the prophet's oral messages matched letters circulating among different tribal communities. Mooney later recorded ceremonial songs for the Library of Congress in 1894. Leslie Spier examined related round dance traditions across the Columbia plateau, classifying visionary group ceremonies as prophet dances. Early written observations were also documented by Ella Cara Deloria as well as Elaine and Dora Goodale. Scholars noted that early media, such as Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope films, mischaracterized the ritual by introducing drums, hurried pacing, and props.

Compare and confuse

The Ghost Dance developed out of the traditional Indigenous round dance, a social and ceremonial circular dance characterized by a side-shuffle step. While related to earlier prophet dances studied in the Pacific Northwest, it was distinctively shaped by Wovoka's 1889 revelations. It also shared roots with Hawthorne Wodziwob's 1869 Paiute revival.

Law and persecution

The spread of the Ghost Dance coincided with intense United States government pressure on Indigenous ways of life, specifically through the Dawes Act. Lakota adoption of the dance was viewed by authorities as active resistance to federal assimilation programs, creating political tensions that preceded the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Today

The Caddo nation continues to practice the Ghost Dance into the modern era. The songs and legacy of the dance were also invoked during major civil rights demonstrations, such as the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, where traditional chants celebrating the return of the bison and the nations were sung.

Questions people ask about Ghost Dance

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• James Mooney Recordings of American Indian Ghost Dance Songs, 1894Library of Congress, Article
• Ghost DanceWorld History Encyclopedia, Article

• Ghost Dance on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data