The Ghost-Dance Religion and Wounded Knee

James Mooney

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780486143330
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Immediately following the massacre of Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890), the well-known anthropologist James Mooney, under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology and the Smithsonian, investigated the incident. His interest was primarily in the Indian background to the uprising. Admitting that the Indians had been generally overpowered by the Whites, what led the Indians to think they stood a chance against White arms? His answer was astonishing: the Ghost-Dance Religion.
Investigating every Indian uprising from Pontiac to the 1980s, every Indian resistance to aggression, every incident of importance, Mooney discovered a cultural pattern: a messianic religion that permeated leaders and warriors from Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet on up to the Plains tribes that revived the Ghost-Dance in the 1880s and 90s. The message was: abandon the ways of the Whites; go back to Indian ways; an Indian messiah is coming; the Indian dead are to be resurrected — indeed, some have already returned; and the Whites are to be killed by the Spirits.
Mooney made an exhaustive study of this cult, the rise of its latest version, diffusion to the Plains, and its relevance to the medicine man Sitting Bull and others. Citing many primary documents as well as anthropological data he gathered himself, Mooney gives an extremely detailed, thorough account of the cult; its songs and dances, ceremonies, and its social impact.
This work has always been considered one of the great classics of American anthropology, a book that not only offers an account of a very interesting cultural phenomenon, but also throws light on many events in Indian-White relations that are otherwise dark. Its data have never been superseded and the book remains a work of primary importance in Native American studies.

THE SONGS

INTRODUCTORY

The Ghost-dance songs are of the utmost importance in connection with the study of the messiah religion, as we find embodied in them much of the doctrine itself, with more of the special tribal mythologies, together with such innumerable references to old-time customs, ceremonies, and modes of life long since obsolete as make up a regular symposium of aboriginal thought and practice. There is no limit to the number of these songs, as every trance at every dance produces a new one, the trance subject after regaining consciousness embodying his experience in the spirit world in the form of a song, which is sung at the next dance and succeeding performances until superseded by other songs originating in the same way. Thus, a single dance may easily result in twenty or thirty new songs. While songs are thus born and die, certain ones which appeal especially to the Indian heart, on account of their mythology, pathos, or peculiar sweetness, live and are perpetuated. There are also with each tribe certain songs which are a regular part of the ceremonial, as the opening song and the closing song, which are repeated at every dance. Of these the closing song is the most important and permanent. In some cases certain songs constitute a regular series, detailing the experiences of the same person in successive trance visions. First in importance, for number, richness of reference, beauty of sentiment, and rhythm of language, are the songs of the Arapaho.

THE ARAPAHO

TRIBAL SYNONYMY

Ähyä’to-Kiowa name; meaning unknown; the Kiowa call the wild plum by the same name.

Ano’s-anyotskano—Kichai name.

Ärä’p

ho—popular name; derivation uncertain; but, perhaps, as Dunbar suggests, from the Pawnee word tirapihu or larap

hu, “he buys or trades,” in allusion to the Arapaho having formerly been the trading medium between the Pawnee, Osage, and others on the north, and the Kiowa, Comanche, and others to the south west (Grinnell letter).

Äräp

kata—Crow name, from word Arapaho.

B

tid

—Kiowa Apache name.

Detseka’yaa—Caddo name, “dog eaters.”

Hitäniwo’

v—Cheyenne name, “cloud men.”

Inûn-ina—proper tribal name, “our people,” or “people of our kind.”

Kaninahoic or Kanin

‘vish—Ojibwa name; meaning unknown.

Komse’ka-K’iñahyup—former Kiowa name; “men of the worn-out leggings;” from komsc’, “smoky, soiled, worn out;” kati, “leggings;” k’iñalyup, “men.”

Maqpi’

to—Sioux name, “blue cloud,” i.e., clear sky; reason unknown.

Ni

d’rhari’s-kûrikiw

’s-hûski—Wichita name.

Sani’ti’ka—Pawnee name, from the Comanche name.

Sär

t

ka—Comanche and Shoshoni name, “dog eaters,” in allusion to their special liking for dog flesh.

Sar

tika—Wichita name, from the Comanche name.

TRIBAL SIGNS

Southern Arapaho, “rub noses;...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Praise
• Table of Contents
• Table of Figures
• THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION
• THE NARRATIVE
• THE SONGS - INTRODUCTORY
• AUTHORITIES CITED
• INDEX
• A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST
• DOVER BOOKS ON NATIVE AMERICANS