Order 1081927: Read Instructions

Roy Jimenez

13 June 2018

Significance of the Messiah Craze and the Ghost Dance

Ghost dance refers to a belief in a forthcoming apocalypse. People would form a circle, hold each other’s hand, and move around jumping and chanting while swaying their heads from side to side as if they were possessed. While dancing, they would fable some words that sound like they are waking their dead colleagues. The dance was typical among the native American Indians who underwent oppression by the white American government although with time it spread to other parts of the world that were subjected to brutal colonial rule. The core reason behind the dance was for religious practice among the native North America Indians.

The role played by the dance seems a bit contradicting and paradoxical in readers’ perspective. From one end, it was a religious ritual but the other side it was a method of defense. Their leader named Wovoka introduced the dance. It gave them hopes that one day the oppression will end and their Messiah will return to restore peace in the land and stop the white American Expansion.

The Indians were decimated, subjugated, arrested and imprisoned on the reservation. Their land was taken forcefully grabbed compelling them to move from place to place and subjected to starvation. They retaliated by using the dance to fight the oppression. When the police were sent to arrest any of their members, they would surround the police threatening to fire.

When dancing or protecting their fellow Indian from being arrested, they would wear their ghost dance white dress and shirts whose complex design reflect their mythology. It was worn by all members of the Indian family be it father, son, daughter or mother. Besides the religious and mythical symbolism, they believed that the dress acted as bullet-proof.