After the Civil War, the Plains Indians encountered the full force of manifest destiny. Bison, their food base was systematicly shot to extinction. The Indians were forced to wasteland reservations.

When all hope seemed lost there appeared a shaman or (medicine man) named WOVOKA_a Paiute of Nevada.

Durring an eclipse of the sun in 1889, Wov oka lay ill with fever and had a vision where he was taken to the other world. He was given a message by God, and told that the time was near when all Indians, living and dead, would be reunited on a revitalized earth. Then they would live without misery or want.

They were to put on the "ghost shirt" a garment fancifully decorated with symbold of birds, the sun, stars, and arrows. The return of the dead ancestors could be hastened by dancing. Wovoka told the people God said, "love one another, have no quarreling, and live in peace with one another; they must work and not lie or steal..."

This was not something new. In the Great Basin the belief existed long befor the arrival of the settlers. The dead would return, and the return could be hastened by dancing.

Twenty years earlier a Ghost Dance movement had predicted the return of the dead and the destruction of the whites in a cataclysm. Wovoka's peaceful teachings spead, and became confused with the earlier prediction and dance. The Plains tribes sent delagations to talk to him. They traveled on the white man's railroad to spread the news of the Ghost Dance. English was the only common tongue among the tribes. The delagates reported back Wovoka's message in a garbled form. They told the Plains tribes the dancing would bring back their ancestors bearing gifts, and great herds of bison, and the whites would be wiped off the face of the earth. Best of all the Plains Indians would be invulnerable to the white attacks because the ghost shirts were bulletproof.

The Shoshonis and Arapaho began dancing at once. Others soon followed. In 1890 the Sioux were being punished for intransigence. Present among them was Sitting Bull, white haired leader, and vetran of the 1876 massacre of Custer's cavalry. The authourities were alarmed by the spread of the Ghost Dance. and alerted the army to put an end to the movement. Sitting Bull was killed while being arrested. Two weeks later three hundred of his followers, mostly women and children were shot by U.S. cavalrymen. Wounded Knee marked the end of the Ghost Dance movement, though it lingered till the 1930's. It was a movement that spread like a prairie fire, and burned itself out quickly.

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*Star Eyes Crazy Horse of Macchu-Picchu*