Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance in Popular Culture and Beyond

Not too long ago I received an email with a video of Patti Smith singing Ghost Dance with Lenny Kaye on guitar. The Patti Smith Group recorded this song back in the 1970’s and included it on the album Easter. I always liked this song and after hearing it again, it got stuck in my head.

We shall live again we shall live again
We shall live again shake out the ghost dance
We shall live…

The Ghost Dance, also called the Ghost Dance of 1890, was a Native American Indian ceremony that originated in the late 19th century. The purpose of the dance was to reunite the living and the dead so that the “ghosts” or spirits of the dead could help fight off the westward expansion which was robbing Native American tribes of their land and changing their lifestyle and culture.

A prophet known as Wovoka, who later became known as Jack Wilson, had a vision during a solar eclipse on January 1, 1889.

Total Solar Eclipse, New Moon in Capricorn 1 January 1889, 21:16 [UT/GMT]

courtesy of astroseek.com

The Sun and the Moon were conjunct at 11 degrees Capricorn. The Sabian symbol for this degree being;

A STUDENT OF NATURE LECTURING REVEALING LITTLE-KNOWN ASPECTS OF LIFE

Here we have a video depicting Wovoka revealing what he learned during his visit with God to his tribe.

Wovoka claimed to have been taken up to heaven where he met God. God gave him a dance and a sacred code to live by.

When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people. - AZQuotes

Sioux Ghost Dance, filmed by Thomas Edison on September 24, 1894

While in the spirit world, Wovoka saw his dead ancestors, who all appeared to be alive and well. The white man was removed from Earth and all the dead Indians were resurrected to enjoy the world as it was before they were conquered. After his visit with God, Jack Wilson believed that if every Native American Indian danced the dance he was given, “all evil in the world would be swept away, leaving a renewed Earth filled with food, love, and faith.”

In addition to the dance, Wovoka taught his fellows that there was a link between ethical behavior and salvation. Upright moral conduct was required by all. The “rules” were simple. All that was required is not to hurt anyone, not to fight, remain peaceful, abstain from alcohol, be truthful and do not refuse to work for the white man or make trouble with them. Cooperation with the white man was necessary in order to be equal with them in the next world. He stressed that people should pray, meditate and dance rather than mourn the dead, as the dead would soon be resurrected. Little by little he added to this, creating what is now known as the Ghost Dance religion.

As Wovoka’s teachings spread from tribe to tribe, they became distorted. Think of the telephone game where one person repeats a message to another who repeats it to another and then another and another. In the end, the message is nothing like the original. This happened with the Ghost dance teachings, leading to “The Ghost Dance War.” Wovoka’s pacifist message was eventually distorted into one of revenge by some tribes.

The religious frenzy engendered by Ghost Dancing frightened American and immigrant settlers, particularly in the Dakotas, the traditional home of most of the Sioux tribes; concurrently, the U.S. military was concerned that Sitting Bull would try to exploit the movement to engineer an uprising. Relations between Native Americans and settlers grew increasingly hostile, culminating in the massacre of about 200 Sioux men, women, and children by U.S. troops at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890. After this tragic incident many of Wovoka’s more militant followers despaired of Ghost Dance redemption, while others, particularly those from west of the Rocky Mountains, continued to practice Ghost Dance rituals as an integral part of indigenous culture. Though the popularity of the Ghost Dance religion waxed and waned over the 20th century and evolved toward a set of practices centred increasingly on individual rather than group worship, its tenets continued to be observed by some Native Americans in the early 21st century. - Encyclopedia Britannica

So, that is a little bit of the history of Ghost Dance. Every now and then it pops back up in some form in pop culture. In the late 1960’s, Tom Laughlin wrote a script for a film titled “Billy Jack” which was released in 1971.

Unbeknown to Tom as he wrote ‘Billy Jack’, there was a significant amount of Ghost Religion perspective interwoven into the story. Tom later learned of the Ghost Religion and its creator, Wovoka (Jack Wilson, also known as Jack Willy… Willy Jack… think about it for a moment…), a Northern Paiute religious leader. - Frank Laughlin

In the movie, Billy Jack is bitten by a snake and has a rather trippy vision. He lives to share his experience with others, telling them about how he reached through “the thin veil that separates the material world from the spirit world.” According to his son, Frank, Tom Laughlin didn’t know anything about the Ghost Dance religion when he wrote the original script. He was unaware of the existence of Wovoka and the Ghost Dance itself, although both were “loosely emulated in the film.”

Frank Laughlin goes on to explain that once Tom discovered the connections between his script and the Ghost Dance religion he “set out to learn all he could about Wovoka.” He was eventually able to find Wovoka’s son-in-law, Andy Vidovich, who was the “family historian and keeper of the original Ghost religion principles.” Laughlin flew Vidovich to New Mexico to supervise the filming of the dance that takes place after Billy Jack is bitten by the snake.

Ghost Dance inspired several musicians to write their own Ghost Dance songs. The version of the song that gets stuck in my mind is the song by the Patti Smith Group that appears on the album Easter from 1978. Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye are listed in the credits as the writers. Other versions of Ghost Dance include those of various Native American Indian tribes. These can be viewed on the site Ghost Dance. There is also a version by Robbie Robertson which was released in 1994.

David Huckfelt included a cover of the Patti Smith song on his album, Room Enough, Time Enough, which was released in February 2021. In a review on Grateful Web, Huckfelt is quoted as saying,

The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement in the 1860’s throughout the tribes of the Great Plains and the southwest, a revival in response to the high crimes of genocide, land theft, trampling of religious rights, the bald-faced sins of the American government in our country’s early history.  To step into that feeling, to know that perspective, to see the original sins of America laid bare, to realize the fear the government had of these people who had everything taken from them, yet still danced and sang - it’s sacred ground.  I think Patti Smith wanted to feel these feelings, to understand them, and to keep this story fresh in our hearts.  We wanted to do the same here…

And finally, the inspiration for this journey and learning experience. Before receiving the following email I thought Ghost Dance was a cool song about life after death and/or reincarnation. As we have seen, it is so much more. If I have to have a song stuck in my head, I am glad it is Ghost dance.

A live song for you

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Further Reading:

The Ghost dance in Popular Culture

The Native American Ghost Dance, a Symbol of Defiance

The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 , James Mooney

Ghost Dance Songs