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Kiowa Ghost Dance

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      For the Kiowa, the reasons for participating in the Ghost Dance were the same as all the other tribes who danced it. They were in desperate straits, stripped of their freedom and dignity as a warrior tribe and ravaged by disease and despair. The bison were gone, the Sun Dance was broken forever, and government rations were of unfamiliar foods and insufficient to their needs. The Indian agency overseeing the reservation was keen to stamp out expressions of traditional culture and wanted the people to embrace America, Christianity, and farming. The Ghost Dance promised to bring back their valiant dead to fight with them to rid the land of white people and bring back the bison. The largest Ghost Dance ever held for the Kiowa was in the style of the northern plain Ghost Dance in October 1890. After this, Kiowa leader A’piaton (Wooden Lance),a skeptic, traveled to Nevada to interview the Ghost Dance prophet Wovoka personally. He returned and to a crowd made up of several tribes and government officials, declared the Ghost Dance was without any power and was worthless. Many Kiowa went away crying. 

    Between 1890 and 1894, more than four hundred Kiowa children died of disease. Interest in Ghost Dance was revived, led by Setzepetoi (Afraid-of-Bears) a blind medicine man who was known to be able to communicate with the dead, and could in a trance convey messages from the dead. He could also induce trances in others, and he became the central figure of the Kiowa Ghost Dance. While some of original motivation for Ghost Dancing still existed, The Kiowa Ghost Dance became mostly based on trances and communication with the dead and an expression of resistance to assimilation into American culture. Curiously, the Ghost Dancers began to integrate Christian expressions to describe what they were experiencing in their trances. They would say that they were “visiting their loved ones in heaven”, and that people would describe seeing their children, the bison, and even Jesus Christ. The Ghost Dances were held twice annually after 1900, at Christmas and the fourth of July, and integrated American symbols such as flags. As the years went by, the Ghost Dance became even more syncratic, as it also included elements of Christianity, Kiowa tradition, and peyotism. Even Kiowa converted to Christianity would sometimes participate in both peyotism and Ghost Dance. Many Ghost Dancers came to believe that the second coming of Christ would include Jesus returning the bison. At one point, Afraid-of-Bears even prophesied that Jesus Christ would appear in Oklahoma July 15th, 1904. 

    Resistance to Ghost Dance or to any dances waxed and waned depending on the agent in charge of the reservation. By 1910, Ghost Dance events would include other types of dancing, including a revival of several warrior dance types such as the Gourd Dance and Scalp Dances. The agent during this time was hyper focused on eliminating The Ghost Dance, and while there was resistance, Ghost Dance was already waning in popularity, and many dancers verbally said they’d stop dancing it, and did so. By the 1920s, the only time Ghost Dances were held were during Indian fairs as a secular demonstration of native culture. 
 

This page has paths:

  1. Kiowa Sun Dance Coby Graham
  2. Kiowa Religion Coby Graham

Contents of this path:

  1. Peyote and the Native American Church

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