ipl-logo

Brief History Of The Lakota Ghost Dance

930 Words4 Pages

The Lakota Ghost Dance was performed by the Lakota Native American tribe. The Lakota Tribe is a subsection of the Dakota Sioux tribe, a nomadic plains tribe located in the midwestern United States. The Ghost Dance was thought to allow members of the tribe to commune with their ancestors and gain protection in battle. This caused a large expansion in its practice following the expansion of settlers into Native American lands and the many battles which followed.
The Lakota tribe came to America about 3,000 years ago.The Lakota Sioux people are plains Indians who originated from Minnesota and moved west to the plains in the early 18th century(269). They have many different names, including: Dakota, Lakota and Nakota. However, the second part …show more content…

Both men and women participated in this dance. The Ghost Dance was also performed by the Shoshone and the Cheyenne tribes. The purpose of the Lakota Ghost Dance was primarily to commune with the spirits of one’s ancestors and to protect those involved during battle. The Ghost Dance also was viewed as a promise that the buffalo would return. The dancers would perform the Ghost Dance until they collapsed and began hallucinating. Once they recovered, they would tell the medicine man of the tribe about their vision and he would interpret them in an attempt to commune with the dead and tell the future. The dance was also performed for political and religious reasons, as practicing the Lakota religious ceremonies had been outlawed by the government during this time. The Lakota people viewed the dance as a form of rebellion and a returning to the old ways of their …show more content…

This ceremony began with a fast and a blessing of the ground where the dance would occur by the tribe’s medicine man. The dancers would then enter a sweat lodge. The lodge was constructed with the entrance facing east as a symbolic path towards the fire. Due to the large number of people who participated in this dance, there were often two doors to the sweat lodge, one to enter and one to exit. This was meant to cleanse them both physically and spiritually. Upon exiting the lodge, they would be given a clean set of clothes. The dancers would have their faces painted with sacred symbols, such as circles, stars, and crescents. Due to the preparatory ceremony taking all morning, the dance often did not start until the

Show More
Related
679 Words | 3 Pages

One group that the westward expansion affected greatly was the Lakota Sioux tribe. While Sioux derived from a word that meant “snake”, Lakota meant “friend”. Lakota is one of three major subdivision in the Sioux tribe, the others being the Dakota and Nakota tribes. One famous Lakota Sioux is Sitting Bull, who was affected by the westward expansion greatly.

Read More
272 Words | 2 Pages

The Lakota believed that life was born and died in the earth. They assumed that after the near eradication of the bison, the animals returned back

Read More
1050 Words | 5 Pages

It is sacred instrument amount American Indian tribes. The drumbeat symbolizes the heartbeat of indigenous nations and the heartbeat of Mother Earth. The drum is utilized in social dances, preparation for hunting, feasts, and sacred ceremonies. Also, drumming was and still is used t help heal the sick and as a way of carrying songs and prayers. Drumming can have therapeutic effects.

Read More
605 Words | 3 Pages

Balance and Power: The Lakota Expansion The outstanding power of the Lakotas against other tribes and the settlers is said to be caused by the numbers and superior organization skills of the Lakota. But that is only half of the reason for the Lakotas’ power. The Lakotas succeeded partly because other tribes failed.

Read More
1603 Words | 7 Pages

"Probably some weird ritual," Azar said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance.” (136) In this quote they’re calling her dance a "weird ritual,” making it seem stranger than it already is but in reality dancing is her way of coping with her

Read More
107 Words | 1 Pages

Indians have always had their things taken from them by whites. However, the U.S. Government may have gone too far on this one. After being taken from their original lands and put on small reservations, some Indians have been wanting all whites to suffer. These people of the Sioux tribe were called Ghost Dancers. They believed if they did a certain dance, their gods would destroy the U.S. and similar establishments.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

The website I chose for this assignment is http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-ghostdance.html. I chose this website because it looked like it had a lot of information about my topic and there were pictures on the side to help me. It also was last reviewed not too long ago so that shows that the information should be reliable and trustworthy. This site is related to what were are talking because the Ghost Dance movement basically led to the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Read More
478 Words | 2 Pages

The women dance to the spirit in the song and dance to the beat with the drums. The dance symbolizes the power of indigenous spirituality and women. An interesting fact about the Jingle Dress dance is that the dancer wears metal cones on their dresses that were originally made by tobacco

Read More
1127 Words | 5 Pages

It is a warm summer night and shades of orange, red, and gold appear in the sky over the pine-covered hills. The sun soon disappears beneath the dark hills and darkness settles over the land. The buffalo, antelope, and elk find places to rest for the night and all is quiet except for the creeks and birds. In several hours, the sky will again be lit with a multitude of colors and the animals will begin to rise. A new day will begin in the Black Hills, just like it did hundreds of years ago.

Read More
577 Words | 3 Pages

Lakota Language Introduction Lakota is a Siouan language which is spoken by its people (Lakota people) who belong to the Sioux tribes. It is one of the dialects of the Sioux language apart from Dakota and Nakota (Powers, 2009). Sioux is spoken by more than 30,000 people in the US and Canada and is therefore positioned at number five amongst the most spoken native languages in the United States. Lakota is one of the three major regional varieties comprising of Western Dakota and Eastern Dakota. Western Dakota also known as Yankton-Yanktonai is at the middle of Eastern Dakota and Lakota.

Read More
1722 Words | 7 Pages

To dance is to be knowledgeable about the stories of the ancestral heroes. Dancing, unlike painting and singing, is learnt at an early age. This allows large groups of people to demonstrate their clan rights in front of an audience. Dance is also seen as an occasion to entertain and to be entertained and through the work of dance to show their love for families and kin. It is for this reason that dance may be performed at the end of every day in some communities.

Read More
928 Words | 4 Pages

Events leading up to this even started when the United States Government began to forcefully relocate the Native Americans tribes onto reservations. Some of the Native Americans were beginning to adopt the Ghost Dance religion. The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement that started by a man named Wovoka who told everyone that he was a visionary and for the Native Americans he was seen as a Messiah. He claimed that a spirit came to him and showed him certain movements and songs Wovoka preached non-violence. Many Native Americans also abandoned their war like ways and followed this non-violence way in preparation for future happiness.

Read More
900 Words | 4 Pages

The name “Sioux” is short for “Nadouessioux”, meaning “little snakes”, given to them by their spiteful long time rival the Ojibwa tribe. The Sioux community was divided into a organized nation of seven different, smaller tribes; later becoming known as: Oceti Sakowin, which translates into “Seven Council Fire” in the Sioux indigenous language. To keep their history alive, the Sioux practiced oral tradition in sharing their past, through the Siouan language and occasionally, they communicated through sign language. They were a dominant tribe in Minnesota that later migrated continuously through the northern Great Plains region following buffalo patterns. The Sioux depended on bison for most of their food source, clothing, and shelter.

Read More
1027 Words | 5 Pages

This is the primary way the Cherokees stayed in contact with their gods and praised them. The men would sing the songs and the women would keep the beat to the songs as people danced around the eternal fire. When they danced the are singing and praying to the creator, which is very similar to the Christian faith that is today (Buskirk). Cherokees today still practice the same way as their ancestors did, but there is a more significant connection with Christian beliefs and Cherokee beliefs. " Many Cherokees today go to church just as any other person does.

Read More
825 Words | 4 Pages

One famous ritual that is known by many is the stomp dance. A firekeeper begins to light a fire at dawn that will last for the duration of the stomp dance. The fire is a sacred symbol to the Cherokees and is built at the bottom of a pit so that the fire will not burn out. This ritual lasts from dawn until sun down where the stomp dance soon comes into play. The participants include a leader and ‘shakers’ which are men or women that wear leg rattles made out of turtle shells.

Read More

More about Brief History Of The Lakota Ghost Dance

Related Topics

Open Document