The Ghost Dance came to Plains tribes in 1889-90 under the leadership of Paiute visionary, Wovoka. By this time, commercial hide hunters had slaughtered the great bison herds and the Native people confined to a reservation life of disease, starvation, and loss of freedom. Wovoka taught that the tribes could bring back their old ways of life by performing the Ghost Dance, living peacefully, and working hard. The buffalo and other game would once again be plentiful, dead relatives and friends would return, and white men would disappear.

Ghost Dance clothing included elements of the earth and the sky and animals with importance to the spirit world: eagles, magpies, and crows, which served as spiritual messengers to the heavens, and turtles, which symbolized longevity and the earth itself. This dress can be viewed as components of the sky - stars and the full and crescent moons, the earth - plant stems and mountains along the bottom fringe, and the messengers to heaven - ravens and magpies.

My children, my children,
Look! the earth is about to move,
Look! the earth is about to move,
My father tells me so, My father tells me so.
-Southern Arapaho Ghost Dance Song

ca. 1890, elk hide, pigments, eagle feathers.
Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Chandler-Pohrt Collection, Gift of The Searle Family Trust and The Paul Stock Foundation, acc. NA.204.4.

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