The Ghost Dance came to Plains tribes in 1889-90 under the leadership of the Paiute visionary, Wovoka. By this time, the great herds of buffalo had been slaughtered by commercial hide hunters and the people had been confined to the 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, including animals with importance to the spirit world: eagles, magpies, and crows, which serve as spiritual messengers to the heavens, and turtles, which symbolized longevity and the earth itself.

I hear everything, I hear everything,
I am the crow, I am the crow.
- Southern Arapaho Ghost Dance Song

ca. 1890, elk hide, eagle feathers, pigments.
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Chandler-Pohrt Collection, Gift of The Searle Family Trust and The Paul Stock Foundation, acc. NA.204.5.

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