Wovoka

Wovoka (wōvō`kə), c.1858–1932, Paiute, prophet of a messianic religion sometimes called the Ghost Dance religion. Also known as Jack Wilson, he was influenced by his father (a mystic) as well as by the Christian family for whom he worked and the Shaker religion. Wovoka claimed that during an eclipse of the sun (Jan. 1, 1889) he had had a vision in which God had given him a message—the time was coming when the earth would die and come alive again; all whites would disappear from the earth's surface, and all native people, living and dead, would be reunited to live a life free from death, disease, and misery. In order to bring this about, however, the Native Americans would have to follow Wovoka's doctrine of pacifism and practice the sacred dance he taught them. To make his message more convincing, Wovoka proved his supernatural powers by simple tricks, one of which, the supposedly bulletproof ghost shirt, was to play a tragic part in the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee. Before long his stature grew from Paiute prophet to Messiah, and his religion, which spread rapidly through the western indigenous nations, took on warlike overtones never intended by its founder. The great popularity of Wovoka's ghost dance waned as his prophecy failed to materialize and as his converts were forced onto reservations.

Bibliography

See biography by P. Bailey (1957, repr. 1970).

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Wovoka

(born 1858?, Utah Territory, U.S.—died October 1932, Walker River Indian Reservation, Nev.) Paiute religious leader. In 1889 Wovoka announced that during a trance God had told him that his people's ancestors would rise from the dead, buffalo would return to the Plains, and the white man would vanish if the people would perform a ritual dance. This vision was the basis for the Ghost Dance, a millenarian cult that arose and quickly spread to other tribes, notably the militant Sioux. For a period of time, Wovoka was worshiped as a new messiah. After the Wounded Knee massacre, Wovoka's following dissipated and the movement contracted.

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Wovoka (?1858–1932) Paiute visionary, founder of the Ghost Dance religion; born on the Walker River in present-day Nevada. His father, a religious mystic, died when Wovoka was about 14 and he went to work with a white family, the Wilsons; he was known to whites as Jack Wilson. At the end of 1888, he had a vision that drew on a mixture of Indian and Christian religious teachings: he claimed that the Messiah would return Native Americans to a pre-contact existence—and rid the continent of whites—if Indians would live in harmony and in traditional ways and, above all, dance the Ghost Dance. His message spread quickly among the tribes of the Great Plains and the Northwest and they began to adopt the Ghost Dance and regard Wovoka as a great deliverer. The Sioux became especially fervent in their adoption of this cult; their restiveness culminated in the murder of Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee. The Ghost Dance cult lost its appeal for most Indians, and during the next decade, Wovoka moderated his message and advised Indians to accommodate themselves to the whites' ways. He spent his final years on a reservation in Nevada.