From: kja@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (krista.j.anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Ghost Dance and precedents
Date: 27 Aug 92 20:34:24 GMT
Organization: AT&T

Subject: Re: Ghost Dance and precedents
Newsgroups: soc.history

In article <CB.92Aug26133653@tamarack13.timbuk>, cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster) writes:
> I wrote:
>  > I've been reading the history of indigenous Americans.  The tragic
>  > stage of the Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee massacre is well-known,
>  > but I was interested to read that a very similar religious movement
>  > swept the tribes of the then-West (the areas east of the Mississippi)
>  > around 1815 when the main Indian leader was Tecumseh. ...  Are there
>  > other historical examples resembling these two stages?
> 
> When I asked for other examples, I should have specified I was
> primarily interested in other examples among North American Indians.
> The other examples people have mentioned are quite interesting,
> however.

My memory on Native American history is getting rusty, but I think
when the Comanches were first involved in the Red River War, 1874-5,
(along with the Kiowa and Southern Cheyenne) there was a medicine
man who told Quanah Parker that the Comanches would be invulnerable
to the white men's bullets.  It turned out to be untrue and Parker
angrily stated he would never believe a medicine man again.  For
the next battle, defense played as important a part as offense.

Quanah Parker, BTW, was the son of a Comanche chief and Cynthia
Parker, a captive acquired by the Comanches via trade with some
other tribes.  She'd been captured at age 9, and learned to be a
good Comanche woman, suitable as the wife of a chief.  For the
chief's part, he waived his right to have several wives, and
remained faithful to Cynthia; it seems to have been a love match.
Cynthia was eventually recaptured by whites and returned to their
society where she pined away for her lost people and soon died.

Many years later Quanah Parker ended up on a reservation, learned
to read and write, and encouraged his people to become members of
the Native American Church, perhaps another example of how religion
gets a boost from hardship.

Another religious movement the Longhouse religion, started by 
Handsome Lake, a Seneca chief, in 1799.  I don't know the whole
story.

The Shawnee religious leader was Tecumseh's brother, Tenskwatawa,
and Tecumseh's well-organized rebellion lasted from 1809-1811.

I believe there was religion involved in either the Winnebago
Uprising and/or Blackhawk's War.  I think that Blackhawk and his
group of Sac and Mesquakie (aka Fox) were friendly with the
Winnebago religious leader, White Cloud, during Blackhawk's War
in 1832.  (No, on second thought I think White Cloud was a warrior
and some other man was the "Winnebago Prophet".  The outline I'm
looking at doesn't have details.)

Oh, and who could forget the Pueblo Rebellion in 1680!  The Pueblos
were temporarily united by Pope, a Tewa medicine man from, I think,
Jemez.  The Acoma Pueblo war in 1598-9 was also due to religious
dispute.  The Pueblo people took their religion very seriously and
defended it against the Spanish priests who destroyed their kivas.

In early Pennsylvania, Susquehannocks (Conestoga Mission) and
Delawares (aka Lenni Lenape) adopted Christian religions and were
steadfast in being conscientious objectors.  Sadly, they were
massacred anyway, in 1763 and 1782 respectively.

Since Little Turtle's War in 1790-4 involved another cooperative
effort among several tribes, it might be interesting to see if any
medicine men were involved.

Also, note that Sitting Bull was a medicine man, not a chief, yet
possibly the most powerful Native American of the 1800s.  He, too,
along with Crazy Horse, a rather mystical figure, encouraged a
certain amount of unity, although not with the Crows or Pawnees.

Finally, the Cayuses of Oregon suffered with a measles epidemic in
1847.  It was a medicine man who explained to the chief that the
disease was brought by the white men who lived among them.  The
chief then asked his white friends to leave or else they would be
killed.  They didn't and thus began the Cayuse War.

In the original article, there was an additional statement that
maybe superstition on the part of the Indians caused their
downfall.  I don't think so.  First of all, superstition is
certainly not unique to American Indians.  There were Salem witch
trials in 1692, for instance.  Second, the Indians were quite open
to technological change and were quick to seize, buy or trade for
the best weapons they could get.  There were several reasons for
the downfall of the Native Americans:  diseases, smaller numbers,
technology always one step behind and the ruthlessness of their
enemies.