Stories About the Ghost Dance

**Stories About the Ghost Dance** is a chapter in *The Pieces of the Past*.

## Plot

### Homecomer

Whispers-Under-Ice was a Caddo who was sent to a residential school with other indigenous kids. She snitched on the other students to gain favor from the staff, at the expense of all the kids hating her. When Whispers was sixteen, a priest got her pregnant, so she ran away from the school. She didn't know exactly where she was going, but when she was close to getting home, she went into labor and died.

### Hitcher

Kiyomi Hattori was half-Numa and half-Japanese. A white man pulled her out of the lake while she was bathing and raped her, giving her syphilis. Kiyomi became delirious from her fever and wandered into the lake where she drowned.

### Phantom Rider

Sky Jumping Horse was Sicangu and was paralyzed in an accident when she was a baby. The government came to take children to a residential school, but didn't take her due to her disability. Following the massacre at Wounded Knee and Tȟašúŋke Óta shooting a lieutenant, Sky and the other Sicangu went to Tȟašúŋke's trial, but afterwards, a white man raped Sky before she was accidentally trampled by her horse Sunka. She was reunited with Sunka after the horse trampled her rapist and was put down.

### White Lady wants what's been denied her

Sarah McCree was half-Ute and half-Irish. She didn't meet her tribe's blood quantum requirements and people at school, except for her boyfriend Billy Griffin, made fun of her for being part indigenous. During the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, Sarah ran away to take part in it, but a hitchhiker raped and murdered her before dumping her body in the snow.

### Gather-Grim knows what you fear the most

Joanie Day-By-Night was Arapaho, and she and he sister were married to a man in the tribe. After her husband was imprisoned for polygamy, the tribe had to pay off the fine and ran out of food and blankets for the winter. Joanie went into town for supplies and had to prostitute herself to white men. She eventually died of starvation in her sleep.

### but best keep away from the Crossroads Ghost

Whispers came to Petra Vandergeest, her descendant, when she was born and her mother died in childbirth, Kiyomi rescued her from drowning in the tub when she was a toddler, Sky saved her when she fell off a horse and broke her collarbones, Sarah came to her when a man kidnapped her and they got in a car accident, and Joanie helped her when she developed anorexia.

### Talk to the Poltergeist

Porter Goosefeather was Cheyenne and was slated to be hanged for setting white people's houses on fire. In prison, he was starved and the guards and other prisoners raped him. Porter suffered a psychotic break, painted the walls of his cell with his bodily fluids, and did the Ghost Dance, which the guards beat him for. He was executed soon afterwards.

### Talk to the Haunt

Ari Huntington was an Apache and ran away from her foster parents at age twelve. When she became a Vaudeville dancer, she was ogled by white men and forced to wear stereotypical Native clothing during performances. Ari befriended Zintkala Nuni, but they both caught the Spanish Flu and died.

### Talk to the Routewitch if that's what you want

Serena Blue-Fawn was Paiute and was born with partial paralysis and asthma. Her parents took her to a hospital, but the doctors instead removed her uterus. Wovoka came to help Serena and she got a bit better. However, on January 1, 1889, she suffered from a nasty asthma attack upon seeing a solar eclipse and died.

### Reaper's in the parlor

River Step was Miniconju, and on December 29, 1890, she took part in the Ghost Dance with her people at Wounded Knee Creek. White soldiers arrived to stop them and began the killings. River was killed when a soldier impaled her abdomen with a bayonet through her vagina.

### Seizer's in a host

Angela Two-Moons was Oglala, and inn 1973, she and several other Oglala people occupied the town of Wounded Knee. Some white people came too, but they littered the place with pipes and trash. One of them assaulted Angela and she ended up having a seizure and died, so the white kids cut her up and buried her body while blaming the Oglala for it.

### but you'd best keep away from the Crossroads Ghost

Porter saved Petra from hanging herself, Ari helped her survive influenza, Serena saved her from an asthma attack, River stopped Whittaker Sherriff from shooting her, and Angela came to her when the man who killed Angela talked to her at Alcatraz.