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Indian Ghost Dance Ceremonies at the Ranch
The Ghost Dances of 1889 at Grand Canyon West Ranch
THE
GHOST DANCE, of course, was not a traditional Pai ceremony. At the
time of its 1870 diffusion, the Southern Painte and the Pai were
apparently not on friendly enough terms for the cult to be
communicated from north to south. Friction between the two groups
was fostered by the U.S. Army commander of the Upper Colorado sub
district, who reported that he sent to Ft. Mohave on Oct. 29, 1867,
a Painte chief named Varanap “who I had succeeded in getting to
accompany me for the reasons that I would be sure of no outbreak
from them while absent, that I wished to get them in hostility with
the Hualapais, whose Country adjoins theirs, separated by the
Colorado River...” (U. S. Senate 1936). The importance of the 1870
ghost dance among the Southern Painte was, moreover, apparently
minimal, if it reached them.
A generation later, however, Paiute-Pai relations had become quite
peaceful and probably frequent after Anglo-Americans subdued both
groups. Ideal conditions existed for the spread of the second wave
of ghost dancing from its Paiute originators to the Pai. Of this, as
of the earlier cult, it can be said that: “The early manifestations
consisted largely of doctrinal stress on the return of the dead and
the end of the world, which in some vague supernatural manner would
entail the elimination of the white people.” Converts believed these
changes imminent.
The Pai acquired their ghost dance and its ideology from Southern
Paintes shortly after its revival by Wovoka in Northern Painte
territory. “The ghost dance was introduced from the Paiute of St.
George and St. Thomas in 1889, ‘two years after the railroad came
through’ Kingman in 1887” wrote Mekeel. His reconstruction of the
date is confirmed in newspaper accounts at the time. “This dance
made its first appearance among the Wallapais in May of 1889. The
old chief Surrum being the first convert, and the Paiute medicine
men conferred the rights of the ‘ghost dance,’ and the first dance
of the tribe was held at an isolated point, called Grass Springs . .
.”
The introduction of the cult among the Pai may actually have been
due to Painte missionary effort. Mooney recorded that a Paiute from
southern Utah was “inciting” the Hualapai “to dance for the purpose
of causing hurricanes and storms to destroy the whites and such
Indians as would not participate in the dances.” This was, at least,
what the commanding officer of Ft. Whipple was told in September of
1890. At that time, ghost dances had been held “for several months,”
with “a large portion of the tribe” taking part. Each dance
reportedly lasted four to five successive nights. This Painte
missionary was reported to be one of a group that “inaugurated the
Ghost Dance among the Wallapai the preceding year.
According to Mekeel, “The Painte leader mentioned as influential in
its spread was Panama’ita or Panamo’ita; the Walapai, Doinhu’ka or
Jeff, a shaman.” Jeff died during the sojourn of the Laboratory of
Anthropology field party in 1929. “Jeff took Panamita among the
Walapai, and then a party of prominent Walapai including Jeff and
several recognized chiefs went to St. George and witnessed the
dance.” In the words of Kuni, one of the Laboratory of
Anthropology’s 1929 informants: “Djinpuka, Jeff, went to the Ghost
Dance. Tamnada went. Oava’dima, my father Kua’da, LeviLevi, Serum,
these four went as far as St. Thomas. The dance was held at St.
George. They went there the next night. Sticks were put around in a
circle. People danced in a circle around a pole. The dance stopped
the fourth morning. Jeff and Tamnada learned all their songs. They
had to go a little way from the dancing place, and then the spirits
would arrive and say, ‘You have done your part as you were ordered.
Keep this up for two years and all the dead will return.’ “This
didn’t come true because people didn’t live up to the rules.”
Jeff’s role is still well-remembered among his people. “Indian Jeff
somehow got in the Paiute country and understood from them that if
they danced like that the dead people would come back to life. That
was the cause of their getting together. A few Paintes attended.” By
1952-57, we were unable to obtain from Pai respondents, even those
who participated in ghost dances as youngsters, nearly as much
detail about the diffusion of the cult as the 1929 investigators
recovered from informants who had been old enough to perceive and
remember the mechanisms of trans-culturation. Old Mike related other
details about this innovation as remembered in 1929: “One of the
Painte leaders whose name was Panamoita visited Jeff at Duncan
ranch, Tanyaka.’ Jeff took this leader around among the Walapai, and
they told them about the dance and urged them to do the same as the
Painte. He said that this dance was for bring ing the dead relatives
to life. Three times they thus told all the people at monthly or
bimonthly intervals.” Then Indian Jeff spent a month traveling about
advising his tribesmen of the dance to be held at Tanyika.
“At this time, Kingman was small, and the Walapai were living across
from the Commercial Hotel. They filled up all the flat. Before the
month had passed they began to travel away on horseback. They camped
at the mouth of Canyon Station, Waikaiila. Next morning they
traveled again and reached a place called Kisia’lva. They were going
slowly and camped in that place. This party included the whole
Kingman camp, except Walapai Charlie who remained. The next day they
came to Tanyaka in the evening. There were gathered all the Walapai
from all the divisions. But Mapat was not there, nor Walapai
Charlie.”
Newspaper articles contemporary with the event make it clear that
more than just two individuals stayed away from the Grass Springs
dance. “The bands of Leve-Leve and Wallapai Charley, who have their
camps about this place, refuse to take part in the dance, and they
are awaiting the fulfillment of the medicine men’s prophecy of the
hail storm which will kill alike the whites and the disobedient
Indians.” In this instance, the reporter was certainly capable of
observing and talking to those Indians who remained in Kingman and
he obviously was acquainted with the ghost dance beliefs. As Mekeel
wrote, “Several of the Walapai, including Chief Charlie, remained
skeptical, but others were convinced, and even now attribute the
failure of the dead to return to mistakes made in the performance of
the dances or to their premature discontinuance.”
The first awareness of Kingman newspaper writers of any ghost
dancing among the Pai apparently came just before Aug. 3, 1889 when
the Miner reported that “The Wallapai Indians this week departed for
Grass Spring some seventy-five miles northeast of Kingman, there to
have a grand powwow, which Surrum, the chief, says will last one
month.” The nature of the movement was, however, still not
understood by the AngloAmericans, for the article went on with a
prediction that “The Navajoes, Supais, Moquis, Utes, and Chimeneves
will have representatives there. They will have a big rain sing and
dance and expect to bring rain in plenty... they will probably
gamble as long as they can rustle grub in that section and they have
anything to win or lose.” Two weeks later, reporters evidently had
talked to some of the Indians and learned the true character of the
ceremonies. “Wallapais who have returned from Grass Springs say that
a ‘ghost dance’ in which all the tribes took part, all dressed in
white and which lasted five days and nights, was had last week and
it took all the dance out of the Indians.” Then the Miner went on to
explain the origin and beliefs of the movement: “The Piutes are
responsible for the gathering of the various tribes at Grass
Springs. The medicine men of that tribe say that the Great Spirit
told them to gather all the good Indians at that place and that
sometime during two moons the Hicos [i.e., haikoo, the Pai word for
Anglo-Americans] would be totally wiped from the face of the earth
by some pestilence and they would become possessors of all the land
again. These medicine men keep apart from the rest of the Indians
and claim to be in direct communion with the Great Spirit and have a
great influence over all those assembled...”
Significantly, in talking with the newspaper writer, the Pai placed
the recovery of their land at the heart of their concept of the
ghost dance movement. The purpose of the whole ceremonial gathering
at Grass Springs was to bring on the storm or pestilence that would
kill off the Anglo-American invaders, so that the Pai would again
become possessors of all their aboriginal lands. A somewhat later
summary of the ghost dance ideology in the Miner repeats the
essential points: “The Walapais are thoroughly imbued with the idea
of the coming of Christ, and that the day is not far dis tant when
the Indians will have ‘full possession and that all the dead
Indians, deer, antelopes and other game will come back,’ as one of
the Wallapais expressed it.” Again the Indians are described as
anticipating the disappearance of the Anglo-Americans as the means
to their dual goal of full possession of their lands and the
restoration to those lands of dead Indians and game animals.
Thus the majority of the Pai were not yet looking forward to wider
participation in the material benefits of the industrial society as
in cargo cult” behavior. They, like other ghost dancing Indians,
wanted to return to the good days gone by. The loss of their land
base and access to its resources was the primary cause of a
psychological state in which the Pai grasped at the ghost dance as a
form of compulsive magic to retrieve these former assets and the
lifeway that went with them.
Story excerpted
from "The Ghost Dance of 1889" - © Prescott College Press, 1967 |
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Indian
Ghost Dances at the Ranch
