Wounded Knee and the Prospect of Pluralism

In the 1880s, a new religion called the Ghost Dance emerged in the Northwestern United States among the Native peoples there. What followed was a struggle to understand the meaning of the religion by European Americans, a struggle that led, on December 29, 1890, to the Wounded Knee Massacre. In this paper, I consider the process by which the Ghost Dance came to be understood by non–Native Americans. I argue that contemporary efforts were marked by two philosophical commitments: naturalism and ontological reductionism. These commitments left European America with few choices in how to respond to the practitioners of the Dance. After Wounded Knee, Charles Eastman, a Lakota trained in Western medicine and author of a series of books on Native culture and philosophy, offered an alternative philosophical perspective—pluralism—as a better way to understand Native traditions and as a means to foster coexistence. Along with Eastman, other non-Native thinkers also sought a viable form of pluralism to respond to the burgeoning religious and cultural diversity that marked the turn of the nineteenth century. I conclude by considering the conceptions of pluralism developed by William James and John Dewey in relation to the Ghost Dance and to the pluralism offered by Eastman.

In the spring of 1890, a Cheyenne named Kicking Bear addressed a Lakota council. In his address, Kicking Bear described a journey to the Great Spirit, who entrusted him with a message for all Native American peoples. The journey had begun at the Cheyenne reservation and proceeded at first by railroad. When the tracks ended, Kicking Bear disembarked and met two companions—witnesses, he said—whom he had not met before. After the three men ate, they mounted horses and set off past the point where "white men had cause to go." As they crossed this border they encountered a black man who offered them wealth as long as they were willing to go no further down the trail. Kicking Bear and his companions turned away from the temptation and traveled two more days. As they reached the limit of their endurance, they encountered a man who seemed both white and Indian. This man fed Kicking Bear and his companions and then led them up a ladder to a place above the clouds that was the camp of the Great Spirit and his wife. From this place, through "an opening in the sky," their guide showed them a vision of "all the countries of the earth" repopulated by Native people and great herds of buffalo.

After a proper welcome, the Great Spirit addressed his visitors. "Take this message to my red children," he began, "and tell it to them as I say it." The earth, he explained, was getting old and it was time for renewal for the sake of the Great Spirit's people. "I will cover the earth with new soil to a depth of five times the height of a man and under this new soil will be buried all of the whites, and all the holes and the rotten places filled in." Indigenous plants and animals would be restored to the land and Native peoples would again "eat and drink, hunt, and rejoice." As the people await the coming renewal, the Great Spirit directed that they learn to perform certain dances and perform them regularly. When the Great Spirit was finished speaking and the men had eaten, their guide, who they realized was the Messiah, led them back to earth so that Kicking Bear could deliver his message, verified by the witnesses who had accompanied him.¹

By the fall of 1890, the message of Kicking Bear and several other Native prophets had spread throughout much of the Northwest and the northern plains.² As the movement, by then called the "Ghost Dance," spread, European Americans in the United States began to take notice. On November 16, 1890, the New York Times published a long article titled "The New Indian Messiah." The report tells of the encounters of Sitting Bull (an Arapahoe man) and Porcupine (a member of the Cheyenne) with the Messiah described by Kicking Bear and...