The 1870 Ghost Dance

Introduction

1 In order to clarify the mass of details that constitutes the body of this volume , this introduction has been written to serve as a summary guide to the major cults described. The material has been presented by tribes or areas in the body of the book. This was done to give coherence to local developments and to show their interlocking nature. In the Summary of Contents, material is presented in terms of cults in order to balance the areal presentation. It was soon evident in the course of field work that a complicated series of interacting cults had developed as a consequence of the stimulus given by the 1870 Ghost Dance. The religious developments covered in this volume occurred during a period of sixty years beginning in 1871. It was a time of marked intra- and intertribal flux, during which Indian life underwent progressive disintegration. As a result, the early reactions, which were resistive to white encroachments, were gradually transformed into an acceptance of European habits and attitudes. These changes represent a closely integrated continuum in time and space. However, for descriptive purposes it is convenient to set up a series of categorical terms as points of reference on that continuum, if one bears in mind that the borders are blurred. In the title, “Ghost Dance” has been used as a general term to cover a series of generically related religious developments, but in the body of the book the term will be applied only to the first phase of the whole growth. 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. The adherents believed these changes were imminent. The Ghost Dance proper had two main strands of diffusion. The cult originated among the Paviotso of Walker Lake in Nevada and spread to the Washo, the Paviotso of Pyramid Lake, Klamath Reservation, and Surprise Valley, to the Modoc, Klamath, Shasta, and Karok tribes. It was Introduction introduction 2 transmitted by the Shasta to Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations in Oregon . From Siletz it was carried to the Tolowa and Yurok. The circle of this first strand of diffusion was completed in the vicinity of Orleans on the Klamath River when the Yurok movement going upstream met the Karok movement progressing downstream. A second but contemporaneous strand of the Ghost Dance proper spread from the Paviotso to the easternmost Achomawi, across Achomawi territory to the Northern Yana, the Wintun,1 and Hill Patwin. Among the Wintun and Hill Patwin the second point of reference on the continuum was developed. It will be called the Earth Lodge cult, from its most characteristic feature. This cult was similar to the Ghost Dance proper in excitement over immediate supernatural phenomenon. But, whereas the Ghost Dance stressed the return of the dead, the Earth Lodge cult stressed the end of the world. The faithful were to be protected from the catastrophe by the subterranean houses which they built for that purpose . The Earth Lodge cult, like the Ghost Dance, had two main strands of diffusion. One spread to the north from the Wintun to the Wintu and then back over Achomawi territory and to the Klamath Reservation, while simultaneously the Wintu transmitted the Earth Lodge cult to the Shasta, from whom it was passed in turn to Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations. There it was known locally as the Warm House Dance. The Earth Lodge cult in its northern manifestation also had an abortive introduction to Oregon City by Klamath Indians. Some years later a Siletz Reservation Indian carried a form of Earth Lodge cult southward among the Oregon tribes as far as Coos Bay. This has been called Thompson’s Warm House Dance after the principal proselytizer. Meanwhile the second strand of Earth Lodge cult diffusion spread southwestward to the Pomo area, where seven earth lodges were built in which surrounding tribes and tribelets congregated. Almost immediately after the Earth Lodge cult was introduced to the Wintun and Hill Patwin, there grew up an elaboration of it called the BoleMaru . This is a compound term consisting respectively of the Patwin and Pomo words for the cult. The Bole-Maru abandoned gradually doctrines of imminent world catastrophe and stressed instead concepts of the afterlife and of the supreme being. Ceremonially its highest development occurred among the Patwin and Pomo. Each local dreamer had his own [18.216.190.167...