Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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Although the antecedents to the phenomenon of the Ghost Dance reach back to colonial times in US history, it is likely that the inspiration for the 1870 Ghost Dance vision of the Walker Lake Paiute Wodziwob (Grey Hair) was the Prophet Dance, the Dreamer religion of the Wanapum prophet Smohalla. The Prophet Dance movement spread from the Athapascans of British Columbia to the Paiutes in southern Oregon, and its teachings predicted that a great earthquake would eliminate the white man leaving the Indians to enjoy the fruits of the earth. Smohalla, who very likely was influenced by Mormon missionaries, traveled from Washington State to Mexico, Utah, and Nevada in the 1860s a few years before Wodziwob had his mystical trance and vision.¹⁰⁰

In 1870, when Wodziwob came out of his trance he reported his trip to heaven and said that the spirits of the dead were returning to earth to usher in a “heaven on earth”—an earthly paradise. To understand Wodziwob his shamanism must be taken into account. He was a Paiute magician who could control supernatural forces, and he did this by ventriloquism, hypnosis, and sleight-of-hand tricks. He allegedly had the power to remove foreign bodies from the sick and force out the evil forces possessing a patient’s body. And like the shaman-warrior Geronimo, it was claimed that arrows and later bullets would bounce off his body.¹⁰¹