Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн
139 страница из 156
Although the Ghost Dance has a continuous history from 1870 to 1890, a second great wave would take place after 1889 when Wovoka announced his death and resurrection, and pronounced the coming of an Indian Messiah in 1890, a pronouncement that had believers in both Indian and non-Indian communities. Wovoka told his Mason Valley people that they could chant, do the Ghost Dance, fall into a trance, and visit the land of the dead. If they did as they were instructed, Numina the Messiah, would bring the Indian dead back to life and restore the world to the way it was prior to the white man.106
A peculiar coincidence was the date in which Wovoka stated that the Messiah would return. Wovoka’s prophecy indicated that the Messiah or Christ would return to the earth to restore America to the Indians in December 1890, the same date that the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith indicated that if he lived to be 85 he would see the face of Christ. Smith, born on December 23, 1805, although dead for many years would have been 85 on his birthday of December 23, 1890.107 The rumor of Christ’s coming was probably passed to Sioux Ghost Dance leaders by Bannock and Shoshone Mormons in Utah and Idaho. Although there is no evidence that Wovoka directly had contact with Mormon missionaries or converts, both Mormons and Paiutes shared many of the same ideals and practices.108