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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The tragedy of Wounded Knee took place on December 29, 1890. Although some of the warriors wore “bulletproof’ shirts—Ghost Shirts—they were mostly for defensive purposes. Ghost Shirts provided some of their wearers with the idea of invulnerability. That idea of being incapable of being hurt or wounded was not new to the Paiutes and their shamans. What was new, and was not part of Wovoka’s message and the Paiute way, was the Ghost Shirt.¹¹¹ After the 7th Cavalry opened fire more than 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota people lie dead on the ground. Fifty-one others were wounded. Their Lakota leader, Sitting Bull, had been killed earlier.

Wovoka’s preaching included the doctrine of non-violence. He had always taught that his followers should engage in agriculture and be hired labor for the white man. After Wounded Knee he eventually silenced his other messages and sought the isolation of his Yerington Indian Colony. But Wovoka had established a religious movement that not only had continued the tradition of Indian resistance, but marked the beginning of a new fight for religious freedom that characterized the early twentieth century, from the Peyote Church to Pentecostalism.¹¹²