Case file · Folklore / legend
Ghost shirts and the Lakota Ghost Dance
In 1890 the Ghost Dance taught by the Paiute prophet Wovoka reached the Lakota, and some dancers wore painted 'ghost shirts' believed to protect them; fear of the movement led to the killing of Sitting Bull and the Wounded Knee massacre of 29 December 1890.
1890 CE · 43.14, -102.36 · status: account
The account
Wovoka's teaching promised the renewal of the world and reunion with the dead through dance and peaceful living. The belief in bullet-proof shirts was a Lakota development, recorded by the ethnologist James Mooney in his 1896 study.
The sceptical view
Historians stress that the US Army, not the dancers, turned the movement violent; the shirts are remembered today as part of a sacred tradition and a massacre, not as a claim to test.
Connections in the atlas
- Nock-ay-det-klinne and Cibecue Creek
- The 1870 Ghost Dance (Wodziwob)
- Black Elk's great vision recorded
- Wovoka's vision