The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (Excerpt)
| Author | James Mooney; abridged with an introduction by Anthony F. C. Wallace |
|---|---|
| Published | 1896 |
| Format | Article |
TL;DR — A 15-page excerpt from James Mooney’s classic ethnography of the Ghost Dance — the chapter on its doctrine of a coming reunion of all Native people on a renewed earth.
James Mooney’s study was first published in 1896 as Part 2 of the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Smithsonian; this file is taken from the 1965 University of Chicago Press abridgement in its Classics in Anthropology series, edited by Anthony F. C. Wallace. It contains the title page and the chapter “The Doctrine of the Ghost Dance.”
The chapter sets out the movement’s central teaching, opening with Wovoka’s words “You must not fight”: that the whole Native race, living and dead, would be reunited on a regenerated earth, free of death and disease. Mooney describes how each tribe adapted it to its own mythology, compares the variety of interpretation to Christian sects, and argues the movement became hostile only where grievances were acute, as among the Sioux.
What it is: an excerpt from a classic of American ethnography, written by a Bureau of Ethnology anthropologist who interviewed Wovoka.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
15 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.