biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (?1858–1932)
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| biography:
| Paiute visionary and founder of the Ghost Dance religion, born on the Walker R in present-day Nevada, USA. His father, a religious mystic, died when Wovoka was about 14 and he went to work with a white family, the Wilsons, and was known to whites as Jack Wilson. At the end of 1888 he had a vision that drew on a mixture of Indian and Christian religious teachings: he claimed that the Messiah would return Native Americans to a pre-contact existence and rid the continent of whites if Indians would live in harmony and in traditional ways and, above all, dance the Ghost Dance. His message spread quickly among the tribes of the Great Plains and the Northwest, and they began to adopt the Ghost Dance and regard Wovoka as a great deliverer. The Sioux became especially fervent in their adoption of this cult, and their restiveness culminated in the murder of Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee. The Ghost Dance cult lost its appeal for most Indians, and during the next decade Wovoka moderated his message and advised Indians to accommodate themselves to the whites' ways. He spent his final years on a reservation in Nevada. |
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