Ghost Dance Origins Of Religion

A psychological and anthropological study of religion.

Exploration of the Origins of Religion from an anthropological perspective with chapters on shamanism, psychology, Judaism Christianity, pretty story and altered states of consciousness.

" This is a compellingly nuanced and sophisticated study of Indian peoples as negotiators and shapers of the modern world."—Richard White, author of The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815

Classic of American anthropology explores messianic cult behind Indian resistance, from Pontiac to the 1890s. Extremely detailed and thorough. Originally published in 1896 by the Bureau of American Ethnology. 38 plates, 49 other illustrations.

In 1890, on Indian reservations across the West, followers of a new religion danced in circles until they collapsed into trances. In an attempt to suppress this new faith, the US Army killed over two hundred Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek. Louis Warren's God's Red Son offers a startling new view of the religion known as the Ghost Dance, from its origins in the visions of a Northern Paiute named Wovoka to the tragedy in South Dakota. To this day, the Ghost Dance remains widely mischaracterized as a primitive and failed effort by Indian militants to resist American conquest and return to traditional ways. In fact, followers of the Ghost Dance sought to thrive in modern America by working for wages, farming the land, and educating their children, tenets that helped the religion endure for decades after Wounded Knee. God's Red Son powerfully reveals how Ghost Dance teachings helped Indians retain their identity and reshape the modern world.