Over the years some forms of Divination with the spirit world had tragic results.
In the late 19th century, Wodziwob, a paiute prophet-dreamer, revealed that through a trance he learned he could foresee the upcoming restoration of native lands.
He stated that to speed up the removal of white settlers, tribal members needed to take part in ceremonial ghost dances, meditation and the wearing of ritual garments. The belief soon spread to many tribes, incorporated Christian practices and called for a unity of the native people.
Unfortunately the US government saw the ghost dance as a veiled war dance and in 1890 it dispatched the seventh cavalry to the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Tensions grew near wounded Knee Creek when the group of Lakota sioux ‘ghost shirts’ that they believed made them untouchable to bullets. They started to dance and the cavalry surrounded the Indian camp and set up rapid fire guns. Nearly 300 men, women and children were slaughtered.
While the Lokota stopped practicing the ghost dance, forms so it continue today…
