Ghost Dance

A thunder- being nation I am, I have said.

A thunder- being nation I am, I have said.

You shall live.

You shall live.

– Sioux Ghost Dance Song

The voices are calling to me from somewhere beyond my reach. Their whispers have been in my ear for some time. Today is a day I’ve been looking forward to, and a day I dread. It’s my ceremony day.

I glance over at the trembling of my mother’s hands as she gently pinches her needle. I turn away and pretend not to notice. A teal bird takes shape beneath her fingers. It is but one of many designs she has already sewn into the supple doeskin. When she’s finished I’ll receive the honor of adorning it. She ties off her last knot, and a strand of hair escapes her long silver and black peppered braid.

My heart races, nerves electrified in anticipation. The smallest tendril of fear curls in the pit of my stomach. My mother hands me my dress, folding the three- sided handkerchief shape in her arms. She brushes my hair with her fingers, a wave of comfort as she braids an eagle feather into it. When she finishes, she intertwines her fingers with mine. She smiles, but the glassy sheen of her eyes reveals her sorrow. “It is time, my dear. Everyone is here.”

My body aches as I struggle to stand on shaky legs. My mother takes my meager weight as I lean against her and she guides me outside, where our entire community gathers. The murmuring of pleasantries stop when they notice me. Hundreds of people await me. I take in the beauty of my home one last time. Tall golden grasses sway in the wind, green trees dot the curves of the hills, caressing the blue sky in the distance.

I am lucky to have lived in this sacred place. Our people travel hundreds or even thousands of miles, so they might have their ceremony here. I squeeze my eyes shut, the image of my home and my people overwhelming me. My people stand, skin brown like the earth, dressed in feathers and beads. The night sky is alive with sounds of nature, and the peaceful calm around me. My fate rolls in over the horizon like a heavy storm cloud—I am ready to dance in its rain.

Our medicine woman, Quiet Doe, approaches me, the fleshy hills and deep valleys of her face shift into a gentle smile. She places my hands in hers, and I follow with trembling steps as she leads me to a small circle of chairs and benches around a fire; the smoke trails upwards to a place unseen. People take their seats reverently. Quiet Doe lets my fingers slip away, taking her place at the head of the fire circle.

“Tonight is a special night,” Quiet Doe begins. With feeble fingers she smooths out her long silver braids. “Tonight, I shall recite the story. A story of our people and how we all came to be here. The story of the end… the beginning. The day that changed the world for all time.” Her voice carries a somber tone. I fidget nervously, even though I’ve heard this story a thousand times.

Quiet Doe settles into her seat. As she speaks, my eyes travel to the stars spotting the sky. I absorb the night, a comforting blanket around me, and close my eyes.

When I open my eyes once again, the world around me has changed. Like lightning, the sunlight burns brightly. I am no longer at my ceremony, but surrounded by my people from long ago. A sign in the distance reads: “Pine Ridge Reservation”. The surrounding land is barren, stripped clear of the beautiful life I know. It is no longer I, but we.

🪶

It is a time of profound misery. Our once- bountiful home is now a wasteland. Nothing will grow, and the intruders have hunted the majestic buffalo that used to roam these lands to extinction. My people dangle on the verge of starvation. The invaders moved us from the only homes we have ever known. Piece by piece, bit by bit, they stole our way of life and the very land beneath our feet.

The day that starts like any other, but ends in infamy. Blackness eclipses the sun, and with each golden ray that disappears, it gifts a prolific vision to Wovoka, the religious leader of the Paiute. Wovoka speaks his vision to all who will listen, in which a dance will eradicate all evil in the world. He tells of the special shirts and dresses that shall protect from the bullets that cut down our people. He says this dance will bring forth a renewed Earth filled with food, love, and faith.

The people, starving for sustenance and simple shreds of humanity, grip onto this vision with their last surge of strength. The dance is a weapon, a cry to arms against the tyranny imposed upon us. With each movement, displays unwillingness to be governed in body or spirit. Slowly, tribe after tribe learns then performs this ceremony. They dance without breaks, they dare not eat or sleep. They dance until they pass out from fatigue and the powerful inflow of spiritual energies. The dance spreads through the west like a wildfire, igniting the dormant hopes of broken people.

For months, invaders watch, with growing concern the steadfast determination and the many tribes gathering in large numbers, dreading the power of the unknown. Fear and misunderstanding fester.

The foreigners grow desperate; they seek help from a revered leader, Sitting Bull. They ask him to intervene and stop this frightful dance, but he refuses. Men in uniform descend unto his home at Standing Rock to lock him up, but his loyal followers swiftly take up ranks beside him. Bullets fly between the chief’s supporters and the police. When the smoke clears, Sitting Bull, the peerless warrior, lies dead. Our nation, already on its hands and knees calling out for mercy, receives a hefty blow. News of Sitting Bull’s passing reaches our tribe along with tales of Wokova’s vision. With this vision comes hope. Hope carried on the wind like a delicate flower—faint but sweet. We dare not reach out and grab it, but hold out our hands so it may land on us. Surely this dance must work if the invaders are afraid—if they are willing to kill.

We listen with the wonder and bright eyes of children as our chief, Spotted Elk, explains the dance to us. Our tribe is but a husk of what we were, yet as long as we draw breath, we hold on. Hope comes in a whisper, in a song, in a cry, in a dance. We hold onto it because it is all we have. It is the desperate gasp for breath of drowning people. One last reach for the surface, one last surge of strength. A dance to bring forth the end of our suffering.

Renowned as a peaceful leader, Spotted Elk hastily leads our people away from the violence and bloodshed brought upon us by the invaders. We travel to the Badlands, over desolate peaks, through barren plains, with death itself nipping at our heels. Though peace is the purpose of our trek, the 7th Cavalry besieges us on the summit of the highest peak, only to corral our once- free people like livestock to the drying banks of the creek below.

As the morning light crests over the creek, our camp lies peaceful and unimposing. The 7th Calvary wraps around us, coiled and waiting to strike. The rays of light streak across our camp, and the tribe does the only thing they know to do, the only thing they can do. With a last desperate breath, we dance the Ghost Dance.

One hundred tents are arranged in large circles around an evergreen pine looming in the center. Offerings to the Great Spirit adorn the tree. Handmade strips of multi-colored cloth, feathers from the great eagle, stuffed birds, claws, and horns from various creatures, are all painstakingly arranged around the tree.

Spotted Elk, struck with a severe illness along the journey, is forced to his bed for respite. Still, he speaks to almost three hundred people, of the great vision. Of crystal-clean streams, of the pounding of bison hooves over our land once more. Our most revered medicine men assemble beside the majestic tree. They start a haunting chant. At first, the cries are indiscriminate, sharp thunderclaps of grief and fury. Slowly, they blend as one, and we begin a synchronized pattern of footsteps and cries, others joining in time. People merge in from the outside, drifting into the center. We are the circle of life, the never-ending loop of what is and what’s to come.

Men and women wear their ghost shirts or ghost dresses, made to protect us. The women dress in flowing robes, shaped like a three-cornered handkerchief. The men in long-sleeved shirts, each decorated with the moon, stars, birds, and other creations of the Great Spirit. Feathers dangle at the waist, falling within inches of the fringe on the ground. In our hair, near the crown, a single feather adorned, an offering to the one Great Spirit. Our people return to our roots, discarding everything made by others.

As a family, one stands in front of another with hands over their neighbors’ shoulders. We shut our eyes and envision our fallen loved ones, our heads bow in reverence.

“A thunder- being nation I am, I have said.

A thunder- being nation I am, I have said.

You shall live.

You shall live.”

Collectively, like startled deer, we freeze. Into the puffy white clouds and robin-egg blue sky, a heart-piercing wail splits through. The people gather as one, moaning, groaning, and shrieking out our grief. All the while howling names of departed friends and relatives. We dig our hands fiercely into the soil, washing in it, and tossing it over our heads.

Eyes rise to the sky, hands clasp high above our heads, we stand straight and perfectly still, invoking the power of the Great Spirit.

A movement like a current surges through our tribe, sending the dancers into frenzied action. Hands held move from side to side, bodies sway. Hundreds of prayers become one. Our feet stomp together, a collective knock on the door to the heavens. Our footprints leave the crystalline morning dew dotted grass muddy and black.

A gust of wind envelops us in a silver veil, obscuring our tribe from sight. The enemy peers down at our bodies swept up in this icy breeze and sees us as hazy ghosts. We repeat the song, each time with increasing urgency. The earth itself shudders and rises toward us. The power of the dance reverberates through the creek up to the awaiting army—growing more uneasy by the moment.

Captains and colonels are eager to assert their laws upon us. They demand we give up our arms. Tension ripples through our camp, a rock thrown on already agitated waters. A struggle ensues, and a single shot rings out. The sound is a bell ringing in the chaos. One shot becomes two, turns into a volley of clouds and thunderous gunfire. Women and children flee like birds startled in the hunt. One after another, they fall. Blood pours over the field, screams drown out in the storm of lead and fire. They turn their mountain gun—made to shoot over sixty rounds a minute—on unarmed people.

Army soldiers berserk with rage, chase down those trying to flee. Men, women, and children are gunned down indiscriminately. Our chief’s blankets lay littered with holes as he’s shot while resting in his bed. Twenty, fifty, a hundred, two hundred fall in mere minutes. Our blood mixes with the mud, our tears stream into the creek. When the gunfire stops, the land weeps—her sobs carry on frigid winds; and her tears are icy flurries. A deep reverberation of tragedy and the grief that follows carries through the trees from coast to coast.

The Great Spirit looks on at the appalling, disgraceful, and entirely pointless display of evil. Anger, hatred, and the fury of hundreds of new souls fuel the power that courses through the land.The Great Spirit hears the cries of her people, tears of her own join theirs, and she grants our prayers. A thunder- being nation is born.

For three days, the land laments her loss through an icy blizzard that freezes over the land. When the storm finally breaks, a troop of civilians comes bearing shovels and bags, ready to bury the dead. As they approach, a whisper of sounds carries on the icy wind. The sound grows louder, the pounding of feet and lamenting songs in an unfamiliar language twines fear and apprehension up the civilians' spines. As the valley of Wounded Knee comes into view, the blood drains from their faces, air escapes their lungs, and fear grips their hearts.

There on the iced plains, on top of frozen corpses, the Ghost Dance carries on. Misty apparitions of my people dance as if no time has passed since that fateful day. Civilians stand pale-faced for a moment, then run screaming away.

Initially, people consider the story a nightmare or mass hysteria, but soon others witness it firsthand. The full force of the army is sent to the creek with every weapon of mass destruction available.

Again, the military fires on our tribe. Spotted Elk appears tall and proud on a pale steed, not stricken with illness or wounds. A bullet whistles through the air and bursts through the warrior’s arm, dispersing his skin like smoke as his humerus flies away. As soon as the bone hits the dirt, it dissolves and reappears on the warrior. The ghost dresses and shirts protect us now where they failed us before. The bodies of our people continually reassemble moments after they fall. For centuries, foreigners come, curious to see if the stories are true. They all learn in time that our people are unstoppable.

Every night the newly deceased rise—their spirits joining the Ghost Dance. No new invaders dare set foot on this haunted land. This is the way it has been for over a hundred years, the dance growing slowly larger with every death on this land.

🪶

I’ve heard the story since childhood. Once when my grandmother passed, and again when grandfather followed. It was told when we lost one of our great hunters, a baker, the farmers, the healers. I’ve heard it a hundred times, each time breaking my heart, yet renewing my spirit.

One day, we all dance the Ghost Dance, here at Wounded Knee. Wails ring out in the distance, and I feel myself being pulled away. My dress flutters below me. The tribe assembles, holding each other’s hands in a circle. My mother, my brother, my aunts and uncles all hold hands. Together, they hold my frail body up. One foot in front of the other, there’s a pull to join.

Opaque forms join us, as if I’m seeing them at the bottom of a river. My father, grandparents, the baker, the hunters, the healers, all join hands with my family and neighbors. Dead among the living.

The rhythm of my people calls me to join them. Today we grow one more, today I protect our land and hold steadfast the bounty granted to us. Through tear-filled eyes, I spot a great herd of bison stampeding past, sending vibrations through the earth. The bison and wild horses long since returned to these plains. Nature reclaimed her once- barren lands. We are no longer starving; we are no longer suffering. Here, we inspire the world to use what nature gives us, sun, water, wind, all working for us and with us.

My eyes fall back to our town sign. Long ago, it read ‘Pine Ridge Reservation’. Now we don’t need to reserve a small sliver of Earth to call ours. This land, along with all land we once called home, belongs to no one. Where we used to be viewed as savages, now we are revered as gods. Our spirits remind those who might trespass onto this land to value nature, to hold precious clean air and water, and above all, to respect those who came before — for they are still here.

Now it is my turn to dance one last time with the living, then join my ancestors in their eternal dance. Before the warmth of my mother’s touch fades away, I yearn for it. On the precipice of death, I miss her hugs the most, the embrace of the cotton and beeswax she uses for her needlework. It’s not much, but it feels like home. When the healers couldn’t heal me and my body broke down, I prepared myself for the early arrival of my ceremony, yet here I am, afraid to let go. My mother stomps her feet into the ground. She gestures to me to follow. “You shall live.” She sings in a heartbreaking wail.

It is our last stand, as it will be tomorrow and a hundred years from now. WIth the last of my strength, I kick up a cloud of rust- colored dirt as I join in. We dance as a reminder, a monument, a reverberation throughout all time. “You shall live,” the people of my tribe cry out as one.

In an instant I am gone—then revived. My father appears before me, tall and proud. His long-sleeved ghost shirt illuminated by the moon. A lone eagle feather alongside blue and yellow dyed breath feathers dances around his face as he sways between the people. His earth toned skin is a fog stretched over much more apparent white bones. He reaches out his hand to hold mine as his voice calls to me in a song,

“You shall live.”