Assignment 16

Assignment 16
Option 1
Acculturation is massive, disruptive change that is forced upon a society by contact with a more powerful, “advanced” society. The history of the U.S., from the very beginning, consisted of a long series of examples of this process. When Christopher Columbus landed in the New World, he kidnapped ten of the friendly Taino people and sent them over to Spain, and the rest of the people were forced to give up their land and adopt the European’s religion as well as many villages were burned and looted. Even though these natives were some of the “nicest” people, they were thought of as inferior and ignorant because they were different. This ethnocentric attitude of the superiority of the “advanced” civilization continued as more and more Europeans immigrated to the Americas. By the 1800s, the process of acculturation was well under way for the Native Americans.

During the mid 1800s, Native Americans were responding to the white encroachment in different ways. Red Cloud and his group of Ogala Sioux responded by resisting and fighting until they came to an agreement with the treaty of 1868. Eventually, however, even Red Cloud gives in because he realizes his people are fighting a losing battle. He and many of his followers were known as some of the best fighters and were able to keep the whites from completely taking their lands, but as Black Elk described them later in life, they were “hang around the forts” people. They gave up their old lives in order to assimilate into the dominate culture. On the other hand, many other groups of Native Americans were nearly completely exterminated because they would not assimilate to the white man’s ways. Crazy Horse, unlike Red Cloud, resisted until the very end and was killed when he finally decided to surrender. He and his people were forced, not by battle, but by hunger to come to the agency.

One of the most interesting responses to acculturation is religious revitalization. This is when facing massive, disruptive domination by a stronger society, members of the weaker society respond by creating new religious beliefs to help the people cope with the pressures. A prime example of religious vitalization is the Ghost Dance of the Lakota Sioux in the 1880s. White suppression of their culture led to the birth of a new religious movement that incorporated elements of their former important Sundance Festival and Christian elements involving a Messiah and Revelation.

During the winter of 1890, a mystic named Kicking Bear, a former intimate of Crazy Horse, journeyed west to hear the gospel of Wavoka and carried news back to his people. The Ghost Dance took on the importance of the former Sundance. They believed that if they were honest, virtuous, non- violent, prayed, sang, and danced that all of their dead ancestors would come back to life as well as the game would return to the prairies, and all the whites would die from a massive flood. Exhaustion from dancing and singing would bring on visions similar to those of the Sundance ceremonies. Dancers became so enthralled with it that the store houses, school houses, and trading stores would be empty.

Black Elk remembered hunger being prevalent with his people before he journeyed to Europe to tour with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, but after his return three years later in 1889, he recalls the need being much worse. By August, Black Elk’s people were pitiful and starving because of failed crops and lack of cattle provided by the agencies. Originally in the treaty of 1868, the Lakota people were supposed to receive more than double the amount of cattle they were receiving and the ones they were given were skinny and in poor condition. All of the bison had been killed off by the Wasichus (whites) and therefore the Lakota’s and other Plains Indians had no way to feed, clothe, or shelter their families. In the summer of 1889, news of the Ghost Dance came to the Ogalas and from there, the Shoshones and Blue Clouds (Arapahoes) brought news of it to Black Elk’s people. Many people believed it, but many were also skeptical at first. Black Elk recalled thinking it was foolish talk that someone had started somewhere.

Shortly after hearing news of the Ghost Dance, a meeting was called not far from Pine Ridge Agency and at least three good men had gone to hear the message and were there to tell about it. They returned and told the others all they had learned and seen while visiting the Wanekia (One Who Makes Live), Wovoka, the son of the Great Spirit, and how he had told of how a new world was coming to take them all away to where their ancestors were all alive, the bison and game were plentiful again, and the Wasichus would all disappear. Black Elk heard the news and knew all of these men to be honorable good men and began to wonder if this could be real. Wovoka had given Good Thunder sacred red paint and two eagle feathers for the people to apply when they did the ghost dance. When Black Elk learned of the sacred red paint and the eagle feathers, he began to equate Wovoka’s vision with his own. His vision was to bring the people back into the nation’s hoop and he thought Wovoka’s was the same because it would lead the people back to the red road.

That winter, Black Elk’s father passed away and many others passed from sickness too. More people were interested in hearing the message from the sacred man so they sent more men to learn what they could. When the men returned, all the people were so interested and enthralled with the man claiming to be the son of the Great Spirit. They brought back news that all he said was true in that he could make animals talk, and he had spirit visions and some of them claimed to have also seen the visions. News of his ghost dance spread far and wide and soon those on Cheyenne Creek, north or Pine Ridge, were holding ghost dances and rumors told that the people were able to speak to their dead relatives and then people were said to be dancing at Wounded Knee Creek. Black Elk was still somewhat of a skeptic and wanted to hear more, so he journeyed on horseback to Wounded Knee Creek to see the ghost dance for himself. As it turns out, he was so surprised by what he saw because so much of his vision was being displayed. All the dancers, both men and women, were holding hands in a big circle, and in the center of the circle they had a tree painted red with most of its branches cut off and some dead leaves on it. It was exactly like his vision with all the people holding hands to create a circle for the sacred hoop to be restored and the sacred tree to bloom again. The people had painted their faces red and they used the pipe and eagles feathers like in his vision. All the pieces were coming together and suddenly Black Elk believed like all the others in the power of the ghost dance.

The next day, Black Elk painted himself in the sacred manner and set forth to dance with the people. Ghost Dances became more prevalent because Wovoka predicted the new world would come after the next winter during the spring. In the summer of 1890, tensions rose between the Wasichus and the Lakotas. Kicking Bear and Good Thunder were put in prison briefly because they were leaders of Ghost Dances. The whites saw the Ghost Dance with a sense of paranoia and thought it was dangerous. Army soldiers were called in at the request of the whites on the reservations, and anxieties on both sides were on the rise. Black Elk receives two different visions while dancing, one from the dancing at Wounded Knee Creek and one from dancing with the Brules along Cut Meat Creek. When he returns to Wounded Knee after dancing with the Brules, he joined the Ogalas and heard there were soldiers at Pine Ridge. Black Elk and his group broke camp and moved according to where they thought might be the safest since the added soldiers caused an uneasy tension. It was around the time when they were camped on Cheyenne Creek, north of Pine Ridge, that Black Elk and other Ogalas received the bad news about Sitting Bull’s death at the hands of Indian policemen. Sitting Bull had been the target of some controversy because he was an advocate for the Ghost Dance. He did not participate, but only watched, because he didn’t necessarily believe in it, rather, he thought it united his people. After Sitting Bull’s death, many of his followers had run away to be with Big Foot’s band, which was on the move just days later. Soldiers were sent to find Big Foot and his band because they were thought of as trouble makers.

After Sitting Bull’s assassination, the Ghost Dance was the only driving force keeping the Indians from retaliating. Instead, many of his Hunkpapa Sioux fled the Standing Rock reservation to seek refuge in Red Cloud’s Pine Ridge agency. December 17, about a hundred of the fleeing Hunkpapas reached Big Foot’s Minneconjou camp near Cherry Creek. As soon as Big Foot learned of Sitting Bull being killed, he started with his people toward Pine Ridge in hopes that Red Cloud could protect them from the soldiers. En route, Big Foot becomes ill with pneumonia, and is no longer able to walk and has to travel by wagon. On December 28, the Minneconjous first sighted the four troops of soldiers and luckily Big Foot has a white flag flying above his wagon. Big Foot’s band included some of Sitting Bull’s followers, but there were only about a hundred warriors and the rest were women, children, and old men. They were all starving and freezing from running away on such short notice when they were found by the soldiers December 28, 1890. Black Elk and his band found out later that evening that Big Foot’s band was camped with the soldiers about fifteen miles down the road from where they were. The next morning, Black Elk was out with his horses when he heard cannons and guns going off. He rode back to camp and grabbed his sacred bow and rode in the direction of the gun fire. It was a bloody scene when he and several other warriors arrived. The Wasichus soldiers were firing on everyone. Many had already been killed including women, children, and babies. Later he learned exactly what happened there by a few eye witnesses.

The morning of December 29, 1890, all of the Indians did as they were told and brought their rifles out and laid them down in a pile along with their knives and other weapons. Not satisfied with the number of weapons, the soldiers searched all the tepees and emptied bundles as well as ordered the chiefs to remove their blankets in order to be searched. With this, Yellow Bird put up a fuss, and Black Coyote raised his Winchester rifle to exclaim it was his and he had paid a lot of money for it. Seeing Black Coyote raise his gun, the soldiers grabbed him, spun him around, and grabbed his gun. As this happened, the gun fired and the soldiers took the sound as the signal for them to fire. They killed Big Foot as he attempted to rise out of his blankets and they killed anything and everything that moved. Since most of the Indians had no arms, they began to flee and the big guns on the hills opened fire on them. When the firing ended, Big Foot and half of his people were dead or seriously wounded. There were 153 known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. The final total of dead was nearly 300 of the original 350 men, women, and children. Black Elk recalled seeing the scene and noticing a baby in the arms of his mother as he was still trying to nurse when his mother lie dead and bloody. He was more ready for revenge than ever, but after a while, he knew he was fighting a losing battle and was forced to retreat. After the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, the Ghost Dances were over and so were the Lakota people. When the Ghost Dances ended, the Lakota people gave in as Black Elk eventually did and assimilated into the dominate culture.