The changes human global warming are wreaking have become profound. When I moved to the megalopolis of Toronto in 1974 I had to wear parkas in winter. By the time I left Toronto in 1989 I was comfortable wintering with just a leather bomber jacket. I moved to Hastings County on the edge of The Shield, and again had to accept wearing full winter gear. But in the past several years this snow belt area has begun experiencing much milder winters. A few years ago the February sled dog races were cancelled. This winter the weather has become bizarrely unpredictable. Snowfall didn't arrive until January, and then temperatures shot to crazy record highs.
Yesterday Chase and I visited ZenRiver Gardens. It was an eery, ghostly day, shrouded in fog raised by this rapid extreme rise in temperature. Above the bridge the river was unseasonally wide open and roaring with melt. Below the bridge the millpond ice was patchy thin, not safe for old-fashioned skating parties.
It was strange stumbling over the snowplough ridge in this foggy warmth. We circled the shaman shack yard, inspecting tracks of coyote, fox and deer. Apple trees sprouted confused buds. Chase and I wandered through pale haze, ghosts ourselves, to the sacred cedar grove. While Chase intruded on fox dens, I slugged back my beer and we returned to the shaman shack.
I sat in the rocker on the small deck, watching:
ghost dance day
fog shapes shift march
against the current*
Mother Nature herself is now ghost dancing. I began to meditate on the fate we are inflicting on ourselves and our vulnerable planet. The meditation deepened, and my mind went brilliant red. I opened my eyes to check if the fog was lifting, but it was even thicker.
eyes closed
northern lights flicker dance
thru our consciousness
* this haiku was published in the 2014 Haiku Canada Members' Anthology
Slipping between Seasons (edited by Mike Montreuil and Nick Avis)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jan. 15/13
Wow, you have drawn me deeply into the threads that tie us to the past and present, dilemmas we created and must now answer to. Thanks for this thoughtful piece Chris, indeed we are all dancing around the moment of truth.
The haiku were nuggets of truth and beauty, Basho would be proud.
Appreciatively, Katherine L. Gordon.
Careful of Winterlight
A clarity of light destroyed
the illusion of sky
above a tangle of trees -
the stratosphere endless.
Some glanced up from
the irrelevance of tasks
uncomfortably vulnerable
in the new unbounded,
the float of things now foolish -
what mattered was evaporation
the spread of only-dreamt solidity
into a freedom too hard to face.
Katherine L. Gordon.
Jan. 2013
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Ghost Dance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Ghost Dance (
Caddo:
Nanissáanah,
[1] also called the
Ghost Dance of 1890) was a
new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous
Native American belief systems. According to the prophet
Jack Wilson (Wovoka)'s
teachings, proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with
the spirits of the dead and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to native
peoples throughout the region.
[2] The basis for the Ghost Dance, the
circle dance,
is a traditional ritual which has been used by many Native Americans
since prehistoric times, but this new form was first practiced among the
Nevada Paiute in 1889. The practice swept throughout much of the
Western United States, quickly reaching areas of
California and
Oklahoma.
As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, Native American
tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own
beliefs. This process often created change in both the
society that integrated it, and in the ritual itself.
The chief figure in the movement was the
prophet of peace, Jack Wilson, known as
Wovoka
among the Paiute. He prophesied a peaceful end to white expansion while
preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural
cooperation by Native Americans. Practice of the Ghost Dance movement
was believed to have contributed to Lakota resistance. In the
Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890,
U.S. Army forces killed at least 153
Lakota Sioux.
[3] The Sioux variation on the Ghost Dance tended towards
millenarianism, an innovation that distinguished the Sioux interpretation from Jack Wilson's original teachings. The
Caddo Nation still practices the Ghost Dance today.
[4]
History
Paiute influence
The
Northern Paiutes living in
Mason Valley, in what is now the
U.S. state of
Nevada, were known collectively as the Tövusi-dökadö (
Tövusi-: "
Cyperus bulb" and
dökadö:
"eaters") at the time of European-American settlement. The Northern
Paiute community thrived upon a subsistence pattern of foraging and
augmenting their diets with fish,
pine nuts, wild game, and foraging for roots such as
Cyperus esculentus.
The Tövusi-dökadö lacked any permanent
political organization
or officials. They followed self-proclaimed spiritually blessed
individuals who organized events or activities for the betterment of the
group as a whole. Community events centered on the observance of a
ritual at a prescribed time of year or were intended to organize
activities like harvests or hunting parties. In 1869,
Hawthorne Wodziwob,
a Paiute man, organized a series of community dances to announce his
vision. He spoke of a journey to the land of the dead and of promises
made to him by the souls of the recently deceased. They promised to
return to their loved ones within a period of three to four years.
[5]
Wodziwob's peers accepted this vision, likely due to his reputable status as a
healer,
as he urged the populace to dance the common circle dance as was
customary during a time of celebration. He continued preaching this
message for three years with the help of a local "weather doctor" named
Tavibo, father of Jack Wilson.
[5]
Prior to Wodziwob's religious movement, a devastating
typhoid epidemic struck in 1867. This and other European diseases killed approximately one-tenth of the total population,
[6] resulting in widespread psychological and emotional trauma. The disruption brought disorder to the
economic system and society. Many families were prevented from continuing their
nomadic lifestyle. Left with few options, many families ended up in
Virginia City seeking employment for wages.
Round dance influence
Referred to as the "round dance", this ritual form characteristically
includes a circular community dance held around an individual who leads
the ceremony. It was used in many community rituals. Often accompanying
the ritual are intermissions of
trance, exhortations and
prophesying.
The
anthropologist Leslie Spier used the term "
prophet dances" to describe this kind of ritual during his studies of the
Pacific Northwest tribes. He studied peoples of the
Columbia plateau (a region including
Washington,
Oregon,
Idaho, and parts of western
Montana). As Spier's study was conducted at a time when most of these rituals had already incorporated
Christian elements, investigation of the round dance's origin was complicated.
Enculturation and
diffusion are not the only explanations for the common circle dance rituals. Anthropologist
James Mooney
was one of the first to study the circle dance. He observed striking
similarities in many Native American rituals. However, he also claimed
that "a hope and longing common to all humanity, manifests through
behavior rooted in human physiology and common experience", therefore
alluding to either the notion of universal imprints on the human mind or
to ubiquitous behaviors drawn from universal life courses that led to
the ritual form.
[citation needed]
The prophet
Wovoka—
Paiute spiritual leader and creator of the Ghost Dance
Jack Wilson, the prophet formerly known as
Wovoka, was believed to have had a
vision during a
solar eclipse
on January 1, 1889. It was reportedly not his first time experiencing a
vision directly from God; but as a young adult, he claimed that he was
then better equipped, spiritually, to handle this message. Jack had
received training from an experienced holy man under his parents'
guidance after they realized that he was having difficulty interpreting
his previous visions. Jack was also training to be a "weather doctor",
following in his father's footsteps. He was known throughout Mason
Valley as a gifted and blessed young leader. Preaching a message of
universal love, he often presided over circle dances, which symbolized
the sun's heavenly path across the sky.
Anthropologist James Mooney
conducted an interview with Wilson prior to 1892. Mooney confirmed that
his message matched that given to his fellow aboriginal Americans.
[2]
This study compared letters between tribes. Wilson said he stood before
God in heaven and had seen many of his ancestors engaged in their
favorite pastimes. God showed Wilson a beautiful land filled with wild
game and instructed him to return home to tell his people that they must
love each other, not fight, and live in peace with the whites. God also
stated that the people must work, not steal or lie, and that they must
not engage in the old practices of war or the traditional
self-mutilation practices connected with mourning the dead. God said
that if his people abided by these rules, they would be united with
their friends and family in the other world.
In God's presence, there would be no sickness, disease, or old age.
Wilson was given the Ghost Dance and commanded to take it back to his
people. He preached that if the five-day dance was performed in the
proper intervals, the performers would secure their happiness and hasten
the reunion of the living and deceased. Wilson said that God gave him
powers over the weather and that he would be the deputy in charge of
affairs in the western United States, leaving current
President Harrison as God's deputy in the East. Jack claims that he was then told to return home and preach God's message.
[2]
Jack Wilson claimed to have left the presence of God convinced that
if every Indian in the West danced the new dance to "hasten the event",
all evil in the world would be swept away, leaving a renewed Earth
filled with food, love, and faith. Quickly accepted by his Paiute
brethren, the new religion was termed "Dance In A Circle". Because the
first European contact with the practice came by way of the Sioux, their
expression
Spirit Dance was adopted as a descriptive title for all such practices. This was subsequently translated as "Ghost Dance".
[2]
Spread of the prophet's message
Sioux tribe dancers, in full war paint and war costumes, 1894
Through Native Americans and some Anglo-Americans, Wilson's message
spread across much of the western portion of the United States. Early in
the religious movement, many tribes sent members to investigate the
self-proclaimed prophet, while other communities sent delegates only to
be cordial. Regardless of their initial motivations, many left as
believers and returned to their homeland preaching his message. The
Ghost Dance was also investigated by many
Mormons from
Utah, for whom the concepts of the Native American prophet were familiar and often accepted.
[7]
While most followers of the Ghost Dance understood Wovoka's role as
being that of a teacher of pacifism and peace, others did not.
An elaboration of the Ghost Dance concept was the development of
Ghost Shirts, which were special
garments
which warriors could wear. They were rumored to repel bullets through
spiritual power. It is uncertain where this belief originated. James
Mooney argued that the most likely source is the
Mormon temple garment (which Mormons believe protect the
pious wearer from evil). Scholars believe that in 1890 chief
Kicking Bear introduced the concept to his people, the
Lakota Sioux.
[8]
The Lakota interpretation drew from their traditional idea of a
"renewed Earth" in which "all evil is washed away". This Lakota
interpretation included the removal of all Anglo-Americans from their
lands. In contrast, Wilson's version encouraged harmonious co-existence
with European Americans.
Political influence
In February 1890, the United States government broke a Lakota treaty by adjusting the
Great Sioux Reservation of
South Dakota (an area that formerly encompassed the majority of the state) and breaking it up into five smaller reservations.
[9]
The government was accommodating white homesteaders from the eastern
United States; in addition, it intended to "break up tribal
relationships" and "conform Indians to the white man's ways, peaceably
if they will, or forcibly if they must."
[10] On the reduced reservations, the government allocated family units on 320-acre (1.3 km
2) plots for individual households. The Lakota were expected to farm and raise livestock, and to send their children to
boarding schools.
With the goal of assimilation, the schools taught English and
Christianity, as well as European-American cultural practices.
Generally, they forbade inclusion of Native American traditional culture
and language.
To help support the Sioux during the period of transition, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
(BIA) was to supplement the Sioux with food and to hire white farmers
as teachers for the people. The farming plan failed to take into account
the difficulty which Sioux farmers would have in trying to cultivate
crops in the semi-arid region of South Dakota. By the end of the 1890
growing season, a time of intense heat and low rainfall, it was clear
that the land was unable to produce substantial agricultural yields.
Unfortunately, this was also the time when the government's patience
with supporting the so-called "lazy Indians" ran out. They cut rations
for the Sioux in half. With the
bison having been virtually eradicated a few years earlier, the Sioux were at risk of starvation.
The people turned to the Ghost Dance ritual, which frightened the
supervising agents of the BIA. Kicking Bear was forced to leave Standing
Rock, but when the dances continued unabated, Agent McLaughlin asked
for more troops. He claimed the
Hunkpapa spiritual leader
Sitting Bull was the real leader of the movement. A former agent,
Valentine McGillycuddy,
saw nothing extraordinary in the dances and ridiculed the panic that
seemed to have overcome the agencies, saying: "The coming of the troops
has frightened the Indians. If the
Seventh-Day Adventists
prepare the ascension robes for the Second Coming of the Savior, the
United States Army is not put in motion to prevent them. Why should not
the Indians have the same privilege? If the troops remain, trouble is
sure to come."
[11]
Nonetheless, thousands of additional U.S. Army troops were deployed
to the reservation. On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull was arrested for
failing to stop his people from practicing the Ghost Dance.
[12]
During the incident, one of Sitting Bull's men, Catch the Bear, fired
at Lieutenant "Bull Head," striking his right side. He instantly wheeled
and shot Sitting Bull, hitting him in the left side, between the tenth
and eleventh ribs;
[13] this exchange resulted in deaths on both sides, including that of Sitting Bull.
Wounded Knee
Big Foot, also known as Spotted Elk, was a
Miniconjou leader on the U.S. Army's list of "trouble-making" Indians. He was stopped while
en route
to convene with the remaining Sioux chiefs. U.S. Army officers forced
him to relocate with his people to a small camp close to the
Pine Ridge
Agency. Here the soldiers could more closely watch the old chief. That
evening, December 28, the small band of Sioux erected their tipis on the
banks of
Wounded Knee Creek.
The following day, during an attempt by the officers to collect weapons
from the band, one young, deaf Sioux warrior refused to relinquish his
arms. A struggle followed in which somebody's weapon discharged into the
air. One U.S. officer gave the command to open fire, and the Sioux
responded by taking up previously confiscated weapons; the U.S. forces
responded with
carbine firearms and several rapid-fire light-artillery
(Hotchkiss) guns
mounted on the overlooking hill. When the fighting had concluded, 25
U.S. soldiers lay dead, many killed by friendly fire. Amongst the 153
dead Sioux, most were women and children.
[14] Following the massacre, chief
Kicking Bear officially surrendered his weapon to General
Nelson A. Miles.
Aftermath
Outrage in the eastern United States emerged as the public learned
about the events that had transpired. The U.S. government had insisted
on numerous occasions that the Native American had already been
successfully pacified. Many Americans felt the U.S. Army actions were
harsh; some related the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek to the
"ungentlemanly act of kicking a man when he is already down." Public
uproar played a role in the reinstatement of the previous treaty's
terms, including full rations and more monetary compensation for lands
taken away.
Twenty U.S. soldiers received
Medals of Honor for their actions.
[15][16][17]
American Indian and human rights activists have referred to these as
"Medals of Dis-Honor" and called for the awards to be rescinded, but
none of them have ever been revoked.
[16][18][19][20]
Following the Wounded Knee Massacre, interest and participation in
the Ghost Dance movement dropped dramatically for fear of continued
violence against practitioners of the religion.
Relevant anthropological theory
Religious revitalization model
Anthropologist
Anthony F. C. Wallace's model (1956) describes the process of a
revitalization movement. It is derived from studies of another Native American religious movement, The Code of
Handsome Lake, which may have led to the formation of the
Longhouse Religion.
- I. Period of generally satisfactory adaptation to a group's social and natural environment.
- II. Period of increased individual stress. While the group as
a whole is able to survive through its accustomed cultural behavior,
changes in the social or natural environment frustrate efforts of many
people to obtain normal satisfactions of their needs.
- III. Period of cultural distortion. Changes in the group's
social or natural environment drastically reduce the capacity of
accustomed cultural behavior to satisfy most persons' physical and
emotional needs.
- IV. Period of revitalization: (1) reformulation of the
cultural pattern; (2) its communication; (3) organization of a
reformulated cultural pattern; (4) adaptation of the reformulated
pattern to better meet the needs and preferences of the group; (5)
cultural transformation; (6) routinization-the adapted reformulated
cultural pattern becomes the standard cultural behavior for the group.
- V. New period of generally satisfactory adaptation to the group's changed social and/or natural environment.[citation needed]
Ghost Dance within revitalization model
In
Alice Beck Kehoe's
ethnohistory
of the Ghost Dance, she presents the movement within the framework of
Wallace's model of religious revitalization. The Tövusi-dökadö's age of
traditional
subsistence patterns constitutes a period of generally satisfactory cultural adaptation to their
environment,
which lasted until around 1860. Corresponding with an influx of white
settlers begins the second phase of Wallace's model, hallmarked by
increased individual stress placed on some members of the community.
Almost the entire 1880s are placed into the model's third period, that
of cultural distortion, due to the increased presence of white
agribusiness
and the United States government. With the introduction of Jack
Wilson's Ghost Dance, the fourth period of revitalization is ushered,
which characteristically occurs after sufficient changes accrue to
significantly warp the society's cultural pattern. Following the
revitalization is yet another period of satisfactory adaptation, which
is dated to about 1900. By this time, almost all sources of traditional
food were eradicated from the Tövusi-dökadö's long-established homeland,
leading to the adoption of white American subsistence methods while
still maintaining a Paiute culture.
Chris
(Christopher) Faiers was born on Hamilton Mountain, Ontario, Canada in June 1948.
He began publishing haiku in 1968 under the guidance of Haiku Magazine’s
Eric Amann. He had an enlightenment at age 20. Cricket was his childhood nickname
and is his haijin name.
