Analysis: The Messiah Letter (Wovoka)

Date: c. January 1889 (recorded August 1891)

Author: Jack Wilson, a.k.a. Wovoka

Genre: letter; sermon

Summary Overview

The Messiah Letter, composed by Paiute medicine man Wovoka, also known as Jack Wilson, is a foundational document laying out the premise behind the Ghost Dance religious movement, which Wovoka claimed was revealed to him in a vision in January 1889. At the time of this revelation, American Indian tribes across the nation were in a period of difficult transition. Just over fifty years earlier, the federal government had begun to move all Indians to land west of the Mississippi River, then to smaller and smaller reservations as the demand for farmland for white Americans grew after the Civil War. Wovoka proposed a way for Indians to restore their idyllic past, but he did not call for warfare against the encroaching whites. Rather, he called for Indians to remain at peace, live ethically, abstain from drinking alcohol, work hard, and perform the sacred dance, which became known as the Ghost Dance.

Defining Moment

During the last thirty-five years of the nineteenth century, American Indian nations faced an increasingly hopeless situation. Many eastern tribes had already been forced off of their land and pushed across the country to settle in Oklahoma, while many western tribes were seeing more and more white Americans moving west in order to start farms and ranches. The lands granted to Native peoples were becoming progressively smaller, and the more fertile lands were being reserved for the new white immigrants. All the while, federal Indian policy held that they should be forced to give up their traditional religions, languages, and lifestyles in favor of American Christianity and farming.

By the 1880s, many tribes were becoming restless on reservations that held no opportunities or possibilities for them. About that time, a Northern Paiute prophet in western Nevada named Wovoka announced a new religious movement that would hasten the return of the dead (from which it got its name, the Ghost Dance), the elimination of the American settlers, and the restoration of the Indian way of life and all lands they had held before the arrival of European settlers. In order to achieve this, Indian people would have to perform the dance that God had revealed to Wovoka, strictly observe a moral code that had its roots in Christianity, and refuse to make war against or consume the alcohol brought by white people. As Indians in Wovoka's immediate vicinity began performing the dance, stories of the visions they received and healings that occurred began to spread across the West.

Wovoka had been influenced by a Northern Paiute mystic named Tävibo, whom Wovoka claimed was his father. Tävibo had started a similar movement some twenty years earlier, promising that all white people would be swallowed up by the earth if the Indians danced the circle dance he specified. Wovoka's message started from Tävibo's and incorporated aspects of a number of different Christian religious groups present in Nevada, including Presbyterians, Mormons, and the Indian Shaker Church. In January 1889, he claimed that he had received a vision in which God had revealed to him a new dance and a new message specifically for Indian people of all nations. This message combined all of the influences in Wovoka's life and offered hope to Indian people throughout the West, most of whom were facing the same difficult times.

Whereas Tävibo's 1870 movement had only spread to tribes in Nevada, California, and Oregon, Wovoka's Ghost Dance would travel across the West. Many tribes, notably the Arapaho and the Cheyenne, sent medicine men to receive his teachings. Tribes from the Canadian border to as far south as Texas and as far east as the Missouri River practiced the dance and religious acts described in the Messiah Letter.

Author Biography

Wovoka, or Jack Wilson, was born in western Nevada around 1856. Raised by a white rancher's family after his father died, he spoke English and was involved with a number of Christian groups during his early life. At the age of about thirty, Wovoka began to make prophecies about the end of white dominance of the region and a return to an idyllic past. These prophecies centered on the actions of the Indians themselves, whom Wovoka claimed must live a moral life and perform the Ghost Dance in order for his predictions to come true. His new religious movement was heavily Christian in many respects, including its espousal of pacifism and personal ethics as well as several explicit references to Jesus, but at the same time, it was influenced by the dances and mystical aspects of the religious beliefs of his own people. Wovoka's message only provided the basic outline of the Ghost Dance movement, allowing the tribes that embraced it to adapt its principles to meet their own circumstances.

Document Analysis

Wovoka's Messiah Letter is a transcript of the message delivered to the Arapaho and Cheyenne delegates who had traveled to Nevada to meet with him and learn the Ghost Dance. It was written down by two attendees at the event, an Arapaho man named Casper Edson and the daughter of a Cheyenne delegate named Black Short Nose, and recorded by ethnographer James Mooney. The letter describes the basic tenets revealed in Wovoka's vision, leaving much room for interpretation and variation in how they were implemented.

The letter first says to perform the dance for five days. Although Wovoka does not specify the form of the dance, the actual dance performed, known as the circle dance, was common among western tribes. Then Wovoka begins to make prophecies. He says, “In the fall there will be such a rain as I have never given you before,” clearly implying that he personally is responsible for bringing the rain and snow. Later in the letter, Wovoka claims, “Jesus is now upon the earth. He appears like a cloud,” again referencing himself as the bringer of the weather.

His authority established, Wovoka moves into descriptions of how those who follow the Ghost Dance movement must live. He advises Indians not to cry when friends pass away, as they will all come back to life when the prophecy is fulfilled. He tells them to live in peace with all people, regardless of race, and to “do right always.” While many tribes had been waging war against the white settlers encroaching on their lands, Wovoka calls for a different approach, asking his audience not to resist, since the fulfillment of the prophecies will make all things right. He also says that the Ghost Dance is for Indians alone and must not be shared or even discussed with whites.

Though religious beliefs often give hope of an eternal reward, Wovoka claims that the reward he is bringing is imminent and will come if people only perform the dance and live as he instructs. After referencing Jesus, and possibly identifying with him, Wovoka states that “the dead are still alive again” and that, though they have not yet arrived, they may be there by “this fall or in the spring.”

At the end, Wovoka returns to the idea of keeping peace with white people, encouraging Indians to work for them and not to worry, as the coming changes that will remove the whites from their land will not affect them. His prophecy complete, he promises to return and give them another message, presumably about the imminent return of the dead and the new age that he intends to usher in. According to anthropologist Michael Hittman, Wovoka never lost faith in his prophecies or his own role as a supernatural being, acting as a medicine man almost until his death in 1932.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Hittman, Michael. Wovoka and the Ghost Dance. Ed. Don Lynch. Expanded ed. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1997. Print.

Kehoe, Alice Beck. The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization. New York: Holt, 1989. Print.

Mooney, James. The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. 1892. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1991. Print.