Moments of Enchantment; 81; Indian Clothes

The 1890s and Native Americans throughout America are rebelling against the new government with clothing and a dance, more in a moment. In the end of the last century, the Indians of America were brutalized by the harsh conditions on reservations. During a solar eclipse on New Year's Day 1889, a pious Indian had a vision of the apocalypse. The earth would be covered by mud, and only those who believed in a new religion, the ghost dance, would avoid drowning when Jesus Christ returned. To prepare themselves for the second coming, it was necessary for the Indians to design a new, more traditional form of clothing for the ceremonial dance. The new clothes were decorated with special symbols and designs, including sacred red okra, the four-pointed morning star, and the traditional thunderbird.

These designs the Indians thought would render the clothes and thus the wearers invulnerable to the white man's bullets. But the main significance of the ghost dance clothing was in the way it united the tribes, the Sioux, Kiowa, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kamenchi, and others in a spirit of defiance against the U.S. Army. They refused to accept defeat in the face of the hostile enemy, and the clothing served as a visual symbol and rallying point, not unlike a flag around which the Indians could unite. Students of the ghost dance are constantly struck by the many ironies of the religion. Though it was proclaimed as a return to traditional Indian religion, it prophesied the second coming of Jesus Christ. Though it was explicitly a non-violent movement, and all weapons were banned from the ceremonial areas, it ended with the violent massacre at wounded knee. To learn more about the ghost dance, visit the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, where a Kiowa ghost dance dress is on display. Moments of Enchantment brought to you by the New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs.

For Moments of Enchantment, I am David Griffin.