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Various Sizes - Matted Prints
Swaying before a sun rising over the Great Plains, four female Arapaho dancers, clothed in elaborately painted buckskin dresses, have chanted, prayed, and danced tirelessly in a circular motion all night. This is the Ghost Dance, a circle dance that originated among the Northern Paiute and was promoted by the religious leader Wovoka. This hybrid of ancient native religion and Christianity swept the Plains in the 1890's.
These Native Americans believed that proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead; bring the spirits of the dead to fight on their behalf; make the white colonists leave; and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Indian peoples throughout the region. Having danced all night, these adherents are greeted by the dawn, a sacred time of day for Native Americans, symbolizing the rebirth of the world. Celestial iconography of moons and stars decorate their buckskin dresses and the Maltese cross or Morning Star, being a symbol for the Messiah, also refers to the dawning of a new universe in which the problems of this present world vanish.
Click on Photo to view Full Image
Various Sizes - Matted Prints
Swaying before a sun rising over the Great Plains, four female Arapaho dancers, clothed in elaborately painted buckskin dresses, have chanted, prayed, and danced tirelessly in a circular motion all night. This is the Ghost Dance, a circle dance that originated among the Northern Paiute and was promoted by the religious leader Wovoka. This hybrid of ancient native religion and Christianity swept the Plains in the 1890's.
These Native Americans believed that proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead; bring the spirits of the dead to fight on their behalf; make the white colonists leave; and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Indian peoples throughout the region. Having danced all night, these adherents are greeted by the dawn, a sacred time of day for Native Americans, symbolizing the rebirth of the world. Celestial iconography of moons and stars decorate their buckskin dresses and the Maltese cross or Morning Star, being a symbol for the Messiah, also refers to the dawning of a new universe in which the problems of this present world vanish.
Click on Photo to view Full Image