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Various Sizes - Matted Prints
An inter-tribal religious movement called the Ghost Dance, a hybrid of ancient native religion and Christianity, which promised a return to the good life before the European invasion swept the Great Plains in the 1890's.
Clothed in elaborately painted buckskin dresses, the Ghost Dancers would chant, pray, and dance tirelessly in a circular motion for hours and even days at a time. Their clothing is primarily decorated with astral imagery signifying the heavens as the Other World where spirits and ancestors dwell. The beaded five-pointed stars used to decorate this Ghost Dance dress, rather than the Maltese cross or four-pointed star, suggests an ultimate source in American flags and military paraphernalia and therefore represents the attempted adoption of the power of the U.S. Government. On the yoke is the figure of a woman, flanked by eagles, and holding a pipe in one hand and a feather or bundle of sage in the other. The eagles, a traditional honoring symbol, reflects the idea that eagles transported Ghost Dancers who were in a state of trance to the other world, where they saw their deceased relatives and glimpsed the world to come. Above this woman are two Maltese crosses representing the Morning Star, a symbol for the Messiah, and an allusion to the dawning of a new era in which the problems of this present world would vanish.
Click on Photo to view Full Image
Various Sizes - Matted Prints
An inter-tribal religious movement called the Ghost Dance, a hybrid of ancient native religion and Christianity, which promised a return to the good life before the European invasion swept the Great Plains in the 1890's.
Clothed in elaborately painted buckskin dresses, the Ghost Dancers would chant, pray, and dance tirelessly in a circular motion for hours and even days at a time. Their clothing is primarily decorated with astral imagery signifying the heavens as the Other World where spirits and ancestors dwell. The beaded five-pointed stars used to decorate this Ghost Dance dress, rather than the Maltese cross or four-pointed star, suggests an ultimate source in American flags and military paraphernalia and therefore represents the attempted adoption of the power of the U.S. Government. On the yoke is the figure of a woman, flanked by eagles, and holding a pipe in one hand and a feather or bundle of sage in the other. The eagles, a traditional honoring symbol, reflects the idea that eagles transported Ghost Dancers who were in a state of trance to the other world, where they saw their deceased relatives and glimpsed the world to come. Above this woman are two Maltese crosses representing the Morning Star, a symbol for the Messiah, and an allusion to the dawning of a new era in which the problems of this present world would vanish.
Click on Photo to view Full Image