Ghost Dancer

By Judy Merritt

Embark upon a surprising dream journey with Spotted Weasel, the spirit of a Lakota Ghost Dancer as he explores the extraordinary visions of Crazy Horse and Wovoka. Join him at Bear Butte with Hanwi and Maka-akan, the spirits of the moon and the earth. There he experiences an initiation by Wakinyan, the Thunderbird and learns he is one of the dreamers of Crazy Horse’s vision. Hanwi then becomes Spotted Weasel's guide. From then on, when he falls into trance during the Ghost Dance, he begins dreaming of B.J., a woman riding her horse Phoenix alone across the plains of South Dakota near the end of the Cold War; and of Gracie, an elder woman living alone on the prairie, as she journeys through her dreams to a city of stone temples and ancient ceremonies. Transcend time, space and culture as Spotted Weasel learns how his dreams and the visions of Crazy Horse and Wovoka are interconnected with the great turning of the celestial calendar of the ancient Holy City.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Judy Merritt
• Release date: Sep 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452423999

Judy Merritt

Judy Merritt, the mother of one and grandmother of three, lives in a cottage at the edge of Nevis, Minnesota. Other publications include: "Coming to the Place Where Eagles Soar," a collection of personal narratives; "Mountain Rising," a novel; and numerous magazine articles. She is the former editor of the Cass Lake Times, Cass Lake, Minnesota and the Northwoods Press, Nevis, Minnesota; and has won numerous writing awards, including three for chapters of Ghost Dancer. She has a degree in English and Sociology from Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota.

Book preview

Spotted Weasel Introduces Himself

Nearly a hundred winter counts have come and gone since I was last a man who walked upon this sacred land. Yet I still remember how my blood pulsed the heartbeat of the drum as it did when I danced the Wanagi Wacipi, the dance of the ghosts. Now I am the ghost of a Ghost Dancer. And, still, each night when I dance, I can almost hear my feet pounding rhythmically upon the ground; I can almost feel my body move with each step of the dance. And when I drop into trance—dreams wing into consciousness. Memories take form. Until, the great Wi-akan rises and I become one with the dazzling light of each new day.

Ey-hee! I have forgotten my manners! As one who is about to tell a story, it is necessary that I introduce myself for my words to echo the truth of my being.

I am a Huncpapa Lakota from the time when the great Sitting Bull was our leader. In the language of the wasichu, I am called Spotted Weasel. During the last days of my life upon this earth, I danced the Ghost Dance.

When I returned to the Badlands near the place of my death, I found others like myself. When as spirits, we returned to earth and the only thing we could remember was the Ghost Dance from Wovoka’s vision. While we were living, the dance had spread across the country like wildfire, igniting hope in Indians everywhere. For a brief time, we lived to dance the Ghost Dance; and in the end we died because of it.

Now each night holding hands that have neither flesh nor bone, we circle round and round. Dancing. Dancing. Dancing until we fall exhausted to the ground—to dream.

The earliest dreams after my death were of the buffalo, the tatanka-akan, emerging from the caves in our beloved Paha Sapa, the Black Hills. Taku wakan, the Great Spirit, gave these sacred animals to the Lakota for food, for tools, for shelter, for our clothing. For many generations my people prospered from the gifts of the buffalo.

As a boy, I learned both to hunt and to honor these sacred animals. But the life of my people changed quickly when the wasichu came onto our lands. In the year 1868 by the white man’s count, I watched whole herds of buffalo fall before the fire sticks of men leaning from the windows of the iron horses that run on rails. Without first using the honoring ceremony, they cut only the tongues from the fallen buffalo, then left the carcasses of the tatanka-akan to rot. I was just a young man, but I had the wisdom to know that without the buffalo our people could not survive.

That same year, our Lakota hunters suffered lean hunts and so there was little meat to fill our winter caches. Our warriors could not hold back the Blue Coat soldiers. Many of our people were killed and driven from their lands, but some of us kept fighting. Then the wasichu promised that if we gave up warring against them, and if we left our hunting grounds, we could retain the Black Hills and some of the land to the east for as long as the grass shall grow and the water flows. The Great White Father in the east would provide us with food and shelter, they said, if we signed a treaty at Fort Laramie and lived on the land they marked off by descriptions on those pieces of paper.

Many of us lay down our weapons and moved to the reservations. We called those of our people who did so friendlies. But I chose to join my cousin Tall Deer and others; we hid in Paha Sapa and continued to fight for our old way of life. The friendlies called us blanket Indians.

Our raiding parties killed many of the wasichu who crossed our land, but for every one we killed, ten replaced him. It seemed as if all the taku wakan—the sacred spirits that are the mystery of the Wakan Tanka—had left us and no number of ceremonies could call them back.

The fall of 1871 a pipe carrier came to our camp. After we smoked the pipe of peace, he gave us his message—Crazy Horse was fasting at Bear Butte preparing to seek a vision. When I heard this, my heart filled with light. Surely the spirits would give the great warrior Crazy Horse a vision to guide us. Even before we had completed the pipe ceremony, I had made the decision to travel to Bear Butte. Tall Deer and several others joined me.

We arrived there the morning that Worm, the father of Crazy Horse, led him off the mountain. Many other Lakota and Cheyenne had also come. We waited together in silence at the bottom of the prayer hill.

Tears stung my eyes when I saw Worm and Crazy Horse walking along the narrow path at the top of the hill, coming to address us.

A voice from above spoke to me, Crazy Horse said. ‘Look around you’, the voice said. As I did so, it was as if I could see the entire world. A great darkness covered the land. All people that walked upon the sacred earth were affected by this darkness.

Even from a distance, I could see Crazy Horse trembling. This shadow will be upon the land for many, many years, he said. It will fill people with fear, anger, sadness, and near-despair. Many will turn to drinking the fire water that makes men crazy. Many battles will be fought, greater than any that our warriors present have yet experienced.

Then it was if he looked each of us in the eyes. You, my people, and people of all races, will walk upon the earth as if asleep at the same time thinking you are awake, he cried.

Worm then stepped forward and spoke in a voice strong for a man bent in years of sorrow. "Do not despair. Though we will pass through a time of suffering, it will prepare us for a better world to come. And there will be a time when light will cut through the darkness. It will be like the Anpeyoka—the first dawn that awakened the First People to life on this earth and brought the tatanka-akan from the ground below!" Worm’s voice cracked.

Crazy Horse placed his hand on his father’s shoulder. My father is wise to council us not to despair, he said. The voice from above told me a tree will sprout from this sacred mountain, and peoples of all nations from around the earth will be drawn to dance and sing together beneath its branches. They will be as if they are children newly born in awe at the strangeness and beauty about them. Animals and the sacred little people of old will join them and be honored once again.

Even as I tell the story of this sad time, Crazy Horse’s last words echo throughout my being:

Dreamers will awaken to dream of the ancient ones, who will teach the people the sacred ways that have been forgotten—and with this knowledge we will create a new way of living upon the earth!

Of late I have dreamed again and again of that time at Bear Butte. The other dancers wonder if these dreams are a sign that the New Dawn is nearing.

The first light now softens the horizon and I must return to Wi-akan. I will continue introducing myself when the deep shadow of night decorates the sky with patterned lights.

* * *

Now I appear once more on Stronghold Mountain Table with the other ghosts of Ghost Dancers. Our spirits return when the night gloves the last fingers of Wi-akan’s light.

As the other dancers prepare themselves for tonight’s dance, I will continue my story:

During the following eighteen years of my life I seemed to move day after day through a dark fog. I traveled north to Grandmother’s Country with Sitting Bull and many others of our band who were not able to accept life on an assigned reservation. There I took a young widow, Pretty Bear, to be my wife. She bore me two sons. We did our best to raise our children in the old ways. Living was harsh in the north country. In years when game was scarce, winter killed many. Near the end of the fall of 1882, our village caches were empty. Because we knew we could not survive the months of the cold moons, Pretty Bear and I crossed the border to our own lands and returned to what the wasichu called Standing Rock Reservation, to rejoin the Huncpapa band.

Little that followed brought us joy. One of our sons died of the spotted disease and the other from drinking the deadly firewater. Pretty Bear and I barely survived the Winter of the Deep Snows. I think the only thing that kept me alive was remembering the vision of Crazy Horse. I prayed each day that someday my Pretty Bear would have reason to smile again.

In 1889 news came to us of the vision of a wicasa wacan called Wovoka, a holy man from the Paiute tribe who lived where the Land Ended. He had been ill and feverish and had lain for weeks like a dead man. During the time when a shadow completely covered the sun, he awakened and spoke of a remarkable vision.

Wovoka, who many called the Indian Messiah, dreamed a world that brought hope back to our people. In his vision Wovoka learned songs and a dance to prepare for this time. He called it the Ghost Dance because those who danced would be reunited with their ancestors.

All Indians everywhere must dance! Wovoka said. "You must keep on dancing. Pretty soon—next spring—the Great Spirit will come. The earth will shake until it is covered with new soil, but do not be afraid. The earth will become quiet again and we will be set back down upon the land where our ancestors and relatives will be alive again waiting for us. Tatanka and wild horses will also return; and we can live in our old ways again. There will be no more sickness and the old will be young again."

Wovoka showed Indian people who came to him how to dance and taught them the words to the songs. He also showed them how to make the special shirts he had seen in his vision to wear during the Ghost Dance. Many believed the shirts were so powerful they would stop the bullets of the white man’s firesticks.

Keep on dancing, Wovoka said. Do not hurt or do harm to anyone…and do right always.

* * *

Soon after news of Wovoka’s vision reached our reservation, criers brought word that all the widows in Big Foot’s band living on the Cheyenne River Reservation east of us were dancing. When they fell to the ground, they dreamed of their dead husbands.

We heard the agent at the Cheyenne River Agency tried to stop them, but Big Foot moved his people off the reservation to Deep Creek so they could continue dancing. Pretty Bear’s sister was among them.

Pretty Bear began dancing the Ghost Dance to see our sons again. I danced because Wovoka’s vision reminded me of Crazy Horse’s vision of a time when all people would sing and dance in peace. I felt hope spark in my heart. The more we danced, the more the spark fanned into flames. So many people were dancing on reservations everywhere that almost all other activity had stopped.

Chief Sitting Bull said he did not believe that the dead could come alive again but he defended our right to dance. That defense caused Agent McLaughlin to order the arrest of Sitting Bull. He told the Blue Coat soldiers that Sitting Bull was the authority behind the Ghost Dance on the Standing Rock Reservation.

When I learned of the arrest, I joined a group of Ghost Dancers who were surrounding Sitting Bull’s cabin to stop the soldiers from taking our chief. A bullet whistled past my head and our great leader dropped from where he stood in the doorway. His blood pooled beneath him. He died at the hands of Red Tomahawk, one of our people who worked for the white man in exchange for their money.

Not long before the murder of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse was bayoneted by a sentry on duty at Fort Robinson. If it hadn’t been for the hope still smoldering from the Ghost Dance, the deaths of these two great chiefs would have been unbearable. The night after we lost Sitting Bull, we gave our hearts over to the Indian Messiah in dance. The next day the Huncpapa held council. Deliberation was short. We would follow Wovoka’s words to do no harm to anyone. We would not take revenge for Sitting Bull’s death. Instead we would dance every night to prepare for the spring and the coming of the new earth.

It seemed that the Ghost Dance alarmed the white man because agents all across Indian country ordered us to stop dancing on reservations everywhere. All these agents must have received that order from the Great White Father himself.

"The wasichu know there is power in the Ghost Dance, Pretty Bear told me, her eyes shining. We can’t let them stop us." She had received word from her sister that Big Foot was taking his band to the Pine Ridge Agency to seek the protection of Red Cloud, the last of our great chiefs. With Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull dead, Big Foot feared retaliation for his people’s part in the killing of Long Hair Custer and his soldiers at the Greasy Grass River.

Can we join Big Foot? my wife asked. I could dance with my sister every night.

It had been so long since I had seen light in Pretty Bear’s eyes that I agreed to go.

In all, thirty-six members of our Huncpapa band chose to travel with Big Foot’s band of Minneconjou to Red Cloud’s country. The total number of those who set out on the journey was one hundred and twenty men, most of them older, like myself, and two hundred and thirty women and children. Our spirits were high and each night after making camp we danced the Ghost Dance.

Several days into our journey, we heard that Big Foot had become ill and was coughing up blood. Still we held onto the belief that we were preparing for a better life. That belief was strengthened the next day when Pretty Bear spotted a stray wasichu cow walking toward us. She trilled a signal and the hunters quickly responded. This meat surely was a gift from the Wakan Tanka.

That night we feasted and danced the Ghost Dance. Pretty Bear looked young again as she moved round and round in the moonlight—smiling.

The next day our scouts returned on steaming horses with news that the Blue Coat pony soldiers were waiting ahead of us at the next pass.

There is nothing we can do but keep going, Big Foot said, after consulting with his scouts. This is the only pass through here, and we have come too far to turn back and take another route. He ordered that a white flag be raised when we came in sight of the soldiers at Porcupine Creek.

Pretty Bear was heartened when the white soldier chief Whiteside transferred Big Foot to a medicine wagon, but I feared no good could come from this. A heaviness descended upon me. With soldiers walking in front of our people and on both sides and behind us, we were escorted to Chankpe Opi Wakpala, Wounded Knee Creek. The soldiers brought food and several tents to accommodate us as we made camp just south of the soldier’s camp.

Four Hotchkiss guns were set up along the creek on the ridges above our camp. Two troops of Blue Coat pony soldiers surrounded us. The next morning, December 29, 1890, the soldiers came to disarm us and bring us into the Pine Ridge Agency. I knew we were going to be moved to the agency, but I did not know if there would be food. I had no gun to surrender, so I quickly slipped away from the commotion to check my rabbit snares.

Take care of each other, I told Pretty Bear and her sister. I will make haste and be back soon with food for us. I squeezed Pretty Bear’s hand. It was the last time I touched her.

I had been gone only moments when I heard gunfire. I ran back to the top of the ridge as quickly as I could. I saw my people falling from the bullets of the Hotchkiss guns.

Then I saw Pretty Bear half-carrying her sister, who was holding her stomach to keep her entrails from falling out, and trying to reach the brush along the creek. I started down the ridge to help. Before I could reach them, Pretty Bear’s head exploded, and the two sisters fell into a mangled heap, their bodies jumping from the bullets that still tore at them.

My blood ran hot. I bolted up the ridge and threw myself on a man who was firing one of the big guns and strangled him with the cord that tied together the three rabbits I had caught. I waved my hands and shouted as I ran and jumped back and forth at the top of the ridge trying to get the soldiers to shoot at me instead of at the fleeing women and children. Kill me, you cowards, I yelled. Bullets whizzed past me, but none struck me.

* * *

I sit on the edge of Strong Mountain Table listening to the coyotes sing to Hanwi, the beautiful spirit of the moon. I have told the other dancers I will not join them tonight. I’m sure they must think this strange. Many springs have come and gone since I first began dancing the Ghost Dance with them, and still Wovoka’s vision of a new earth has not come to pass. We continue to dance because we know nothing else. And every night we fall into trance, remembering who we were when we walked upon this earth, for what purpose we may never know.

Tonight I will not dance. Instead, I will finish telling my story. Perhaps it will be carried along with the coyotes’ song to Hanwi, who appears to be smiling.

* * *

At Wounded Knee, bewildered that I had not died along with Pretty Bear and the others, I stumbled and fell to my knees. Then I saw why the spirits might have kept me alive—Pretty Bear’s two cousins and her young niece were in the brambles by the creek, hiding beneath a blanket. I quickly ran down to them and crouched low.

Follow me, I whispered. We need to get out of here before the soldiers come searching for survivors.

We made it as far as Stronghold Mountain Table before the weather turned bitingly cold. Then the snows came. We had no food but the three rabbits tied to my belt, a single blanket, and the clothes on our backs.

We had no way to start a fire, so I cut the rabbit meat into thin strips that we ate raw, saving some for later. We dug into the snow for shelter and did our best to keep each other awake. The cold was slowly draining the life from us.

The weather has turned against us, I said. We cannot survive here. I tore a piece of cloth from my pant leg and tied it to a walking stick I had picked up along the creek. Surely, the Blue Coat soldiers’ thirst for blood has passed. I will surrender myself to them and ask them to return here for you.

The two women stared at me with vacant looks in their eyes. No words came from their purple lips. The child lay across the women’s laps with her eyes closed. Frost crystals glistened in her eyelashes.

I was more dead than alive when I arrived at the ridge above Wounded Knee Creek. Rage brought life back to me when I saw the wasichu loading onto a wagon the corpses of my people frozen into the grotesque shapes of their violent deaths. Ripping the flag from the walking stick, I brandished it like a club. With my last strength, I ran down the ridge straight for one of the Blue Coat soldiers. Bullets tore through my lungs and silenced my war cry.

I felt my spirit rise out of my body. My last living thoughts were of my three companions huddled in a hole in the snow on Stronghold Mountain Table. They had trusted me. Now because of my rage they would freeze to death.

Light blazed through these dark thoughts. I had heard stories of spirit beings all of my life, but the stories didn’t describe the sense of warmth and overwhelming love that I felt in the presence of the being of light who stood before me.

"Are you Taku Skanskan?" I asked, but how I could do so I did not know, for I had left my body behind.

In answer, I was filled with light and I understood that this being of light was called by many names. It did not matter which name was used—but only that we recognized and honored its light within all of creation.

My life then passed before me, every minute of it in all its detail. Then I saw myself in other lives with different bodies, all of them connected by beautiful swirling lights ranging from the deepest purple to the brightest white. I realized that each of these lives was less than a spark of flint in the vastness of time.

This vision was more than my mind could grasp, but in the presence of my guide I felt peace and trusted everything I saw to be true.

My companion pointed toward the wanagi tacaku, the spirit path. I somehow knew I could either follow it or, instead, return to earth as a formless being. I understood at that moment that I needed to stay behind to release the anger, grief, and despair from my heart before I could face the Wakan Tanka at the end of the path.

I choose to return to the earth. I bowed before Taku Skanskan. I ask only that I may have another chance to help the three companions that I have forsaken because of my anger.

I found myself back at Stronghold Mountain Table in a ghost shape of my living self. I saw my companions huddled together in their snow cave. I had no more than thought it before I arrived at the nearest wasichu ranch, where several horses stood in a corral. I befriended a red stallion and convinced him to push his rump through the wooden fence. Then I jumped on his back and, with two mares following, rode to my companions. I knew the rancher would be close behind. I heard his yell in the wind.

When I arrived at the snow shelter, I calmed the horses into stopping. I coaxed the two mares to lie down beside the women and girl. The stallion stood near them twitching his ears. I waited for the rancher to arrive to retrieve his horses. He soon found the three refugees. It was too late for the women, but the young girl was still alive. The rancher wrapped her in his coat and carried her home at the front of his saddle, leading the stallion and two mares tied behind him. I followed them back to the ranch and stayed for many moons watching the woman of the house nurse the girl back to health and love her as her own daughter. They called her Annabelle.

* * *

By the time I drifted from the ranch, I had forgotten nearly everything I had been shown at the edge of the spirit trail, including my life as a man called Spotted Weasel. I wandered aimlessly throughout the Badlands for many, many winter counts until I came again to Stronghold Mountain Table and there met other Ghost Dancers who had chosen to stay behind. They pulled me into their circle to dance.

Since then, each night we dance. When I fall into a dream trance, bits of my life flash into my mind. I put them together as best I can. That is how I have come to know who I am.

Perhaps now I am ready to walk the spirit path.

Not yet.

I am startled to hear a voice speak from above me.

Who’s there? I ask.

"It is I, Hanwi. Look toward the west."

I do as I am told and see only the moon emerging from behind a cloud.

The voice speaks again. We are all One.

I stare at the moon in disbelief. Never before have I heard the voice of the spirit of the moon. Its sweetness surpasses the song of the morning dove.

The proper response to my greeting is to bow and say, ‘All is as it should be’, Hanwi says, as clearly as if she were beside me.

I drop to my knees and bow my head to the ground, frightened that I may have angered one of the Great Spirits.

All is as it should be, I answer, adding, I am your humble servant, O Great One.

Much better. I like a man with manners, she says. Now let me begin again. It is not yet time for you to leave this earth. Your story is only just beginning.

What are you saying? I ask, sitting up on my heels.

Her answer is a soft-spoken command. Come with me and I will show you.

Before I can nod my head in agreement, I find myself sitting at the base of Bear Butte, just in time for Wi-akan to dissolve me into light.

Initiation at Bear Butte

I awake to the stars shining above the dark silhouette of the rounded hip of the mountain that is shaped like a bear lying down to rest. It is unmistakably the wondrous Mato Paha—Bear Butte. I realize I am seated on top of the prayer hill where I once listened to Crazy Horse tell of his great vision. I think of all the times during my life as a Lakota man that I longed to return here to see whether the tree Crazy Horse spoke of had yet taken root. The few trees I can see now in the dark are shadowed pines, stunted from clinging to this rocky hillside, being buffeted by the wind.

I contemplate Hanwi’s purpose in bringing me here. Am I to dance the Ghost Dance alone? Last night she appeared only near morning. If I must, I will sit here and wait for her all night.

Thunder in distant clouds rumbles as if a herd of buffalo had begun stampeding after catching the scent of men and horses on the hunt. I look to the west as the clouds of buffalo charge over the Black Hills, their hooves striking lightning on the rocky peaks below.

When I was a man walking upon this land, I would have taken shelter from such a storm, but as a wanagi I stand with arms outstretched to the sky above me to welcome it. A lightning bolt flashes from a purple cloud, striking me between the eyes. I collapse to the ground. Brilliant light explodes into falling stars that drop out of sight, leaving only darkness. Time ceases to exist. I contemplate whether I have ceased to exist as well—until a soft light appears from out of nowhere.

We are all One.

I leap to my feet, surprised to see a spirit woman dressed in a gown of silver shimmering light standing before me.

Have you forgotten your manners already?

Hanwi’s is the only voice I know to be that sweet. I drop to my knees and bow before her, humbled that she approaches me in spirit form.

All is as it should be. I belatedly answer with the response she taught me during our last visit.

Hanwi touches my shoulder. I am convinced the only thing that keeps my heart from bursting is the beautiful light that surrounds me.

Come sit with me. She moves without seeming to move, and suddenly she sits across from me. I do not raise my eyes to look into her face because I am afraid I may disappear into her light as I do into Wi-akan’s during his daily journey across the sky, and I do not want to leave Hanwi.

You will not be changed by looking at me.

Haho! She reads my thoughts as if I speak aloud to her!

Hanwi motions for me to look around. No longer am I sitting on the hillside—I am inside a lodge made of stone. Soft light glows from the rocks, illuminating the space. Large stone bowls placed along the walls are filled with white fruit. When I examine the fruit more closely, my head swoons from its pungent odor, and my knees begin to buckle. Hanwi steadies me with her gaze.

I walk to the middle of the cave and look around. I see a spirit being who sits in a large rock chair set against a wall. Her dress looks as though it is cut from a luminous fabric made of the leaves of every plant and tree that grows upon the earth, all interwoven with dazzling flowers. Her skin is the color of fallen pine needles that blanket the forest floor. Her eyes are the deep brown of polished hazel nuts.

Come sit, the spirit woman commands, motioning me toward a smaller chair to her right, one of a circle of chairs placed on either side of her. "My sister is slow in making introductions so I will introduce myself. You know me by the name Maka-akan."

I approach her and bow low. O Great Spirit of the Earth, I am not worthy to sit next to you. Allow me instead to sit at your feet as your humble servant.

If you must. She turns to Hanwi. What a delightful visitor you have brought to me. You say he is ready for the next stage of his teaching?

Hanwi sits in the chair to the left of Maka-akan. He has been dancing the Ghost Dance for nearly a hundred years, she says. And he stood on this mountain when the one called Crazy Horse came to see you in this lodge.

Crazy Horse was a man of great vision, Maka-akan says. What is your name, human spirit?

I am called Spotted Weasel, I say, my voice barely audible even to my own ears.

Maka-akan turns to Hanwi. Are you certain this one is a dreamer?

A dreamer of Crazy Horse’s vision? I’m not sure whether I have asked this aloud or merely thought it—I am so astounded by words of these two Great Spirits.

Hanwi looks toward me. I am sure, she says.

How can that be so? I ask myself, too fearful to speak aloud. I am only the ghost of a Ghost Dancer who has returned to earth to ease my heart before taking my journey along the spirit path.

He must be awakened. Maka-akan stands and extends her hand to me. Come, she says. We will go to the sacred pool.

I stand also and take her hand. I feel as though all joy and sorrow, all life and death, all love