Wovoka, << woh VOH kuh >> (1856?-1932), a Paiute religious leader, founded the Ghost Dance religion of 1890 among the Native American tribes of the Plains. While sick with a fever in the late 1880’s, he dreamed that God taught him a dance. God told him to teach his people to live peaceably and love others. Then no Native American would ever grow old or suffer illness or hunger. All the dead and buffalo would come back to life. By doing the dance, which white people called the Ghost Dance, Native Americans would make these good times come sooner. Wovoka based his teachings on a similar Ghost Dance religion that was founded in the late 1860’s but which had died out.
Wovoka’s religion was adopted by many Plains tribes that had been forced onto reservations and suffered from hunger and disease. Whites had wiped out the buffalo, their chief source of food. Although the religion was nonviolent, United States Army leaders feared it would lead to an uprising by the Sioux in what is now South Dakota. The Army had Indian police try to arrest Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull , but he was killed in the attempt. Sitting Bull’s death led eventually to the deaths of many other Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890.
Wovoka was born in Nevada. He grew up in the home of a white settler named David Wilson, who called Wovoka Jack Wilson. Wovoka died on Sept. 29, 1932.
