Two social movements arose among American Indian peoples in the latter nineteenth century – the 1870 Ghost Dance and the 1890 Ghost Dance. Each had the same objective: to restore American Indian societies devastated by contact with Europeans. The restorations were to occur through the performance of prescribed dances and were to include the removal of whites from Indian lands; reappearance of animal and plant food supplies, specifically the buffalo; and elimination of disease. They were also to include the return of American Indian dead to life; thus the name “Ghost” Dances.

Each Ghost Dance movement has received a variety of scholarly attention, from descriptions of the performance of actual dances, to cultural, social, even psychological explanations, to empirical research on tribal participation. My work, reported here, examines the conditions that fostered the Ghost Dance movements and tribal participation in them.

In contrast to prior scholarship on these movements, I emphasize the demographic situations of American Indians. My thesis is that the Ghost Dance movements were meant to accomplish a demographic revitalization. By joining the movements, tribes might assure their survival by increasing their numbers through returning the dead to life, which was the most fundamental objective of both movements. From this point of view, the Ghost Dances were deliberate attempts to respond to a threatening situation rather than a phenomenon of mass hysteria.