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The American Plains

In the late 19th century The booming railroad industry began moving settlers across the American plains from the cities in the east. The massive buffalo herds were disastrous for railroad operations causing long delays, and setting back time tables. the railroads employed posses to shoot down the herds, there skins tanned and turned into belts used for industrial machinery that was slowly creeping across the frontier.

The Ghost Dance

In the twilight of the great Plains Nations, as tribes were relegated to reservations, on New Years Day 1889, a solar eclipse blackened the sky over North America. During the phenomena the Northern Paiute religious leader Wokova, reportedly scummed to scarlet fever, died and then resurrected. Wovoka had become a shaman nearly 20 years prior and early on began incorporating white christian, Mormon, Quaker, and Shaker elements into his and his followers beliefs. Wovoka claimed that while dead he had been shown by the great force of the universe, called WakanTanka, the future of the Native american peoples, that by living a simple and peaceful existence the would gain salvation, that white civilization would be wiped from the continent and the peoples ancestors would be brought back from the spirit world. To ensure that Wovoka's vision would come to pass he taught his followers the Ghost Dance. The Dance, given to him in his vision by the ancestors, was a traditional round dance, or circle which derived its form from the movement of the sun in the sky. The members held hands moving in a large circle around a fire, or a young sapling, in constant prayer. The dance would last for several days, with participants often falling to the ground unconscious and shaking, reporting after of receiving images of the new world to come from Wakantanka. Quickly Wovoka's vision and The Ghost Dance began spreading to other tribes.

Simultaneously, while Wovoka received his vision during the eclipse, Kicking bear, a band-chief of the Minneconjou Sioux, struggled to understand the meaning of the sun's disappearance. The winter had been harsh for his people, The disappearance of Deer, Antelope, Buffalo and other game from there territory was caused the influx of white settlers, the supply of steer provided to his people by the United states government had been cut back and the canvas that the government provided to the Sioux to replace the now scarce buffalo hide used to build settlers was to thin to protect against the cold. As the eclipse began to wane, and the suns rays began appearing in a crescent, a young eagle appeared in the sky. Not until months later when Kicking Bear had seen the ghost dance and heard of Wokova's vision did he understand the meaning of the signs of the eagle and the eclipse. Kicking bear believed that these events were Wakantanka instructing that the Ghost Dance would repair the broken hoop that was his people, the land would be restored, that the white man would vanish, and the enumerable herds of buffalo would return and finally the Sioux could fully invasion there conception of a fixed universe, with no directed time or history, singular and whole bound by Wakantanka, it's symbol was a circle.

Baxbaxwalanuksiwe

During the winter months the Kwakwaka'wakw people of the of the Pacific Coast of North America conduct a series festivals centered around ceremonial performances. This period is inaugurated and concluded with the Hamatsa. At the start of winter an adolescent male of a high-ranking bloodline is taken away from the community and brought into the surrounding woods. There he stays in seclusion for several months were he is to channel the spirit Baxbaxwalanuksiwe, translated as (Man eater at the north end of the world). The young male initiate’s first appearance back in the community is at a performance that closes these winter festivals. In this performance he is not the boy who had left months before. Emerging from behind a screen drapped in hemlock branches from the forest he dances clockwise around a central fire as the wild Man eater Baxbaxwalanuksiwe. other dancers, representing the supernatural man eating eagles and cranes of heaven flank the initiate. Over the duration of the dance the Man eater is tamed by Men of the tribe who strip the branches from him and place large rings of cedar around him. At the end of the ceremony the initiate is no longer a boy, nor Baxbaxwalanuksiwe, but has an entirely new identity with in Kwakwaka'wakw the community.

Anthropologist Franz Boas upon first studying the Kwakwaka'wakw in the 1880's mistranslated and mis-termed the Hamat'sa as the cannibal dance, and the Kwakwaka'wakw as Kwakiutl which was only the name of the small Kwakwaka'wakw community were he had worked. Boas also posed in photographs as the Hamatsa Initiate, replacing the screen with a hoop, and ceremonial costumes with household blankets.(these are photos he posted of himself) Boas even organized abbreviated performances of the dance for exhibitions in major cities. The Hamat'sa and many other Kwakwaka'wakw customs were banned by the United States and Canada in the early twentieth century in an effort to assimilate the Kwakwaka'wakw. In the 1950's the bans were lifted. The Kwakwaka'wakw after decades without performing the Hamat'sa looked to the photographs of Boas and the few other documents which remained to try and rebuild the tradition.

Taken Under Operations

The shakers, the source of many predominant themes american folk art, believed that every action, effort and creation was a form of prayer and worship to be completed with the utmost honesty, simplicity. They believed in temperance in every aspect of life. This even included life long vows of celibacy, which has inevitably lead to a dwindling of the Shaker faith, there are only about four left.

This emphasis on the pared down lead to a preoccupation by the shakers with the idea of the individual becoming a primal vessel through which deceased sprits could communicate messages to living. During communal services members of the congregation, would reportedly "take in" the spirits and begin to erratically gesture, and move, while calling out in incoherent words and phrases.

This phenomena reached a climax during a period from 1837-1847 entitled by the shakers the era of manifestations. In this period members of the faith were regularly "taken under operations" by various deceased figures such as the first founders of the shaker faith, ancient Native American tribes, even prominent historical figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Those in which the spirits "manifested" appeared dazed, sometimes whirling about or enacting the spirits behavior, or what was believed to be their behavior, even speaking in tongues (which was often interpreted as dialects of native american languages.) They were described in certain accounts as "withdrawn from the scene of time."

To record these sacred transmissions a "recipient", another Shaker, would be present to transcribe the movements and sounds being made. The final "transcriptions" of these events ranged from drawings, to hymns, to dances, to letters and poems addressed to certain specific shaker individuals or in some cases the entire shaker community. these documents, being sacred and precious, were referred to as gems, tokens, chains, fire, crowns, shields, cravats, boxes, sweet cakes, milk, honey, hearts and gifts. The recipients transcriptions of the manifesteds' incoherent behavior produced surprisingly detailed and crafted drawings, dances and songs. Many of the drawings formal compositions, the choreography of dances are symmetrical or circular. The songs, or as they are commonly referred to "spirituals" also have a circular quality in that they are often extremely short compositions are sung in repetition. Many of these "spirituals" are transcribed in the original unknown tongue, many were later fitted with english language lyrics.

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