The religious fervor known as the Ghost Dance movement was precipitated by the prophecies and teachings of a northern Paiute Indian named Wovoka (Jack Wilson). During a solar eclipse on New Year's Day, 1889, Wovoka experienced a revelation that promised harmony, rebirth, and freedom for Native Americans through the repeated performance of the traditional Ghost Dance. In 1890 his message spread rapidly among tribes, developing an intensity that alarmed the federal government and ended in tragedy at Wounded Knee. The Ghost Dance phenomenon is well known, but never before has its founder...

The Native American inhabitants of North America s Great Basin have a long, eventful history and rich cultures. Great Basin Indians: An Encyclopedic History covers all aspects of their world. The book is organized in an encyclopedic format to allow full discussion of many diverse topics, including geography, religion, significant individuals, the impact of Euro-American settlement, wars, tribes and intertribal relations, reservations, federal policies regarding Native Americans, scholarly theories regarding their prehistory, and others. Author Michael Hittman employs a vast range of...

Corbett Mack (1892 1974), was a Northern Paiute of mixed ancestry, caught between Native American and white worlds. A generation before, his tribe had brought forth the prophet Wovoka, whose Ghost Dance swept the Indian world in the 1890s. Mack s world was a harsh and bitter place after the last Native American uprisings had been brutally crushed; a life of servitude to white farmers and addiction to opium. Hittman uses Mack s own words to retell his story, an uncompromising account of a traumatized life that typified his generation, yet nonetheless made meaningful through the perseverance of...