To finalize my research on the American Indian Ghost Dances, I offer here a summary and a conclusion, along with some implications of findings.

A summary

As discussed in Chapter 2, scholars have suggested cultural, social, even psychological, explanations of the Ghost Dance movements among American Indian peoples of the 1870s and 1890s. I suggest another though not necessarily contradictory explanation, one derived both from the study of other social movements and from the central expressed objective of the Ghost Dances. It is my view that both Ghost Dances were deliberate efforts by American Indian peoples to accomplish their demographic revitalization. In other words, they sought to assure survival as physical peoples through regaining population – bringing the dead to life – by performing the Ghost Dance cermonies.

I tested my view, as expressed in a hypothesis of demographic revitalization, in three ways.

First, I tested it by examining the historic demographic context of the movements. I discovered that both Ghost Dances occurred more or less in geographic areas in which there had been severe American Indian population losses: The first Ghost Dance was centered in California, after the decimation of California Indians; the second, more persuasive, Ghost Dance coincided almost exactly with the total American Indian population nadir; further, actual participants in both movements tended to live in the subareas with the greatest population losses.