Cora Du Bois's 1939 ethnographic monograph documenting the 1870 Ghost Dance, a Northern Paiute renewal movement that preceded and is historically distinct from Wovoka's better known 1890 Ghost Dance, published in the University of California's Anthropological Records series. Based on fieldwork and interviews conducted decades after the fact with surviving participants and their descendants, it identifies the Walker Lake Paiute prophet Wodziwob as the movement's originator and traces its spread among California and Plateau nations, where it fed directly into several distinct prophetic revitalization traditions. Its strength is being the first systematic scholarly reconstruction of the earlier movement, disentangling it from the later and more famous one it is often conflated with. Its limit is that it relies on decades-old secondhand memory, the events themselves having gone unrecorded in real time.
Facts
Citation
AuthorCora Du Bois
PublisherUniversity of California Anthropological Records
Publication Year1939
Source TypeEthnography
Assessment
Reliability Tier1
The foundational scholarly reconstruction of the 1870 Ghost Dance and the first to identify Wodziwob as its originator, distinguishing it from the later 1890 movement, though built on secondhand recollection gathered decades after the events it documents. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names California directly: "Dance, published in the University of California's Anthropological Records series."
This source names Wodziwob directly: "the Walker Lake Paiute prophet Wodziwob as the movement's originator and traces its spread among California and Plateau nations, where it fed directly into several distinct prophetic revitalization..."
Claims Backed By This Source (31 claims)
This source backs 31 claims across the atlas. As facts: 20 well-attested. As cited relationships: 6 holds, 2 connected. Plus 3 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Articles, 14 claims: 10 well-attested, 2 connected, 2 general references.
- Historical Figures, 8 claims: 4 well-attested, 3 holds, 1 general references.
- Sources, 8 claims: 6 well-attested, 2 holds.
- Sacred Dances, 1 claims: 1 holds.
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