Wovoka (Jack Wilson)

 

                                                                                                 (c. 1858-1932)

                                                                  Northern Paiute (Numu) founder of the 1890 Ghost Dance movement

 

 It is said that Wovoka (The Woodcutter) lived his entire life in the Smith and Mason Valleys of western Nevada, though the reverberations from his Ghost Dance religion were felt throughout the Indian world of the late nineteenth century. According to contemporary sources, Wovoka was sick with fever when, while cutting wood in the Pine Grove Hills during the solar eclipse of January 1, 1889, he received his Great Revelation. In his vision he reportedly died and entered heaven, where he saw dead ancestors alive and well and received instructions from God: he was to abstain from fighting; to work for the taivo, or white man; and to dance the traditional Round Dance. If he complied, Wovoka was told, he, and by extension other Indians, would be rewarded in the next life. During the vision Wovoka also received twin powers: control over the natural elements, and the political status of the co-presidency of the United States.

However, the inauguration of the Ghost Dance—a term Plains Indians applied to the new religion, Paiutes calling it by their familiar name of Round Dance—did not occur until Wovoka predicted rain during the severe drought of 1888-90. The Paiutes who were farming on the Walker River Reservation, in the adjacent Walker Lake Valley, had been adversely affected by the drought and were naturally interested in this "weather prophet." In his own natal valleys, Wovoka had gained a following by feats reported variously as causing ice to appear in the Walker River on a hot summer day or to fall from a cottonwood tree, as well as by his alleged ability to reenter heaven via public trance states. He also provided spectacular demonstrations of his alleged invulnerability to gunpowder, linking the Nevada experience of the 1890 Ghost Dance with "Ghost Dance shirts" worn at the tragic Wounded Knee massacre of December 29, 1890, in which some two hundred Lakota men, women, and children, many wearing the sacred shirts they believed would protect them, fell under federal soldiers' bullets. A Lakota delegation had visited Wovoka earlier that year, drawn by reports of a messiah promising a new life for Indian peoples. Ironically, the Lakotas' interpretation of Wovoka's message was more consistent with the teachings of the earlier Paiute prophet Wodziwob, or Fish Lake Joe, whose 1870 Ghost Dance religion on the Walker River Reservation foretold the widespread destruction of whites and the resurrection of Indian dead, along with a return to the traditional Indian way of life. Though it is unclear whether Wovoka believed his own revelation to be intended for Paiutes alone or for all Indians, he gladly entertained all Indian visitors, and the vision itself emphasized cooperation with whites in this world and equality with them in the next.

Wovoka's father was named Numuraivo'o (Northern Paiute White Man). Characterized as "wild and quarrelsome" and "wont to steal cattle and horses," Numuraivo'o was most likely imprisoned as a result of participation in the 1875 Bannock War, after which many Paiutes were sent to the Malheur Agency in eastern Oregon. Returning to Nevada with a wife, Numuraivo'o lived past the turn of the century. Significantly, he was said to be a prophet who could make rain and was "bulletproof." His wife, Wovoka's mother, was named Teeya. Described as "very intelligent," she was said to have been a powerful influence on her son. And since Teeya worked for whites, as did Wovoka himself, it is not surprising that a Protestant-type work ethic was part of the 1890 Ghost Dance religion. Wovoka had two other male siblings who survived to maturity. Wovoka's wife was named Mary (or Mattie or Maggie); her tribal name was Tuuma, a Northern Paiute word that denotes a woven basket used for cooking pine nuts. Wovoka and Tuuma had several children who survived to maturity.

James Mooney, of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), interviewed Wovoka two years to the day after his vision and described the 1890 Ghost Dance prophet as a "tall, well-proportioned man with piercing eyes, regular features, a deep voice and a calm and dignified mien. He stood straight as a ramrod, spoke slowly, and by sheer projection of personality commanded the attention of any listener. He visibly stood out among his fellow Indians like a thoroughbred among a bunch of mustangs." Wovoka's English name, Jack Wilson, was taken from the family name of the original settlers of Mason Valley: David and Abigail Wilson. The young Paiute was raised on the Wilsons' ranch and developed a close friendship with their sons. It was while cutting wood for a mine the Wilsons owned in Pine Grove that Wovoka had his vision. Exposure to the Wilsons' frontier brand of Presbyterianism, which included prayers before meals and daily Bible readings as well as "saddlebag preachers" who conducted revivalistic camp meetings, presumably influenced both the form and ideology of the 1890 Ghost Dance in Nevada. For example, an Indian agent reported that "at least 200 Indians to say nothing of the squaws and papooses [who] turned out yesterday [on the Walker River Reservation] in the face of a driving snow storm to see and hear him ... took up a collection of $25 for his benefit ... and they talk of nothing but Jack Wilson and the miracles he performs."

Discredited by local whites as a fraud, subject to threats of violence from his own people, and probably disturbed by the reinterpretation placed on his religion by Lakota and other Plains Indians, Wovoka broke off proselytizing in 1891 or 1892. "Jack Wilson is in Mason Valley on a rabbit hunt, and seemingly happy," another Indian agent wrote in 1902. In contrast to his predecessor Wodziwob, however, Wovoka continued to believe in his vision, entertaining visitors from all over the country practically until his death. For the remainder of his life, Wovoka supported himself by selling eagle and magpie tail feathers, red ocher, and ten-gallon Stetsons such as those he wore in the many remunerated photographs taken of him. Followers nationwide believed that these items had healing powers. He also received payment locally for his services as a shaman. In addition, the retired prophet traveled frequently. He went to Oklahoma in 1906 and 1916, for example, and returned with suitcases full of gifts such as buckskin suits and gloves.

In the twentieth century, Wovoka's efforts to obtain land were twice rebuffed by the government. In 1912 he apparently failed to receive an allotment on the Walker River Reservation. The Indian agent wrote: "You wanted land here and I thought it would be a good thing as we could work together, and help each other, I have been holding land for you and wrote you long time ago to come over, but if you do not come pretty soon I will give it to someone else." And in May 1916 his claim of a five-acre plot on the Wilson ranch resulted in this letter from a county clerk: "Mr. Dyer [Robert Dyer, the brother of Ed Dyer, the owner of a grocery store in nearby Yerington; Ed Dyer, who spoke Paiute, interpreted for the BAE's Mooney, and subsequently became Wovoka's business partner and amanuensis] does not know of your ever having title to any land, but says that the Wilson Bros. allowed you the use of some of their land."

The political repercussions of the 1890 Ghost Dance religion never entirely disappeared. Its prophet was reported to be thinking of assisting President Wilson during the First World War by freezing the Atlantic and sending Indians over to fight the Germans with ice. Wovoka also apparently threatened to quell an Indian incident in Utah "with a word." Other political activities of his included joining the local temperance movement, participating in Warren G. Harding's presidential campaign, and sending a telegram in 1929 to Herbert Hoover's newly elected vice president, Charles Curtis, congratulating the Kaw politician on his achievement while extending the hope that "someday you will be president."

Two other prophecies of Wovoka's are part of his legacy. In the first, he told his grandson that he would "one day fly in the sky" and be a "captain of men." The boy, who grew up to become Captain Harlyn Vidovich of the Flying Tigers, was shot down over China in 1944 while flying against the Japanese. Wovoka's second prediction was that an earthquake would occur following his death, as a sign that he had reentered heaven. According to the coroner's report, Wovoka died on September 29, 1932, at age seventy-four, of "enlarged prostate cystitis." The earthquake that rocked the Smith and Mason Valleys three months later is believed by his descendants today to have been a fulfillment of that prophecy.