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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lakota Woman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Activism and Resistance
Assimilation, Tradition, and Identity
Unity, Inclusion, and Equality
Racism and Sexism
Summary
Analysis
Just as the Ghost Dance religion was a central part of the Wounded Knee Massacre, so were several Native American religious rituals at the heart of the siege of Wounded Knee. Leonard Crow Dog was the primary spiritual leader during the siege, where he performed ceremonies along with healing the wounded and participating in negotiations. Before their first negotiation with government officials, Leonard set up an altar and prayed, saying that “this land [they’re] defending” was their “holy place.”
The prominence of religious rituals—and the existence of a spiritual leader—during the Occupation of Wounded Knee illustrates how reviving indigenous cultural traditions was central to AIM's mission. Leonard even emphasizes how the occupation itself was a cultural act: the activists were fighting for their ancestral lands. In this way, the occupation also united the Native American activists, as they were always aware that their fight was an echo of all their ancestors' battles against colonization.
Themes
In addition to the occasional peyote or yuwipi ceremonies, the sweat lodges were operating daily. After one evening sweat, federal officers started firing on Leonard and the other men as they exited the lodge. It was a close call, but luckily no one was killed.
This incident not only shows the U.S. government's callousness toward Native American lives (the activists they fired at were vulnerable and not fighting, yet the officials shot at them anyway), but also their lack of respect regarding indigenous religions and cultures. The government's disregard of the sweat, which is a religious ceremony, is representative of their racist disdain of Native American cultural traditions in general, which white society tried to suppress for several hundred years.
Themes
Leonard was also the primary doctor at Wounded Knee during the siege. He used various herbs and animal parts to heal the wounded. The white doctors who volunteered during the siege deferred to Leonard, evening learning how to use natural medicines and to pray prior to operating on a wounded person. But Mary believes that Leonard’s most memorable contribution is that he revived the Ghost Dance.
Themes
Mary interrupts the story’s narrative to tell the history behind the Ghost Dance, which begins with Leonard’s great-grandfather, the first Crow Dog. The elder Crow Dog received the instructions for the Ghost Dance from a man named Short Bull, who had been taught by Wovoka, a Paiute holy man. The holy man gave them a new dance that Short Bull interpreted to be the means by which they would bring a new world—one that would undo the evils brought by the white settlers. Word of the Ghost Dance spread quickly, and many tribes embraced it, as its “message brought them hope.”
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During the Ghost Dance ceremony, dancers wore upside-down American flags, “symbolic of the wasičuns’ world of fences, telegraph poles, and factories which would also be turned upside down, as well as a sign of despair.” The dancers would dance for hours at a time, with some dancers “dying,” or falling into a trance, during which they walked among the stars and spoke to their ancestors.
Themes
This new dance frightened the white government agents, who feared that it was a sign that the Lakota people would rebel against the government. Mary adds that she believes it was the officials’ guilty consciences that spurred them to misinterpret this peaceful dance and order that the religion be exterminated.
Themes
In the winter, white soldiers started driving the Lakota dancers into the hills of the Badlands, where the dancers began to starve. The first Crow Dog was one of the chiefs who, along with his people, were driven into the hills. Realizing that continued resistance would mean certain death, he surrendered to the white soldiers, thereby saving his people. Other chiefs were not as fortunate—most notably, Big Foot and his people were massacred at Wounded Knee, after he had surrendered.
Themes
Mary jumps back to Leonard’s role in reviving the Ghost Dance. He believed that the Lakota dancers of the late 1800s had misunderstood Wovoka’s message. The purpose of the dance, Leonard believed, wasn’t to bring back the dead, but to revive their traditional wisdom and beliefs by means of a Native American ceremony. The dance also stressed the importance of unity among different tribes.
The night before the first Ghost Dance at the siege of Wounded Knee, Leonard gave a speech to the activists. Having learned the songs and rituals from his father and grandfather, Leonard explained to the activists that they would dance without stopping. Whenever someone got “into the power, the spiritual power,” they would let that person fall into a trance. And above all, they would unite in the dance, no matter one’s race or tribe. As he put it, they were “not goin’ to have this white man’s attitude.” The Ghost Dance ceremony that Leonard initiated lasted for four days.
Themes
Mary interjects to recount the words of Black Elk, an Oglala man who wrote about the Wounded Knee Massacre. In his book, he said that Wounded Knee wasn’t just the massacre site for people, but for a dream as well. He wrote that “the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.” When the activists joined together at the Wounded Knee siege to revive the Ghost Dance, they demonstrated that the dream is not dead—they “mended the nation’s hoop.”
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