I just had a thought...maybe I'm re-inventing the wheel, here, but the Ghost Dance caused a mana spike if what I read on the boards is correct...which nearly lead to a pre-mature scourge. The first sign was the bug spirits/invae. Do you think that Dunkie taught Howling Coyote the Ghost Dance? I dunno if the Big D was awake at the time, but if his astral spirit could roam and Howling Coyote was a shaman...well, there ya go. Dunkie always seemed to want to prepare us short lived young races for the coming. What are the odds he knew the dance would cause a mana spike and bring the bugs to earth? It'd be one way of preparing us (mets)humans for dealing with spirit creatures and astral beings. A few of the minor horrors (like wraiths and maybe shedim) even got through! This might have been his way of warning everyone without the other immortals getting on his case. Heck, it might have even gotten 1 or 2 of them to start thinking about things which may lead to the general people knowing what's to come over time?

So, have I done too much drugs or is this vaguely possible?

Doesn't seem Dunkie's style in the least.

~J

IIRC there is a line in Atzlan (SR2) from Hectate that says "we should have killed Coleman (Howling Coyote) after he was thaugt the ritual". And in TT there is the thought that is was a longterm plan to build the Tir ( war in Amerika, Native Amerikans battling betwen themselves).
But there is always the posibility of another Great Wyrm....

It was Ainas son who taught them. The name escapes me at the moment, and I'm off to bed, but you find it out in Worlds withouth end.

Update: From this wonderfull site I just found out that his name is Thais.

Edit: Smelling pisstake

Hmm, that would seem to make sense at first glance. Thais, is part Horror, and perhaps wants the Horrors back? Haven't read the book, so I could be wrong. I always thought the horrors were so powerful that no one wanted them back. Harley seems to think the Ghost Dance was a major mistake, and I would think the rest of the IE's would think so too.

I might be wrong here but weren't some of the magics that went about in current day Ireland, Shadowrun timeline Tir Na nOg, just as powerful as the things the great ghost dance was accomplishing, and also they were doing this before the whole NIAN and NAN and Howling Coyote and that whole American thing?

until i see a page refferance, i am going to say no, because all the evidence in what i have read says that NAN was one of a kind.

I just skimmed the history part of Tír na nÓg and to give a short answer, no they didn't. But see that's not the whole truth.

First off you have an unexplained phenomen where fertile land suddenly "...became unfit for anything but subsistence farming." The land that changed matched the so called Trudor-plantations. The Trudor-plantations where lands that belonged to Irish farmers that Henry VIII gave over to British families in the 16th-century. The degradation of the land occurred even if the land never changed hands.

Then we have IRA who used some very powerful magic in several attacks as early as 2011. No attack used magic on the same scale as the GGD, but apparently they had some major mojo. There are even rapports that they used magic as early as february 2011 (ten months before the awakening). This would be consistent with IEs ability to use magic (although limited) before the awakening.

Also, the magic used in the Ghost Dance went off all at once (taking into consideration the time), thus causing a spike. On the other hand, the magic TT, TNN, and Amazonia uses is spread out over time. While it would move the cliffs closer (to use the metaphore they use constantly in the books), it wouldn't cause a large spike. It might bring the Scourge here a century or three early, but not millenia like the Ghost Dance.

I don't have any canon sources for this, just using logic to deduce the reasoning behind it. I'm sure someone else would have other ideas as well...

The Abstruse One

I have 3 theories on how Daniel Howling Coyote learned the Great Ghost Dance:

1) Pesky Immortal Elves, who apparently remained active during the 5th World
2) Spirits
3) Visions/dreams

I like 1), because it ties in with the high levels of government stupidity in the 1990s and early 2000s that, in turn, explain why the US broke up. (It was the only way the Immortal Elves could make Tir Tairngire out of the Washington/Oregon region, and it broke up a major power that would interfered with the IE's Devilish Schemes.)

But that's just me.

No, Aina's little boy taught him. If you want more info, check the novel Worlds Without End. And do your best to ignore how Harlequin acts in it. It's a great novel, don't get me wrong...but Laughing Man just doesn't seem himself in the novel. More like a little kid who's bored and wants attention rather than a very mature, knowlegable, and powerful being who's seen everything already and acts immature because it entertains him.

The Abstruse One

There are three likely sources by which Colean could possibly have learned the Great Ghost Dance.

1)Thais. He taught the original dancers.

2)The Coyote Totem. Certainly, Dog managed to teach Twist.

3)Other AmerInds, who passed down the lore of how to do the dance. Why not?

As for the Dance itself, I think it might not have worked as well as it was supposed to...the eruptions could be the result of a massive mana imbalance caused by the ritual as opposed to the purpose of the ritual (If I was a Dancer and I knew I could cause seismic disruption, I'd aim at the fault under, say, Washington DC.)

I agree with Ancient.

Coyote taught him. That's part of being a shaman, after all - Some shamans have access to spells, metamagics, and rituals long before the big brains at MIT&T get around to it.

After all, no-one's bothered to ask where Danial Howling Coyote learned the Armor spell, have they? (And he had _that_ back in the Camps.)

Here's the thing-- Thais was apparently confused that the Great Ghost Dance didn't work for the original dancers; Aina later tells Thais that it was too early. For Daniel Howling Coyote and the new Dancers, they were far enough along for it to work. So, the original dance knowledge might have worked just fine.

Hence the reason I mentioned it.

You're so bad ass.

There is a reference somewhere in shadowtalk to the first Ghost Dance (can't remember where, but I'll look if I get time, or perhaps someone can help out with it).

This reference is a post by one of the IE (Harliquin, I think) which very heavily implies that the first ghost dance (in the 1880s) was taught to the Sioux by that IE as an experiment to see if it magic could work yet. The post further implies very heavily that the same IE then arranged for those who had learned the ceremony to be wiped out at Wounded Knee (a real life slaughter of the Sioux in the 1880s who performed the ghost dance by American troops), in order to prevent their having such power when the mana levels did rise high enough.

I know for a historical fact that someone who knew the Ghost Dance survived and passed it on. I can attest to this, as I have personally seen the Ghost Dance performed in real life on several occasions here. Someone had to teach those guys how to do it (I also have on very reliable authority that they only perform dances that are taught to them directly from tribal sources).

At any rate, the first Ghost Dance set the stage for the Sioux to have the idea that a maga-ceremony could bring them the power to regain the lands that had been taken from them by the Americans. They would also have retained some knowledge of the ceremony (though probably corrupted by inaccuracy over a few generations, and adaptations to make it more performable as entertainment).

From there it would only take a little bit of help from Thais to get the ceremony right.

I'll need a more concise reference than "I heard in Shadowtalk somewhere." As I own the entire english-language series, and have gone over it in detail, I hope I'd recall an IE commenting to in such a manner. if you could narrow down where you saw quote (say, a book, or even one of less than a half-dozen books) we could verify your statement as to the IE.

On the other paw, the fact that the dance is apparently perpetuated to the present day is a lovely factoid.

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but if Thais as a half-horror managed to stay here wouldn't the horrors start raping everybody so that they can have a small force force here during the low-mana cycles?

It's an odd situation. Thais was the product of a powerful Named Horror in Elf form and an Immortal Elf. He's sort of like an Ulk-man, but not FUBAR. I think he's vulnerable to magic that targets Horrors, but isn't bound by rules like "Well, magic's up, time to go."

Sides, the last time a Horror impregnated a town, you didn't have Village of the Damned so much as "WTF!?"

I still think that the volcano-thing was a result of mana imbalance rather than the ritual itself.

ive heard over the years that the ghost dance was done by a cult-like-group of indians who wordhipped jesus, and were trying to bring the second coming to save them. also something about a white buffalo...anyone else heard this?

here is some more cool stuff

Historically the Ghost Dance of the 19th century was taught to the indians by a shaman/brave (stories differ) who claimed in a feaver he was shown the dance as a way to raise power and drive out the whites. It's a sign how desperate the indians were that they listened to him.

Well, the thing is that the volcano eruptions didn't do anything for the NAN except get people to think "Fuck, they can cause volcanos to erupt!" They didn't exactly try to bury Fort Louis in magma or anything. They did the dance, the volcanoes erupted. SO it might have been a Bikini Atoll, it might have been a "Oops."

And remember what Mother Nature did to the NAN after the Dance was all over. I'm pretty sure the notes of "Mother Nature showing what side she's on" were all IC, too.

~J