I was doing research on Native American religions on an unrelated topic and came across this,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance

I never realized the Great Ghost Dance was "inspired" by real events. Props to whoever designed it. Also might be interesting to incorporate these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Shirts into a campaign.

Even more credit for doing the research in pre-internet, pre-Wikipedia dark ages of the late 1980s. Not everything is online, but basic research is so much easier than it used to be.

Well, to be fair the books did mention that Coleman was gathering the Tribes because he knew THIS TIME, the Ghost Dance would work. It implies there was a previous one.

Does the real Ghost Dance include blood rituals like the Great Ghost Dance does?

Ritual blood letting was probably involved though I can't say for certainty.

Apparently the founder preached for peaceful coexistence with he whites, and he though the dance would bring peace and banish evil. A bit different than the exploding volcanoes and driving out the whites ghost dance of SR.

If the wikki can be trusted he also preached against self mutilation in funerary rights so maybe not blood rituals in the original form. Though it was modified in different tribes so maybe those included blood.

I don't think this is someone doing the research, IMO—something like this suggests to me of going the opposite direction, of reading about the GD and turning that into an idea for the game. Still neat, but not quite the same.

~J

"Research" is a lot like "Luck". It often is a lot of preparation and readiness for opportunity.

Writing is stealing from reality.

I would not be surprised to discover some practitioners incorporating aspects of the Sun Dance into The GGD. for what it is worth IMHO I think the white shirt thing started from a demonstration of a period buff jacket, which were white just over waist length and could stop "small" caliber bullets.

Also, the article describes the dance as having had a serious (mono-)theistic bend to it, while Amerind spirituality in Shadowrun takes a more animistic way.

The latter sounds more like how I imagine pre-colonization beliefs of Native Americans, but to be honest this is hardly based on scientific research

Yeah I was a bit surprised by the visions from god commentary. My initial assumption was that he had spent too much time with the mormans or something, but then I thought about it and the only thing I know abut Native American religious practices comes from hollywood(where I found out every native american can track and is very spiritual) and shadowrun. So maybe some tribes were monotheistic.

Actually many tribes are mono-theistically bent-ish. They believe in a Great Spirit (very similar to Judeo Christianity's God) but also that every living thing (and many inanimate things) have spirits also. They are different spirits though.

The newer lens of their faiths tend to emphasize their "everything has a spirit" view as opposed to their "there's also a giant all-powerful (or mostly-powerful, not quite sure on that one) spirit also" part.

I married a partial native american who's mother worked as an... archeologist IIRC. She studied a lot and I gleaned a bit.

Not every Native American—remember what The Outlaw Josie Wales teaches us about the Civilized Tribes. They're civilized because they can't track any more

~J

I just got schooled. I had totally forgot about that movie.



Well now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

I think I prefer hollywood to reality though, the native americans seem cooler. Except the civilized ones, they can't track.

It also depends on the time the movie was made. Some of the older movies, the hero would shoot three times without looking where the gun was pointing and suddenly 8 warriors would fall from their horses... Those indians are weaker than the thugs of Power Rangers.