On McLoughlin's "Ghost Dance Movements"

Abstract

William McLoughlin (I990) attempts to clarify nature of nineteenthcentury Cherokee revitalization movements by creating a typological category, dance. He uses term as a common noun. However, James Mooney (I973 [1896]: 766, 777) consistently capitalized Ghost when he referred to Wovoka's dance or, more often, to his doctrines or the new religion. Mooney referred not to a typological category, a common noun, but to a specific, historically connected religious movement in western North America in early reservation period. I follow Mooney in capitalizing Ghost in order to make clear, as he did, that Ghost Dance is a proper noun. Anthony Wallace (I956: 270-74; cited by McLoughlin on page 31), in his model of revitalization movements, nowhere refers to ghost dances. Wallace (ibid.: 275) capitalizes Ghost Dance and uses term as a proper noun referring to specific historical phenomenon defined and described by Mooney. The discussion over and Ghost Dances addresses question of adherence to Jack Wilson's doctrine as recorded by Mooney. In his final paragraph, on page 42, McLoughlin is right on track when he warns that ethnohistorians [should avoid] . . . abstract theorizing about true and false dances. Unfortunately, it is he who has sinned by demoting Ghost Dance, clearly recognized and consistently