Ghost shirt

Common card · No. 474947

Ghost shirts are shirts, or other clothing items, worn by members of the Ghost Dance religion, and thought to be imbued with spiritual powers. The religion was founded by Wovoka (Jack Wilson), a Northern Paiute Native American, in the late 19th century and quickly spread throughout the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin and Plains tribes. Ghost shirts, sacred to certain factions of Lakota people, were thought to guard against bullets through spiritual power. Wovoka opposed open rebellion against the white settlers. He believed that through pacificism, the Lakota and the rest of the Native Americans would be delivered from white oppression in the form of earthquakes. However, two Lakota warriors and followers of Wovoka, Kicking Bear and Short Bull, thought otherwise, and believed that Ghost shirts would protect the wearer enough to actively resist U.S. military aggression. The shirts did not work as promised, and when the U.S. Army attacked, 153 Lakota died, with 50 wounded and 150...

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