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  • Cited by 15
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
August 2010
Print publication year:
1986
Online ISBN:
9780511752735
Subjects:
Organisational Sociology, History, History of Native American Peoples, Sociology of Religion, Sociology

Book description

This study of the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements among North American Indians offers an innovative theory about why these movements arose when they did. Emphasizing the demographic situation of American Indians prior to the movements, Professor Thornton argues that the Ghost Dances were deliberate efforts to accomplish a demographic revitalization of American Indians following their virtual collapse. By joining the movements, he contends, tribes sought to assure survival by increasing their numbers through returning the dead to life. Thornton supports this thesis empirically by closely examining the historical context of the two movements and by assessing tribal participation in them, revealing particularly how population size and decline influenced participation among and within American Indian tribes. He also considers American Indian population change after the Ghost Dance periods and shows that participation in the movements actually did lead the way to a demographic recovery for certain tribes.

Reviews

"...a careful, readable analysis of the demographic revitalization rationale for the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements; it makes a significant contribution to the interdisciplinary study of demographic change." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

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