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Using Citizenship to Retain Identity: The Native American Dance Bans of the Later Assimilation Era, 1900–1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2013

GABRIELLA TREGLIA
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Abstract

From the 1880s until the early 1930s the US federal government adopted a formal policy of intolerance towards Native American cultures and religions, stemming primarily from the belief that traditional religio-cultural practices – especially dances – distracted Native Americans from crop-tending and stock-rearing, and also constituted “outmoded” reminders of a “savage” past seen as incompatible with the responsibilities of US citizenship. Some cultural practices were banned outright, while others were actively discouraged or denigrated as “oldtime.” Yet Native American cultural expression did not die – in large part because Native communities employed varied methods to resist the bans. This article examines the ways in which pro-dancing communities utilized the language of US citizenship and made appeals to the Constitution, private property rights and US patriotism in their bid to ensure the survival of their dances and ceremonies. It also examines support for the dance bans by Native individuals, and the increasingly complex and evolving cultural identities in reservation communities in the early twentieth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 777 - 800
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

1 Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1883, House Executive Document, no 1, 48 Congress, 1 session, pp. xi–xii.

2 Circular 1665 (1921), Supplement to Circular 1665 (1923), John Collier Papers, Reel 5.

3 Hoxie, Frederick, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 241–44Google Scholar.

4 See US v. Celestine, 215.US.278 (1909); US v. Sutton, 215.US.291 (1909); Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221.US.286 (1911); US v. Hallowell, 221.US.317 (1911); US v. Sandoval, 231.US.28 (1913); US v. Pelican, 232.US.442 (1914).

5 In each case the Supreme Court concluded that the Native plaintiffs were not subject to state laws, despite having received trust patents (and therefore US citizenship) under the Dawes Act (1887) and before the changes outlined in the Burke Act (1906), but were instead subject to the guardianship of Congress. The rulings confirmed that Native individuals could not consume alcohol on their allotments and could not sell their allotted land without the approval of the commissioner of Indian affairs, and that crimes committed on allotted land were not subject to state law, but to federal law. The rulings thus extended the control exercised by the BIA over Native American lives.

6 For a good explanation of the Dawes and Burke Acts see Prucha, Francis Paul, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians, abridged edn (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 224–28Google Scholar, 297–99.

7 US v. Nice, 241.US.591 (1916), quoted in ibid., 271.

8 For excellent examinations of the assimilation policy see Hoxie; and Holm, Tom, The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005)Google Scholar. On land allotment see McDonnell, Janet, The Dispossession of the American Indian, 1887–1934 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Greenwald, Emily, Reconfiguring the Reservation: The Nez Perces, Jicarilla Apaches, and the Dawes Act (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002)Google Scholar. On boarding schools see Adams, David Wallace, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928 (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Fear-Segal, Jacqueline, White Man's Club: Schools, Race, and the Struggle of Indian Acculturation (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Child, Brenda, Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900–1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Lomawaima, K. Tsianina, They Called It Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

9 There have been many excellent studies of the dance bans and Native reactions to them. See Gloria Young, “Powwow Power: Perspectives on Historic and Contemporary Inter-Tribalism” (PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1981); Ellis, Clyde, A Dancing People: Powwow Culture on the Southern Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003)Google Scholar; Troutman, John, Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879–1934 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Smoak, Gregory E., Ghost Dances and Identity: Prophetic Religion and American Indian Ethnogenesis in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Fowler, Loretta, Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778–1984 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Foster, Morris, Being Comanche: A Social History of an American Indian Community (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Holler, Clyde, Black Elk's Religion: The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

10 Hon. D. Stephens to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 17 Sept. 1914, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Central Classified File, Series B: Customs and Traditions, 1907–1939, Reel 10 (Santee) (hereafter cited as BIA-CCF: B, Reel number (reservation/agency)).

11 Ibid.

12 Meritt to Stephens, 21 Sept. 1914, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 10 (Santee). Agricultural fairs were intended by the OIA to replace Native recreational pursuits with a “wholesome” industrious event that rewarded agrarian success and homemaking, showcased produce and livestock, and supplanted dances and giveaways. Undeterred, many communities re-created the fairs to fit their own ideas of a recreational event, including horse racing and dances. In similar vein, communities refashioned US public holidays such as 4 July and George Washington's birthday to fit their own cultural needs and their own interpretations of US patriotism – again to the consternation of the OIA and other non-Native reformers. See Jacobs, Margaret D., “Resistance to Rescue: The Indians of Bahapki and Mrs Annie E. K. Bidwell,” in Jameson, Elizabeth and Armitage, Susan, eds., Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women's West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 244–46Google Scholar; and Troutman, 61–66.

13 McCoy to Mondell (House of Representatives), 25 July 1919, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Shoshone).

14 Mondell to Sells, 28 July 1919, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Shoshone).

15 Sells to Mondell, 2 Aug. 1919, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Shoshone).

16 See Hauke to Hon. Lindley Hadley (House of Representatives), 19 March 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 12 (Tulalip); William Williamson (House of Representatives) to Burke, 10 March 1923, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 8 (Pine Ridge); Tidwell to Burke, 20 March 1923, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 8 (Pine Ridge). In both the Tulalip and Pine Ridge cases the OIA was quick to reassure the Congressmen that the dance bans were not oppressive and were essential for Native progress.

17 Sa, Zitkala, American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings (New York: Penguin, 2003), 117Google Scholar. Zitkala Sa (Gertrude Bonin) was a devoted campaigner for American citizenship for all Native Americans. She was secretary of the Society of American Indians, which lobbied for Native citizenship and civil liberties.

18 Incidentally the use of peyote was condemned strongly by Zitkala Sa despite her avowed defence of Native religious freedom. Zitkala Sa appears to have viewed peyote as non-traditional and very harmful, likening it to “dry whisky.” See ibid., 175–77. The Native American Church is a pan-tribal religion that originated in Oklahoma in the 1880s and very quickly expanded. See Stewart, Omer C., Peyote Religion: A History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

19 The petitioners cautioned Burke against banning peyote, for “[a]t this time there is much fear on the part of the Osage Indians that if the use of Peyote is interfered with in carrying on our religion, many of the Indians who now use Peyote, will return to whiskey and their old habits.” See “Petition for use of peyote in worship services” sent to Commissioner Charles Burke, Oct. 1921, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 6 (Osage).

20 Ibid.

21 Transcript of interview at Indian Office by Mr. Ellis of William Allen and Bartley White, 13 May 1920, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

22 Sells to Allen and White, 25 May 1920, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

23 See Wenger, Tisa, “We Have a Religion”: The 1920s Pueblo Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daily, David, Battle for the BIA: G. E. E. Lindquist and the Missionary Crusade against John Collier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004), 36–46Google Scholar; Jacobs, Margaret, “‘Making Savages of Us All’: White Women, Pueblo Indians, and the Controversy over Indian Dances in the 1920s,” Frontiers, 17, 3 (1996), 178–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Philp, Kenneth R., John Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977), 57–65Google Scholar.

24 Wenger, “We Have a Religion” (2009).

25 James Wakonabo to J. Burnquist, 28 April 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 6 (Leech Lake). Quotations contain original spellings.

26 It is not clear from the letter whether Wakonabo is referring to his entire tribe as US citizens, or just to those individuals who had received citizenship with their allotments before 1906. The Dawes Act did not confer citizenship upon groups, but only upon individuals.

27 Merrit to Wakonabo, 25 May 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 6 (Leech Lake).

28 “Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee of Indian Affairs on H.R.2614, 1918, House Committee on Indian Affairs,” cited in Frederick Hoxie, ed., Talking Back to Civilization: Indian Voices in the Progressive Era (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001), 82–86.

29 J. DeHuff to Commissioner Burke, 28 May 1924, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 10 (SFIS).

30 Burke to DeHuff, 6 June 1924, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 10 (SFIS).

31 C. Buchanan to J. Shell, 23 Feb. 1919, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 12 (Tulalip). The Indian Shaker Church is a distinct religion and should not be confused with New England Shakerism. Founded in 1882 by John and Mary Slocum (Squaxin Island Coast Salish), the Indian Shaker Church draws on Native, Catholic and Protestant elements, and became a popular religion amongst the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. See Ruby, Robert H. and Brown, John A., John Slocum and the Indian Shaker Church (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996)Google Scholar; and Harmon, Alexandra, Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 125–30Google Scholar.

32 Burke to Moore, 24 Jan. 1924; McNeilly to Burke, 3 Dec. 1923; see also Moore to Burke, 13 March 1924; Burke to Moore, 31 May 1924, all in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 9 (Salt River).

33 Buchanan to Shell, 23 Feb. 1919, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 12 (Tulalip).

34 E. Meritt to H. James, 8 Aug. 1921, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Blackfeet).

35 Meriam, Louis et al. , The Problem of Indian Administration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1972Google Scholar; first published 1928), 846. Historians have traditionally interpreted the Meriam Report as a culturally tolerant document. See Davies, Wade, Healing Ways: Navajo Healthcare in the Twentieth Century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 23–24Google Scholar. In their study of Indian education policies in the twentieth century Tsianina Lomawaima and Teresa McCarty argue that the Meriam Report survey team “proposed a profound departure from established federal policy and practice when they proposed that Native people had an option besides absorption and that they possessed rights to decide how they might wish to live.” Lomawaima, K. Tsianina and McCarty, Teresa, “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006), 65–66Google Scholar. Yet I would argue that acknowledging freedom of choice hardly equates to cultural respect and that the greater part of the Meriam Report is an assimilationist document, albeit light-touch assimilation rather than coerced assimilation.

36 See Amy Boobar (Deaconess), Field Representative, Women's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Ponca Mission, Ponca Agency, Oklahoma) to A. R. Snyder (Superintendent, Pawnee Agency), 9 Sept. 1929, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

37 Snyder to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 11 Oct. 1929, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

38 Ibid.

39 Telegram: A. R. Snyder to Indian Office, 13 Sept. 1929; Scattergood to Primeaux, 14 Sept. 1929, both in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

40 Snyder to Commissioner, 11 Oct. 1929, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

41 In 1912 Horse Chief Eagle had patiently and shrewdly employed bargaining tactics to ensure OIA permission for a Ponca Sun Dance. He had offered to remove the giveaway feature, assured the commissioner that all crops had been harvested, and even invited the superintendent to attend. Eventually Commissioner Robert Valentine had no option but to agree to the event, as Horse Chief Eagle had removed any possible objection. See Horse Chief Eagle to Valentine, 22 July 1912; Jemerson Clark to Indian Office, 24 July 1912; Commissioner to Horse Chief Eagle, n.d.; Horse Chief Eagle to Commissioner, 29 July 1912; Valentine to Indian School (Ponca Agency), all in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 8 (Ponca).

42 Snyder to Commissioner, 11 Oct. 1929, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

43 Nellis to Commissioner, 29 Jan. 1908, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

44 Acting Commissioner to Superintendent in Charge of the Pawnee Agency, 7 Feb. 1908, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

45 See note 4 above for a list of the court cases in question. None of the cases related to traditional dances, but rather to the right to consume alcohol on an allotment, to sell allotted land or to pass allotted land to heirs.

46 See John Troutman, “‘Indian Blues': American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1890–1935,” PhD thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 2004, 77.

47 Tape 190 (Ojibwe, 1968), American Indian Oral History Research Project, University of South Dakota, Vermillion.

48 Edward Eastman and David Graham to Commissioner, 17 July 1911; F. H. Abbott to Superintendent McIntyre, 29 July 1911; Frank McIntyre to Commissioner, 5 Aug. 1911; McIntyre to Commissioner, 25 Aug. 1911, all in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 10 (Santee).

49 Jim Warden, Tape 679 (1972), American Indian Oral History Research Project, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma, at http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/whc/duke.

50 Lawrence Industrious to E. Mossman, 22 May 1922; Industrious to Commissioner Burke, 11 March 1923, both in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

51 Henry Le Beau, J. G. Eagle Boy, Rev. Andrew White Fate, Rev. J. Goodfeather, W. H. John Gayshan (?), and one other (writing unclear) to Commissioner Burke, 27 June 1921, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River). See also Jasper Saunkeah to Supt. Buntin, 29 Dec. 1927, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 5 (Kiowa). Saunkeah, a Kiowa resident of Oklahoma City, claimed that dances “seriously prevent Indians from staying at home and looking after their crops, homes, etc, and keeping their children in school.” See also Eugene Little to Father Ketcham, Dec. 1913, BIA-CCF: B (Rosebud). Little was captain of the Rosebud Reservation Indian Police and president of the Total Abstinence Society. He was deeply concerned that children returning home from the OIA boarding schools readopted Lakota customs and “forget the white man's habits they have been taught.’

52 The term “progressive” was used by the OIA and by some Native communities to describe Native Americans who had apparently adopted Euro-American practices and attitudes.

53 Valentine to Belden, 7 Dec. 1909, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

54 Ellis, A Dancing People, 70.

55 Mr. C. K. Chief to Commissioner, 19 Sept. 1912, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

56 Acting Commissioner to C. K. Chief, n.d., BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

57 See Knife Chief to Abbott, 2 April 1913; Abbott to Superintendent Nellis, 18 Nov. 1912; Hauke to Nellis, 10 April 1913; Nellis to Commissioner, 29 Sept. 1913, all in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee).

58 Sells to Knife Chief, Fall 1913, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 7 (Pawnee). Lawrence Industrious also fell victim to this line of argument: Superintendent Mossman, while praising his good character, feared Industrious was “too militant” in his determination to eradicate dances, and thus exacerbated tribal factionalism. Assistant Commissioner Meritt responded by informing Industrious that while the progressive element could help suppress “immoral customs,” they must employ appropriate discretion and moderation – in other words be guided by the reservation superintendent. See Mossman to Commissioner, 15 June 1922; Meritt to Industrious, 10 July 1922, both in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

59 Greyearth to Commissioner [sic] Meritt, 2 April 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Sisseton).

60 Dunn to Commissioner, 25 April 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Sisseton). To contextualize Dunn's argument, in 1918 many Northern Plains reservations were suffering from drought, wartime economic privation (in part caused by government requisitioning of stock and land) and influenza, which may partly explain his antipathy towards anything that might divert time from crop and stock raising, or encourage contagion via group meetings.

61 Superintendent Reynolds to Commissioner, 31 May 1917, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 9 (Warm Springs).

62 Petition to Commissioner, 12 May 1917, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 9 (Warm Springs).

63 Meritt to Dick Powyowit, 11 June 1917, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 9 (Warm Springs).

64 Burke to Industrious, 28 March 1923, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

65 Industrious to Burke, 11 March 1923, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

66 Valentine to Belden, 7 Dec. 1909, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock). Local farmer R. H. Shipman in 1922 lamented, “The Indian Dance, attended and practised by the educated as well as the uneducated Indian on the Standing Rock reservation is holding the Indians back more than anything else.” See Shipman to Mossman, 20 Oct. 1922, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

67 Greyearth to Commissioner [sic] Meritt, 2 April 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Sisseton).

68 See Lomawaima, They Called It Prairie Light, 137, 140, 151. K. Tsianina Lomawaima has shown that Creek students at Chilocco Indian School in the 1920s performed clandestine stomp dances, and Ponca students held gatherings involving sacramental use of peyote. Clearly the school had failed to divorce students from their cultural heritage.

69 R. Roulhousie [? handwriting unclear], Farmer, to Superintendent Mossman, 19 Oct. 1922; Bliss to Mossman, 16 Oct. 1922, both in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 11 (Standing Rock).

70 Myrtle Lincoln, Tape 631 (1970), Doris Duke Oral History Project, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/whc/duke.

71 The performance by Native communities of dances to celebrate the end of World War I and to honour veterans has been well documented by historians. See Britten, Thomas, American Indians in World War One: At Home and at War (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Barsh, R. L., “American Indians in the Great War,” Ethnohistory, 38, 3 (1991), 276–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , Barsh, “War and the Reconfiguring of American Indian Society,” Journal of American Studies, 35, 3 (2001), 371–410Google Scholar. See also Ellis, A Dancing People; Powers, William K., War Dance: Plains Indian Musical Performance (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Meadows, William C., Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies: Enduring Veterans, 1800 to the Present (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

72 Frederick Hoxie makes this point with regard to Lakota exploitation of the schools, courts and police system and boss farmers imposed upon them by the OIA. Hoxie argues that the Cheyenne River community “used many of the new reservation institutions as vehicles for self-defense and cultural survival.” I argue that this employment of assimilationist institutions to defend Native cultures and identities can be extended to encompass allotments and the farming economy, and extra-reservation institutions such as the US Army and the Constitution. See Hoxie, Frederick, “From Prison to Homeland: The Cheyenne River Indian Reservation before World War I,” in Iverson, Peter, ed., The Plains Indians of the Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 55–75Google Scholar.

73 ‘Request by 11 elderly Teton men to be permitted old dances” to Commissioner Sells, Dec. 1920, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River). The men's ages ranged from 59 to 73.

74 Sells to “Indians,” 11 March 1921, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River).

75 Sells to Le Beau Sr., 27 Sept. 1915; Le Beau to Commissioner Burke, 27 June 1921, both in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River).

76 Lastman to Burke, 26 April 1929; Lastman to Rhoads, 28 Nov. 1930, both in BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River).

77 Roberts to Burke, 30 April 1929, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River).

78 Lastman to Rhoads, 5 Feb. 1931, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 1 (Cheyenne River).

79 Ibid. L. G. Moses has argued that in some cases Wild West show dancing was not merely a bastardized, inauthentic corruption of Native dances, but was a means by which some dancers could keep their traditions alive. See Moses, L. G., Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883–1933 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

80 David Rich Lewis has drawn attention to “the weakness of this progressive–traditional dichotomy” in his study of the Ute cultural broker William Wash, who was a successful cattle and sheep raiser, yet was a member of the Native American Church and also practised giveaways. See Lewis, David Rich, “Reservation Leadership and the Progressive–Traditional Dichotomy: William Wash and the Northern Utes, 1865–1928,” in Hoxie, Frederick, Mancall, Peter and Merrell, James, eds., American Nations: Encounters in Indian Country, 1850 to the Present (New York: Routledge, 2000), 201–19Google Scholar.

81 See Ernest Stecker to Commissioner, 27 May 1916 and 2 Aug. 1916, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 9 (San Carlos). Superintendent Stecker reported to the Commissioner that the San Carlos Apaches wanted to hold a 4 July celebration. The celebration was permitted and was organized entirely by an Apache committee. As well as wheelbarrow and sack races and baseball, the event featured an “Indian social dance” and many horse races – a fusion of traditional and assimilationist pursuits. See also James McGregor to Commissioner Burke, 18 Dec. 1922, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 9 (Rosebud). McGregor was concerned that the Rosebud community wanted too many celebrations: twice-monthly dances, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, George Washington's birthday, 4 July. McGregor clearly believed the occasions were excuses for dances – yet perhaps they were motivated by a genuine desire to celebrate American and Christian holidays in a Lakota style, especially given the presence of Christian communities on the reservation and World War I veterans.

82 See Henry Tidwell to Commissioner, 8 Aug. 1918, BIA-CCF: B, Reel 8 (Pine Ridge). Tidwell was accused by Charles Turning Hawk of wrongful arrest during an Omaha dance held to raise money for the Red Cross. Tidwell arrested all the dancers and denounced the Red Cross association as a mere “guise” for excess dancing. That Turning Hawk believed in the Red Cross cause is suggested by his complaint to Senator E. Johnson of wrongful arrest.

83 The dance bans were lifted in 1934 by Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier. However, cultural oppression continued and was a source of concerted protest for the Red Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1978 Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which states, “Henceforth it shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonies and traditional rites.” For an analysis of its limitations see Petoskey, J., “Indians and the First Amendment,” in Deloria, Vine Jr., ed., American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 222–34Google Scholar; and S. O'Brien, “Federal Indian Policies and the International Protection of Human Rights,” in ibid., 53–59.