Named after the ghost dance – a shuffling circle dance accompanied by chanting, during which dancers experienced mystical visions of the dead – the ghost dance religion was a Native American religious movement which preached the return of the dead and a new world inhabited by Native Americans, both dead and living.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century the ghost dance religion spread quickly through the Western, Southwestern and Plains tribes, giving hope to Native Americans, and in particular the Sioux people, suffering under White oppression. In some instances the dance would last four or five days with dancers experiencing visions of the Native American dead returning to help the living and bringing back the old ways to the world.

Whites perceived the ghost dance religion to be hostile and in November 1890 banned it in all Sioux reservations. The religion continued despite the ban but finally ended on 29 December 1890, with the massacre of ghost dance advocates at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.