By 1890, conditions were very bad. Many Indians starved to death.  The situation was in rise for a major movement.  This movement found its origin, a Paiute Holy Indian named Wovoka, who announced that he was the messiah that had came to prepare the Indians for their salvation.

While sick with a fever in 1889, he dreamed that he was lifted into the sky where the Great Spirit talked him.  He also saw all the old-time Indians living a happy life.  The Great Spirit taught him songs and a new dance and told him to teach the Indians to stop fighting and lead a good life.  Then no one would ever grow old, be sick, or grow hungry.  

"When the Earth is dying there shall arise a new tribe of all colors and creed.  This tribe shall be called the Warriors of the Rainbow and it will put its faith in actions not words........"  -Hopi Indians prophecy ("Hopi means 'Peace')

 Representatives all over the nation came to Nevada to meet with Wovoka to learn to dance and sing songs that would later be known as the Ghost Dance. They referred to Wovoka as Christ and they told how,

"Christ had flown over them on their horseback to the railroad tracks, teaching them Ghost Dance Songs."  And they told him of the Prophecy, that next spring, "When the grass was high, the Earth would be covered with sweet grass, running water, and trees; the great heard of buffalo and wild horses would return.  All the Indians who danced the Ghost Dance would be taken up into the air and suspended there while the new Earth was being laid down.  Then they would be replaced there, with the ghost of their ancestors, on the new Earth. And only Indians would live on the new land.

  Believers made special clothing for the Ghost Dance ceremonies, such as the Arapaho Dress, emblazed with images of eagles and buffaloes.  Some Sioux made their shirts of Muslim flour sacks.  These "Ghost Shirts"  were believed to protect them from the bluecoats' bullets.

  During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota villages revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites.  A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington saying this:

"Indians are dancing in the snow and acting wild and crazy..... We need protection and we need it now!  The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until matter is quieted, and this should be done now!" The order went out to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation.  He was killed in the attempt on December 15.

Even though all theses Indians are long gone, some Indians in the West still do the Ghost Dance hoping to bring back the past like it once was before the whites invaded the Indian territory.