In 1888, the Lakota Sioux begin a religious revival of their culture known as the Ghost Dance. “The dance itself revealed a paradise in which Indians could live free of pain and suffering…The religion represented a threat to white expansion,” (Merchant 143). The United States government bans the Ghost Dance on the Sioux reservations.

These images spring from the white imagination about the Ghost Dance which was, “…cemented in the country’s collective consciousness by its association with the Wounded Knee massacre on December 29, 1830, that inglorious symbol for…the failure of governmental and reformist policies,” (Bearor 1).

These images were released in full-page print as part of an article about the Lakota Ghost Dance–their actual status as an entirely unrelated dance belonging to the Navajo made no difference to the publishers. Appearing in publication just two weeks before the massacre, these images reflect a white fear of Native American ‘dance’ practices and approval for the government outlaw of the Ghost Dance. Native American spirituality was sensationalized through images such as these.