\Ghost dance\
A religious dance of the North American Indians, participated
in by both sexes, and looked upon as a rite of invocation the
purpose of which is, through trance and vision, to bring the
dancer into communion with the unseen world and the spirits
of departed friends. The dance is the chief rite of the
{Ghost-dance}, or
{Messiah},
{religion}, which originated about 1890 in the doctrines of
   the Piute Wovoka, the Indian Messiah, who taught that the
   time was drawing near when the whole Indian race, the dead
   with the living, should be reunited to live a life of
   millennial happiness upon a regenerated earth. The
   religion inculcates peace, righteousness, and work, and
   holds that in good time, without warlike intervention, the
   oppressive white rule will be removed by the higher
   powers. The religion spread through a majority of the
   western tribes of the United States, only in the case of
   the Sioux, owing to local causes, leading to an outbreak.