Indian Dances and the Politics of Religious Freedom, 1870–1930

This article examines Native American demands for religious freedom in an era when the U.S. government systematically suppressed indige-nous traditions. Records from across Indian country reveal that reli-gious freedom claims emerged as only one option in a broader strategic toolbox. While tribal leaders named some ceremonies as reli-gion, they defended others as harmless social events similar to white dances, or as the Indian way of celebrating the Fourth of July. Significantly, while the former tended to take on characteristics that supported the designation of “religion ” in the eyes of authorities, the latter tended to drop such attributes. The point here is not simply that some ceremonies were secularized while others became more religious—in fact neither development was absolute—but that the very distinction between “religion ” and the “secular ” in Native American traditions was a product of government suppression, a necessary accommodation to the norms of the dominant society. IN AUGUST 1914, about forty “chiefs, headmen and members of the Pawnee tribe ” sent a letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cato Sells, protesting allegations by a Methodist missionary that what he called the “heathen rites ” of the Ghost Dance presented a “menace to the morals of our boys and girls. ” After specifically refuting each of the missionary’s charges, these Pawnee leaders offered their own positiv