Sioux Ghost Dance

1894 was an extremely important year for American cinema, as finally after 5 years of hard work, the Edison Manufacturing Company showed to the world the first motion picture exhibition device: William K.L. Dickson's Kinetoscope. It wasn't anything like what we now know as cinema (it wasn't a projector), but it was the first device that allowed people to be able to contemplate moving images. Soon the first public Kinetoscope parlor was opened and motion pictures started to become part of our world, opening the way to new pioneers like the Lumière brothers, inventors of cinema as we know it, who found a lot of inspiration for their work in Dickson's invention. When the Kinetoscope debuted, it offered short films depicting vaudeville artists, common activities like horse shoeing or metal forging, and some sports; but soon everyone wanted to be captured by the camera and among those first movie stars were the members of the "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" show.

According to historians, on September 24, 1894, several members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show arrived to Edison's famous Black Maria studio in order to perform in front of the camera and be part of the motion pictures revolution. Among the films done that day by Dickson and cinematographer William Heise, were two short films about Native American dances, which are considered as the very first movies where Native Americans appeared. "Sioux Ghost Dance" and "Buffalo Dance" were those two films, and both showed a group of Native Americans performing a song. In "Sioux Ghost Dance", a group of Sioux people make the ritual dance inspired by prophet Jack Wilson's (known as Wovoka) religious teachings. Sadly, due to the limitations of Dickson's early camera-work the magnitude of the Ghost dance can not be fully appreciated.

While a product of the late 1800s, the Ghost Dance was based on the traditional circle dances that Native Americans had been performing for centuries, so "Sioux Ghost Dance" (and its companion piece, "Buffalo Dance") allowed to Kinetoscope's audiences a small look at real Native American traditions. Despite being a show were the actors reenacted scenes from the wild west, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" had many extremely accurate and realistic elements, and the Native dances were one of them, proudly portraying their traditions under the protection of Buffalo Bill Cody (who was very respectful of them). It's true that without the sound, the dance loses a lot of its impact, but this movie is still an early example of documentary film. 6/10

this short, 22-second film is another one of edison's black maria studios' motion picture camera experiments, this time heise and dickson immortalize fully war-painted American natives performing the mystical ghost dance.

the film itself is quite dark, you can barely see what's going on. ironically the ghost dance, as far as i understand, was a native American ritual/religion to separate the natives from the white man, his alcohol, weapons and _technology_.

'sioux ghost dance' was shot five years after, according to the story, wovoka's peyote induced vision where he saw the future evils of white man and the second coming of Christ, who (surprise surprise), came in wovoka's shape. as the word spread, the lakota came to meet him and learn the ghost dance. the most fanatic followers of the cult, big foot and his band, mostly women and children, got slaughtered by whites at wounded creek in 1890, only two weeks after the arrests where the lakota chief sitting bull was shot in the head by the lakota police during a gunfight between the police and the ghost dancers, an event precipitating the wounded creek massacre.

It was on September 24, 1894 when the performers of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show met at Edison's famous Black Maria studio, to be shot in a series of films promoting the show prior to the time they were to travel to Europe. Performers filmed include cowboy Lee Martin, showman and hunter William F. Cody (or "Buffalo Bill"), the infamous sharpshooter Annie Oakley, and Native American warriors Hair Coat, Parts His Hair and Last Horse. Among the various shorts shot on this date was also this 15-second, poorly-lit clip of genuine Sioux Indians performing their ghost dance for the Kinetograph. From the looks of it, there appear to be at least fifteen or twenty Indians present, consisting of children age seven to adults aged thirty and including the chief complete with the trademark headdress.

Unfortunately, from the dark print existing today, few details remain to be known about "Sioux Ghost Dance", such as the identified performers and the various garments they seem to be wearing. Being a Native American dance, there's no way to actually evaluate or judge the skill of the performing looking at it today. (After all, to the Indians doing this was probably more like a ritual than a dance, done to keep away evil spirits). Additionally, while the films shot Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show were mostly made to promote the show in Europe, this particular subject of Indians dancing was probably favored largely due to the amount of movement in frame. This would explain the sign in the bottom right-hand corner, which was no doubt put there for advertising purposes.

Reportedly, "Sioux Ghost Dance" is also the world's first filming of Native Americans, according to a number of sources. (Its companion film, "Buffalo Dance", shot the same day would have been the second). I wouldn't argue with this logic since the career of the Edison company had just begun and few film pioneers had gotten as far as they. Still, it would have helped make the dance seem a little more natural for the performers had they gone on location, like an outside setting in a forest or a mountain area. That's probably too much to wish for, however, since the studio hadn't yet begun to shoot their subjects in location (which would actually begin by the year 1896).

Well, not much to say about this really, since it isn't anything too remarkable or groundbreaking, other than the fact that this was the first time ever native Americans got captured by the Thomas A. Edison's camera.

Appereantly the native American's in this movie were part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show but indeed they were real Sioux Indians. They are in full war paint and costume and show of one of their dances. We see how they start out, dance around a bit before the movie suddenly comes to an end.

It got not shot on location but in the Black Maria studio, with William Heise behind the camera, on September 24, 1894. The same day other similar type of movies got shot, featuring natives.

They were probably interesting in capturing the complicated movements of several people at the same time and distributed for the people to have a change to see actual Indians doing their stuff. It's quite good quality all and all of the movements seem smooth and natural. The movie got definitely shot in the right speed.

Only really relevant or interesting if you are into movie history or that of native American Indians.

6/10

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According to the Edison Film Historian C Muesser this piece of film featured genuine Native Americans (Possibly Sioux) from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, decked out in full war paint and war costumes. Filmed on 24th September 1894 in Edison's Black Maria Studio, this clip is poignantly historic in one particular aspect, that it represents the first ever appearance of Native American's (Indians) on moving film, either in a real or fictional context. One could almost say that out of this very birth came a million movie cliches.