Wovoka

[ wuh-voh-kuh ]

noun

1. c1856–1932, Paiute religious leader: originator of the ghost dance religion.

Example Sentences

In a very different time — the year 1889 — among a very different people — the Plains Indians — a Northern Paiute spiritual leader named Wovoka mobilized thousands by assuring them that performing a ritual known as the Ghost Dance would restore their lost world; ancestors would come back to life, bison herds would reappear; whites would be banished.

From Washington Post

A young Paiute Indian medicine-man, known as Wovoka, and called Jack Wilson by the whites, proclaimed that he had had a revelation, and that, if this ghost dance and other ceremonies were duly performed, the Indians would be rid of the white men.

From Project Gutenberg

He discovered no secret, returned to find the tribes aroused by the Messianic teachings of Wovoka, dancing the ghost dance that meant trouble for Wasichus.

From Time Magazine Archive