The Ghost Dance was an effect to the Indians being forced to surrender to government authority and reluctance life. It promised a disaster in the coming years during which time the earth would be destroyed, only to be recreated with the Indians as the inheritors of the new earth. With the earth destroyed, white people would be destroyed, buried under the new soil of the spring that would cover the land and restore the prairie. “The buffalo and antelope would return, and deceased ancestors would rise to once again roam the earth, now free of violence, starvation, and disease. The natural world would be restored, and the land once again would be free and open to the Indian peoples, without the borders and boundaries of the white man.”

After gathering around four hundred Indians in a circle around the priest, he gave them instructions on what to chant and when to stop and other matters, which lasted about fifteen minutes. After the ceremony was finished, they all started dancing. “They kept up dancing until fully 100 persons were lying unconscious.”They stopped dancing and formed a circle and began to tell their experience one-by-one in the middle of the circle. They then took a break and did this entire experience all over again about three times a day.

Link to document: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/gddescrp.htm