Ghost Dance on Pandora?
James Cameron’s “Avatar” has become a worldwide phenomenon, with a plethora of awards and nominations, and a box office record of over $1.8 billion, making it the highest grossing movie ever. However, the story woven around the natives of Cameron’s fictional planet “Pandora” has been reinvented and retold in Hollywood for decades, but at its heart is the history of the Native Americans and their core belief in the sanctity of Mother Earth.
One of Avatar’s pivotal scenes depicts the N’avi gathered around the “Tree of Souls,” ceremoniously attempting to bring Sigourney Weaver’s character back to life. The ceremony bears a striking resemblance to the traditional Native American Ghost Dance, which began with the vision of a Paiute Indian during an eclipse of the sun, and became a central ritual among many of the Plains tribes. The tribes who practiced the Ghost Dance ritual believed that if they danced and chanted together with enough intensity, the earth would turn upside down, the non-native invaders would be destroyed, and the sanctity of the earth would be restored. With the restoration of the earth, the souls of all American Indians would be reunited, free of death and disease, and their land would be rightly returned.
Ilana Weinberg, AAMTV producer and journalist, will begin a series of posts on religion and peace-building. Her next post will be on Hinduism.
One illustration of the Ghost Dance depicts the Great Spirit returning to Earth along with all of the spirits of the ancestors, and reinforcements of Buffalo herd to help defeat the invader. The epic battle scene in “Avatar”, where the great spirit “Eywa” sends the native beasts to fight alongside the Na’vi as reinforcements against the alien invaders, again mimics the unity of man and nature that provided the foundation for Native American belief.
As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently wrote, “ ‘Avatar’ is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism – a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.” This message has been reinforced in Hollywood for years, as Douthat points out, from Disney’s “Pocahontas” to “Dances with Wolves”, “Star Wars”, and, (in my opinion) “FernGully”.
While the intent of the healing ceremony in Avatar was to bring back to life one woman in particular, the broader conflict in the movie reflects the traditional ideal of a return to paradise. The Native Americans’ universe was centered around a sacred and inseparable relationship between man, nature, and god (or the spirit world). Reciprocity was essential to maintain harmony. Everything man took from nature must be returned. Disregard for the earth’s sacredness was a threat to the Native Americans and, in their view, all of humanity.
Today, as climate change represents an increasingly real threat, it seems Cameron is drawing upon these fundamental Native American beliefs to inspire a new generation to respect the sanctity of Mother Nature.