True story about trying to locate the grave of 'Jack Wilson'(indigenous name: Wovoka) for actor friend Ed Nylund (1988, EMERALD CITIES, etc.). Wovoka originated the Ghost Dance religion in 1890s.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wovoka

LOOKING FOR JACK WILSON

On one of my trips to the desert with my departed friend Ed Nylund, he prompted us to try and locate the grave of Jack Wilson, the American name of an Indian named Wovoka, who rose in prominence in one year from being an obscure shaman to being thought of as the Indian Messiah, spreading the word throughout the Indian nations of the Ghost Dance religion. Quickly stated, Wovoka preached a religion that stressed the White man’s Ten Commandments, with admonitions against fighting. He promised that another “new world” would be inhabited by the Indians, that they would enjoy “eternal life,” unmarred by pain, sickness, want, or death. By praying, and dancing the Ghost Dance, they reached a trance-like state, and wore special shirts like our current T-shirt into battle. These shirts supposedly protected them against bullets––and they were slaughtered in droves. At any rate, Ed had a fixation for somehow locating Wovoka's grave and taking a photograph.

We ended up driving around in circles on the Walker reservation in Nevada where Ed assumed the graveyard to be located, until I finally decided to stop and ask for directions. In front of a shack-like house I saw a young Indian girl playing. I rolled up next to her on the roadside and asked if she knew of a cemetery nearby. She said, “Yes.” When I asked for instructions on how to find it the words she spoke were vague, something like, “Go down road, to high ground, and turn.” As I drove away, on our quest, I realized how she had given instructions as if I already knew where it was and had just temporarily forgotten. Her instructions were not for strangers.

I got the impression that what had transpired was a good lesson, that only those who really belonged at the cemetery would be able to find it.

It was already late in the day when we got the instructions from the little girl. Ed kept saying that it would be too dark for pictures if we didn’t find Jack Wilson's grave soon. I felt Ed’s pressure as I drove along the desert road and saw only flat land in every direction. Where was the “high ground?”

Finally I realized that I wasn’t thinking straight. At that point, I gave myself permission to proceed “with feelings,” entrusting the search to intuition rather than reason. Soon after that I turned off the asphalt highway onto a dirt road that just “felt right,” though for a while it looked doomed to failure. After about a half mile in I suddenly came across a fenced-in area that revealed itself as a cemetery with hundreds of identical white wooden crosses. The Indian cemetery!

The sun was about one-half-of-a-fist above the horizon from going behind the distant mountains when I held my arm outstretched, so I knew we had only about 1/2 hour left. Each full fist-width = one hour (try it yourself!). Anyway, Ed was frantic. How can we ever find the grave of Wovoka in this little remaining light, he repeated. Pressure!

Once again my rational mind offered no solution. And again my spiritual side cut in. From somewhere inside my brain I spoke the following words to myself.

“If you are such a great god, Wovoka, then lead me to your grave.” And having launched that challenge I started walking through a sea of white crosses, being careful to step only on paths beside graves. I walked a diagonal path and was about half way across the field of crosses when I heard a sound (felt a sound?) and turned. My eyes landed directly on the words of the closest white marker, which sang out the name “Jack Wilson.” Ed moved in quickly and snapped several shots.

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Walker Indian Reservation had maybe 500 more crosses than this, when Jack Wilson/Wovoka’s spirit whispered something to me, like ‘Psssst! Photo is from “Cemetery near Bancroft, Nebraska,” near where Bright Eyes and her journalist/author husband Thomas H. Tibbles started married life in 1881). Excerpted from INSHTA THEUMBA ("BRIGHT EYES") AND THE INDIAN RING,” by Rick Schmidt ©2024.

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Learn more about Wovoka and GHOST DANCE here. (Don’t miss reading comments at bottom of article!).

And Ed and I weren’t the first to look for Jack Wilson (a better marker was put up for Wovoka after we visited! in early 1970s).

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