The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Ghost dance \Ghost dance\
   A religious dance of the North American Indians, participated
   in by both sexes, and looked upon as a rite of invocation the
   purpose of which is, through trance and vision, to bring the
   dancer into communion with the unseen world and the spirits
   of departed friends. The dance is the chief rite of the

   Ghost-dance, or

   Messiah,

   religion, which originated about 1890 in the doctrines of
      the Piute Wovoka, the Indian Messiah, who taught that the
      time was drawing near when the whole Indian race, the dead
      with the living, should be reunited to live a life of
      millennial happiness upon a regenerated earth. The
      religion inculcates peace, righteousness, and work, and
      holds that in good time, without warlike intervention, the
      oppressive white rule will be removed by the higher
      powers. The religion spread through a majority of the
      western tribes of the United States, only in the case of
      the Sioux, owing to local causes, leading to an outbreak.
      [Webster 1913 Suppl.]