revitalization movement, political-religious movements promising deliverance from deprivation, the elimination of foreign domination, and a new interpretation of the human condition based on traditional cultural values, common in societies undergoing severe stress associated with colonial conquest and intense class or racial exploitation. A prominent example is the Ghost Dance of Native Americans, who believed that their ritual would cause ancestors and bison herds to return and white people to leave. Although a nonviolent form of protest, it ended with the massacre of over 200 Sioux men, women, and children by the U.S. army at Wounded Knee, S.Dak., in 1890. Cargo cults are another form of revitalization movement found in New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia, especially after the intense movements of armies through the area during World War II. Followers believe that local governments prevent their ancestors from delivering an abundance of European or American goods. Their rituals reflect their sense of economic marginalization, belief that the world capitalist economy behaves irrationally, and alienation from state-level politics. These movements are also referred to as nativistic, revivalistic, millenarian, or messianic.

In 1956, Anthony F. C. Wallace published a paper called "Revitalization Movements" to describe how cultures change themselves. A revitalization movement is a "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a group to create a new culture," and Wallace describes at length the processes by which a revitalization movement takes place.

Wallace derived his theory from studies of so-called primitive peoples (preliterate and homogeneous), with particular attention to the Iroquois revitalization movement led by Seneca religious leader and "prophet" Handsome Lake (1735-1815). Wallace believed that his revitalization model applies to movements as broad and complex as the rise of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or Wesleyan Methodism.

See also

• Ghost Dance: a famous Native American revitalization movement
• Great Awakenings: a controversially named reference to revitalization movements in the USA.
• Revivalism

References

• Kehoe, B Alice, The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization, Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, Thompson Publishing, 1989.