Delores Taylor & Andy Vidovich watch ‘Ghost Dance’

Unbeknown to Tom as he wrote ‘Billy Jack’, there was a significant amount of Ghost Religion perspective interwoven into the story. Tom later learned of the Ghost Religion and its creator, Wovoka (Jack Wilson, also known as Jack Willy… Willy Jack… think about it for a moment…), a Northern Paiute religious leader. (A ‘militarized’ version of the Ghost Dance was largely responsible for the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, when U.S. troops sought to extinguish its growing popularity for the confidence and rebellion it seemed to be inspiring.) Once Tom discovered the amazing connections, he set out to learn all he could about Wovoka. In the course of researching, Tom tracked down Andy Vidovich, Wovoka’s son-in-law, who had become family historian and keeper of the original Ghost religion principles. Andy had never traveled by plane before, but agreed to fly to New Mexico for the filming of the spiritual dance that takes place after Billy is bitten by the snake to supervise/advise. (You can see Andy, the lone figure standing on the edge of the pit, as the scene is filmed from a helicopter above.) Andy gave not only gave his blessing, but relayed other connections in the film to Wovoka’s teachings.

Following the popularity of the film, Andy began to be interviewed by native american historians to document all he knew of Wovoka and his teachings. He had felt his purpose was to save all this Wovoka information for future generations, and ‘Billy Jack’ played a big part in at least bringing up the Ghost Religion topic, and of pointing native american scholors to Mr. Vidovich. In a small, simple way, Billy Jack helped save Wovoka.

Here are a few more pictures of the Ghost dance filming.