[4] Wovoka's father was Numu-tibo'o (sometimes called Tavibo), who for several decades was incorrectly believed to be Wodziwob, a religious leader who had founded the Ghost Dance of 1870.

He was said to have caused a block of ice to fall out of the sky on a summer day, to be able to end drought with rain or snow, to light his pipe with the sun, and to form icicles in his hands.

In the "Messiah Letters", Wovoka spoke of Jesus Christ's life on Earth and likened the foretold redemption of Native Americans to a biblical Judgement Day.

One scholar of religions, Tom Thatcher, cites James Mooney's Smithsonian-sponsored anthropological report to claim that Wovoka received his first vision while chopping wood for David Wilson in 1887.

[10] Conversely, historian Paul Bailey utilized Mooney's work along with interviews with Wovoka's contemporaries and interpreters to assert that he received the vision after entering a two-day trance, awaking in tears.

[11] Regardless, shortly after receiving the vision and its message, it moved quickly beyond his local Paiute community by word of mouth to Native American tribes further east, notably the Lakota.

As the movement spread across the American West, various interpretations of Wovoka's original message were adopted, notably by the Lakota Sioux living on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Historical evidence suggests that the unconventional practice of Christianity on the part of the Lakota tribe was largely responsible for the tensions between Whites and Native Americans leading up to the Battle at Wounded Knee.

US authorities challenged the theological views of the Ghost Dance movement and arguably sought conflict with the Lakota tribe as a means of condemning these practices.

The band Old Crow Medicine Show mentions "the prophets from Elijah to the old Paiute Wovoka" in the song "I Hear Them All" from their album Big Iron World.