sun dance

For more information on sun dance, visit Britannica.com.

The term "sun dance" is an anthropological invention referring to a number of ceremonies on the Great Plains that were characterized by considerable internal complexity. The Lakota sun dance, wiwanyag wachipi, may be translated as "dance looking at the sun." By contrast, some have translated the Blackfoot Okan as "sacred sleep." The central ritual of the Mandans, the Okipa, was not a sun dance at all but rather a complex ceremony that took place in an earth lodge on the central dance plaza of the village and focused a great deal of its energy on animal dances and animal renewal. By the middle of the nineteenth century there were approximately twenty-five rituals identified as "sun dances" spread across the Great Plains.

On the Northwestern Plains, the development of these rituals was imbedded in a history of migrations that brought peoples with different cultural backgrounds into closer proximity. These groups became the horse-mounted nomads that fired the imagination of Europeans and Americans alike. Among these groups the ritual known as the sun dance became richly developed and imagined.

As a consequence of increased cultural interactions, mid-nineteenth-century Plains sun dances featured a number of common elements. Almost all of the rituals included a lodge constructed around a specially selected center pole. There were preparatory sweat lodge rituals that often continued through the four- to eight-day ceremony. A central altar became the focus of many of the ceremonies, and a sacred bundle or bundles was transferred from a previous sponsor to an individual or family sponsor for the year. Male dancers were pierced on both sides of their chest and tethered to the center pole by means of skewers attached to leather thongs; during some point in the ritual they also might drag buffalo skulls tethered to skewers imbedded in the flesh of their backs. Participants actively sought and often experienced powerful visions that were life transforming. Animal-calling rituals and pervasive buffalo symbolism focused on ensuring that the buffalo would continue to give themselves to the people as food. Sexual intercourse sometimes took place between women who had ritually become buffalo and men who had also assumed this role, establishing a tie of kinship between the humans and the buffalo people. Dancing, body painting, and complex color symbolism created multiple symbolic references that interacted with the central symbols of the ritual. Finally, the ritual enactment as a whole was believed to renew the world, the animals, the plants, and the people.

Despite these similarities, when looked at from within, the rituals of the various groups were identified with symbolic boundaries that made them unique peoples. Important creator figures, such as the Sun (in the case of one Blackfoot tradition), special culture heroes, and other important predecessors were believed to have brought the sun dance to the people. From this perspective it was their special ritual pathway to powers that would sustain them and reinforce their identity in relation to others who had similar ceremonies. Because of the considerable cultural interaction on the Plains, cultural interchange became important in the development of these rituals, but traditions of origin tended to constitute them as unique to the experience of each people.

Bibliography

Holler, Clyde. Black Elk's Religion: The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

Mails, Thomas E. Sundancing: The Great Sioux Piercing Ritual. Tulsa, Okla: Council Oaks Books, 1998.

Spier, Leslie. "The Sun Dance of the Plains Indians." Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 16. New York: The Trustees, 1921.

Yellowtail, Thomas. Yellowtail: Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Sketch of a Siouan Sun Dance by George Catlin

The sun dance is a religious ceremony practiced by a number of Native American tribes, primarily those of the Plains Nations. Each tribe has its own distinct practices and ceremonial protocols, but many of the ceremonies have features in common, including dancing, singing of traditional songs in the tribe's native languages, praying, drumming, the experience of visions, fasting, and in some cases piercing of skin on the chest, arms or back. Most notable for early Western observers was the piercing many young men endure as part of the ritual.

The object of being pierced is to sacrifice one's self to the Great Spirit, and to pray while connected to the Tree of Life, a direct connection to the Great Spirit. Breaking from the piercing is done in one moment, as the dancer runs backwards from the tree at a time specified by the leader of the dance. A common explanation, in context with the intent of the dancer, is that a flesh offering, or piercing, is given as part of prayer and offering for the benefit of one's family and community.

Though only some Nations' Sun Dances include the piercings, the Canadian Government outlawed some of the practices of the Sun Dance in 1880, and the United States government followed suit in 1904. However, the ceremony is now again fully legal (since Jimmy Carter's presidency in the United States) and is still practiced in the United States and Canada. Some dancers do not do pierce at all, such as the Shoshone in Wyoming. They may pierce if they desire to. A Sundancer must commit to dancing for four years.

A Cheyenne sun dance gathering, c. 1909.

Contents 1 The Sun Dance in Canada 2 In popular culture 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

The Sun Dance in Canada

Although the Government of Canada, through the Department of Indian Affairs, officially persecuted Sun Dance practitioners and attempted to suppress the Sun Dance, the ceremony was never legally prohibited. The flesh-sacrifice and gift-giving features were legally outlawed in 1895 through a legislated amendment to the Indian Act, but these were non-essential components of the ceremony. Regardless of the legalities, Indian agents, based on directives from their superiors, did routinely interfere with, discourage, and disallow Sun Dances on many Canadian plains reserves starting in 1882 until the 1940’s. Despite the subjugation, Sun Dance practitioners, such as the Plains Cree, Saulteaux, and Blackfeet, continued to hold Sun Dances throughout the persecution period, minus the prohibited features, some in secret, and others with permissions from their agents. At least one Cree or Saulteaux Rain Dance has occurred each year since 1880 somewhere on the Canadian Plains. In 1951 government officials revamped the Indian Act and dropped the legislation that forbade flesh-sacrificing and gift-giving.^[1]

In Canada, the Sun Dance is known by the Plains Cree as the Thirst Dance, the Saulteaux (Plains Objibwa), as the Rain Dance and the Blackfoot (Siksika, Kainai, and Piikani) as the Medicine Dance. It was also practised by the Canadian Sioux (Dakota and Nakoda), the Dene, and the Canadian Assiniboines.

In popular culture

• Native Spirit and the Sun Dance Way, World Wisdom 2007. Thomas Yellowtail, a revered Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief for over thirty years, describes and explains the ancient ceremony that is sacred to the Crow tribe.^[2]
• Although the dance is not performed, many Native Americans shown shirtless in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman have scars which are identified as Sun Dance scars by Dr. Quinn's love interest Byron Sully, who has adopted the Cheyenne way of life.
• A romanticized and Hollywood-influenced version of the Sun Dance ceremony appears in the film A Man Called Horse starring actor Richard Harris, in the title role. However, the scene is criticized for its depiction of Sun Dance as a initiation ordeal rather than a religious ceremony, despite being based on historical accounts.

See also

• Firekeeper
• Medicine Man
• Plastic shamans
• Sweat lodge

References

1. ^ Brown, 1996: pp. 34-5; 1994 Mandelbaum, 1975, pp. 14-15; & Pettipas, 1994 p. 210. [Note: this is all that was provided.]
2. ^ Native Spirit and The Sun Dance Way

External links

• American Ethnography -- The vision in Plains culture Ruth Benedict's article from 1922.
• Slideshow on the Sun Dance religion

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)