Sun Dance
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The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by several North American Indian Nations.
The Sun Dance is a ritual performed by a number of different native tribes. Each tribe has its own distinctive rituals and methods of performing the dance, but many of the ceremonies have features in common, including dancing, singing and drumming, the experience of visions, fasting, and in some cases, piercing, of the chest.
Most notable for early Western observers was the piercing many young men endure as part of the ritual. Frederick Schwatka wrote about a Sioux Sun Dance he witnessed in the late 1800s:
- Each one of the young men presented himself to a medicine-man, who took between his thumb and forefinger a fold of the loose skin of the breast—and then ran a very narrow-bladed but sharp knife through the skin—a stronger skewer of bone, about the size of a carpenter's pencil was inserted. This was tied to a long skin rope fastened, at its other extremity, to the top of the sun-pole in the center of the arena. The whole object of the devotee is to break loose from these fetters. To liberate himself he must tear the skewers through the skin, a horrible task that even with the most resolute may require many hours of torture.
A common explanation is that a flesh offering is given as part of a prayer.
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.
This sacred 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. Women are now allowed to dance but are not required to pierce their skin as the men are, in the dances where they pierce (some do not do it at all, such as the Shoshoni in Wyoming). They may pierce if they desire to. A Sundancer must commit to dancing for four years, for the four compass directions. It is a prayer of great self sacrifice for one's community and the people.
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[edit] Caution in the New Age
There are many fraudulent groups selling Native American ceremonies on the Internet. These should be avoided as they only seek to deceive people for personal gain. They do not accurately reflect a traditional Sun Dance or any other tradition they might pretend to represent. People who sell fraudulent versions of ceremonial traditions are called plastic shamans. Also, plastic shamans selling an extensively unrealistically charming or 'sweetened' version of Native American traditions (or indeed any spiritual or shamanic traditions) are referred to as twinkies.
[edit] 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. However, the flesh-sacrifice and gift-giving features were legally outlawed in 1895 through a legislated amendment to the Indian Act, however these were non-essential components of the ceremony. Regardless of the legalities, Indian agents, based on directives from their superiors, did however routinely interfere with, discouraged, and disallowed 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 Blackfoot, 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 banning flesh-sacrificing and gift-giving (Brown, 1996: pp. 34-5; 1994 Mandelbaum, 1975, pp. 14-15; & Pettipas, 1994 p. 210).
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,& Piikani) as the Medicine Dance. It was also practised by the Canadian Siouxs (Dakota and Nakoda), the Dene, and the Canadian Assiniboines.
[edit] References
Brown, Randall J. (1996). A Description and Analysis of Sacrificial Stall Dancing: As Practiced by the Plains Cree and Saulteaux of the Pasqua Reserve, Saskatchewan, in their Contemporary Rain Dance Ceremonies. Master thesis, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba.
Mandelbaum, David G. (1979). The Plains Cree: An ethnographic, historical and comparative study. Canadian Plains Studies No. 9, Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center.
Pettipas, Katherine. (1994). Serving the ties that bind: Government repression of Indigenous religious ceremonies on the prairies. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
Weekes, Mary (1939). An Indian Sun Dance. In: The Last Buffalo Hunter (As told by Norbert Welsh). Chapter 18, p. 132-138 Fifth House Publishers.
