Walker, James R. The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the
Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota. New York, 1917. The
best and most comprehensive account of the early forms of
the Sun Dance among the Lakota.
JOSEPH EPES BROWN (1987)
SUN DANCE [FURTHER CONSIDERA-
TIONS]. The Plains Indian Sun Dance is typically a cere-
mony of about twelve days duration. Three to four days of
this period consist of the dance itself, danced by men (and,
increasingly, women) who commit themselves to a self-
sacrificing discipline of abstinence from both food and water
throughout the dance. Typically, the four days before the
dancing are set aside as a period of preparation and purifica-
tion and the four days following are set aside for a series of
ceremonies that bring the whole to a close.
The historical tradition was to hold the Sun Dance in
an elevated place, usually on a plateau. With the advent of
the reservation era and federal prohibitions against observing
the ceremony, the sites were often moved to sheltered and
hidden places in physical depressions in the landscape where
the ceremony could avoid easy detection.
The Sun Dance in the contemporary period has func-
tioned as a stimulus for the growing traditionalist movement
in many tribal communities, and it continues to be appealing
to many non-Indians who are disenchanted with their own
religious traditions. To the regret of many Indian leaders and
scholars, this same attraction has influenced a transformation
of Native American traditions toward a certain mimicry of
the religious traditions disavowed by their white adherents.
The relatively famous (or infamous) Lakota Sun Dances can
attract hundreds of dancers, all ready to go to the tree and
offer their flesh for the piercing rite. At the same time there
are a plethora of other Sun Dances held that are so small as
to render them invisible in the non-Indian landscape.
Enormous commitments of resources and time are al-
ways a factor in the ceremony. Even the smallest Sun Dance
requires the sustained efforts of a variety of people: to cut
timbers and leafy coverings for the shade arbor for support-
ers; to cut wood and then tend the fire day and night for the
duration of the ceremony; to collect the necessary “medi-
cines” needed to sustain the dance and provide healing to
those who come; to provide and prepare the food to feed the
people; and to complete a great variety of other detailed
tasks.
In most tribal traditions, the ceremony can be complet-
ed with the fulfillment of a commitment by a single dancer,
the tree, and a single singer. In reality, while the number of
dancers may have always been small historically, the full
number of participants regularly included the whole of a
tribe’s community in these various supporting roles. Lakota
peoples, for instance, would congregate annually in the Black
Hills for the Sun Dance as a ceremony that brought together
all of the disparate bands. In the modern world it has become
commonplace for as many as a hundred or more to commit
to dancing this strenuous and demanding ceremony.
The Sun Dance is traditionally a men’s ceremony. The
single most characteristic feature is the sustaining of life or,
as Lakota people often say, “That the people might live.” The
blood that flows in the piercing rite of many tribal traditions
marks the ceremony as a male rite. Indeed, this sacrifice has
been characterized as men’s attempt to gain some sense of
equality with women and their natural life-giving character
signified by the monthly flow of blood in menstruation. If
women bring new life into the community, men contribute
to the maintaining of life through the Sun Dance ceremony.
While much of the professional literature misrepresents
the piercing as self-torture or self-mutilation, for Indian
communities it is always seen as a personal sacrifice offered
on behalf of the people. In any event, participants invariably
report that the piercing itself is not the most difficult aspect
of this demanding ceremony, but rather comes as a climactic
resolution that brings relief to the tension of one’s prayers.
The real focus of the ceremony is always the prayers of the
dancers.
Many Sun Dance leaders emphasize strongly that, like
all other key ceremonies, the Sun Dance ought always be
done according to the direction of a particular vision given
to someone in a particular time and place. Hence, each Sun
Dance is a discrete phenomenon. One constant in all tribal
variants is that there is a tree. Everything else is based on the
particular vision and can vary from tribe to tribe and from
one Sun Dance leader to another within a tribe.
Many tribes continue to practice a form of the Sun
Dance that is still a tribal ceremony. That is to say that the
tribal community sponsors only one Sun Dance each year
and that it is a ceremony performed by and for the tribe as
a whole. The ceremony held at Ethete, Wyoming, is an ex-
ample. A high percentage of the Northern Arapaho popula-
tion is involved, and the tribe’s government extends certain
privileges to those who are principal participants. These cere-
monies function in the modern world as spiritual events that
provide social cohesion for the tribe.
Other tribes, particularly the Siouan group of Lakota
and Dakota, have engaged in a substantial transformation of
their ceremonial life and its intent. One could argue that
these tribes have moved towards the individualization repre-
sented by missionary Christianity. As such, these Sun Dance
ceremonies tend today to proliferate into individual and fam-
ily events that can even be seen as competing with one anoth-
er for adherents. These ceremonies form around specific spir-
itual leaders, and many are increasingly open to anyone,
Indian or non-Indian, who will make the personal commit-
ment to a particular spiritual leader.
Ultimately, the proliferation of Sun Dances on Lakota
reservations reflects back the denominational variety of mis-
sionary religion, which has historically functioned to divide8848 SUN DANCE [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS]