moisture it has gathered from the stream near which it grew,
and then it dies.
The tree thus recapitulates the major themes of the Sun
Dance, which involve the alternations of dry and moist, ig-
norance and wisdom, and death and life—for if there is to
be life there must also be death. Once the tree has been cere-
monially raised, offerings are placed at its base, and in its fork
is put a nest of cherry or willow branches in which may be
placed sacred offerings or, often, rawhide effigies. Colored
ribbons, signifying heaven and earth, may be tied high on
the tree’s forking branches. Each tribal group has its own
color symbolism and specific manner of dressing the tree.
Among the Crow, for example, the head of a bull buffalo is
placed, facing east, on the tree, and in the branches there is
an eagle, both symbols recapitulating the theme of heaven
and earth. Around the tree as spiritual center the circular
lodge is then constructed in accord with symbolical varia-
tions specific to each of the tribal groups.
The general architectural design for most tribal Sun
Dance lodges is the central tree around which are twenty-
eight vertical, forked poles associated with the twenty-eight
days of the lunar month. This circle of forked poles is then
joined together by horizontal poles laid into the upright
forks. In addition the Shoshoni, Crow, and Arapaho lodges
have twenty-eight very long poles extending from the forks
at the circumference and then all laid into the crotch high
on the central tree, a structure that resembles a spoked wheel.
The Siouan lodges do not have poles radiating out from the
center; a distinctive feature of their lodge, in accord with
their ceremonial usage, is the construction of a continuous
overhead shade arbor around the inner periphery of the
lodge. All styles of lodges, however, have entryways facing
the east, the place of the rising sun, and brush is usually
placed loosely around the outer walls for the greater privacy
of the participants within. For all tribal groups, the lodge is
not merely understood as a “symbolic model” of the world,
but rather it is the world, universe, or created cosmos. Since
construction of the lodge recapitulates the creation of the
world, all acts in this process are accompanied by prayers and
powerful songs associated with ancient myths of origin and
creation. The occasion, reminiscent of a primordial time, is
solemn, dignified, and of great beauty.
Around the sacred lodge in concentric circles the camps
of family units are set up in accord with long-established pro-
tocol. At Sun Dance encampments the doorways of many
tipis or wall tents are not toward the east, as is customary in
daily usage, but rather toward the sacred lodge and tree at
the center of the circle. To the west of the sacred lodge there
are usually special tipis in which private ceremonies take
place exclusively for those who will sacrifice in the lodge.
Sweat lodges are also set up, but apart from the camp circle,
so that those who have made their vows may be purified be-
fore entering the lodge.
TYPICAL PERFORMANCES. Even though there are many com-
monalities in all Plains Sun Dance ceremonies, there are also
tribal variations that are of great importance to the peoples
concerned. In the Siouan form, for example, which has been
described by the Lakota Black Elk in The Sacred Pipe
(Brown, 1952), there are at least two distinctive and central
sacrificial elements, one of which is described by the Lakota
term for the Sun Dance, wiwanyag wachipi (“dance gazing
at the sun”). Here, during one complete daylight cycle, the
dancers, who are also observing a total fast, move periodically
around the inner periphery of the lodge in sunwise manner
so that they are always gazing at the sun—a cause, no doubt,
of intense suffering.
A second Lakota or Siouan emphasis, also involving sac-
rificial elements, is the practice of certain dancers, in accord
with earlier vows, to have the muscles of the chest pierced
by the presiding spiritual leader, who inserts wooden skewers
by which they are tied with raw-hide thongs to the central
tree. These people then dance, encouraged by the drums and
the songs of warriors (brave songs), pulling back on the
thongs until the flesh and muscles tear loose. In addition to
elements of self-sacrifice, there are spiritual implications of
being physically tied to and thus identified with the tree as
sacred center. A similar theme is also expressed by the cere-
mony wherein individuals have skewers inserted into both
sides of the shoulders and into the muscles of chest and back.
The thongs are then attached to posts set up to represent the
four directions. The individual is thereby identified with the
center in relation to the four horizontal directions of space.
Such sacrificial acts are not just of former times, but are in
increasing use today among a number of Siouan peoples. In
distinction from prevailing traits and themes of the Siouan
Sun Dance, which are strongly reminiscent of elements from
earlier military complexes, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne, and
the tribes of the Blackfeet Confederation place emphasis on
rites of world and life renewal, employing ritual objects that
include sacred medicine bundles whose contents have refer-
ence to the origins of the tribes.
Finally, emphasis should be given to critical elements in
the history of the Sun Dance and to a modified Sun Dance
movement that originated among the western Shoshoni and
has been transmitted to the Crow. In 1881 the United States
government attempted to ban all Sun Dances, believing that
they were “demoralizing and barbarous.” It was not until
1904, however, that the dances were rigorously prohibited
by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. However, because
these ceremonies were central to spiritual needs, they contin-
ued to be practiced in secret or in modified forms by almost
all the Plains tribes with the exception of the Crow, who had
already abandoned the ceremonies in 1875. One of the still
continuing modified Sun Dances was that of the Wind River
Shoshoni, whose version spread to the Northern Ute in
1890, to the Fort Hall Shoshoni and Bannock in 1901, and
to the Shoshoni of Nevada in 1933. With the Indian Reorga-
nization Act of 1934, however, open practice of the dances
commenced, but now in forms that gave greater emphasis to
spiritual elements rather than to the extreme tortures associ-
ated with the earlier military societies.8846 SUN DANCE [FIRST EDITION]