The Sun Dance is the most important communal ceremony of many peoples of the North American Great Plains. The Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Shoshone, Blackfoot and other nations practised different forms of it, each with its own names, songs and rules. The English name is a loose translation: the Lakota call it Wiwáŋyaŋg Wačhípi, «dance gazing at the sun». Beyond local differences, the rite shares a common core: the renewal of the people's life through the sacrifice of some of its members.
A summer rite for the whole people
The ceremony took place at the beginning of summer, when the bands scattered during winter gathered in a large camp. It was therefore also a social occasion: alliances were renewed, marriages celebrated, the deeds of the year recounted. But the heart of the event was religious.
The rite often began with a vow. A person, in a moment of danger or need, promised to dance for the good of a relative, a friend or the whole community. The Sun Dance was therefore not a display of individual courage, but a gift offered so that the people could go on living.
The tree at the centre of the world
The central element is a tree, usually a cottonwood. Choosing and felling it are themselves ritual acts: the tree is treated as a person, approached with prayers and struck in a precise order. It must not touch the ground as it falls; it is carried to camp on people's shoulders and raised at the centre of the ceremonial space.
Around the tree a circular lodge is built, with a partial roof of boughs that leaves the centre open. In this way the circle of dancers stands around an axis linking earth and sky. Offerings, strips of coloured cloth and sometimes figures of a buffalo and a man are tied to the tree.
The symbolism is clear even to those from other traditions: the tree is the axis of the world, the point where prayer can rise and the power of life can descend.
Fasting and sacrifice
Dancers prepare with days of purification, often in the sweat lodge. During the ceremony they fast and go without water, dancing for hours to the rhythm of drums and eagle-bone whistles, their gaze turned toward the sun or the top of the tree.
Among some peoples, including the Lakota, some dancers offer their own flesh: the skin of the chest is pierced with small wooden skewers, tied with ropes to the central tree. The dancer pulls back until the skin tears and he is freed. Others offer small pieces of skin from their arms. The meaning, as practitioners themselves explain it, is that the only thing a person truly owns is their own body: offering part of it is the most sincere gift.
Not all nations practised piercing, and not all dancers undergo it. For many the sacrifice consists of fasting, exhaustion and prayer.
Bans and repression
European observers and government officials saw mainly the bloody side of the Sun Dance and considered it a barbaric practice. In the United States, from the 1880s, federal rules on «Indian offenses» banned the dance and other ceremonies on reservations; in Canada similar restrictions were introduced in the same decades. For a long time the rite survived in reduced form, in secret or adapted so as not to attract penalties.
Only in the twentieth century were the restrictions gradually dropped. In the United States the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 formally recognised the right of Native peoples to practise their own religions. Today the Sun Dance is once again celebrated in many communities.
Privacy and respect
Many communities ask that their Sun Dances not be photographed or filmed, and some do not admit outsiders. It is a choice to be respected. The rite is not a show and does not belong to those who watch it: those who take part make a commitment lasting years, often with the promise to dance for several consecutive summers.
For those who study the world's traditions, the Sun Dance reveals an ancient and widespread idea: the life of the community is renewed through a voluntary gift, and the sacrifice of a few is lived as service to all.
In short
- The Sun Dance is the great summer ceremony of many Plains peoples, in different forms.
- It often begins with a vow made for the good of others, not to show courage.
- The central tree, usually a cottonwood, is the axis linking earth and sky.
- Piercing of the flesh is practised only by some peoples and some dancers.
- Banned in the late nineteenth century, it revived in the twentieth; many communities ask for privacy.
