August 2007 found me with my supervisor from the prison chapel in the boonies on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation trying to find the location of a sun dance. We were told to drive down a gravel road and to take a right turn where the old car seat sat next to the road. We were then on a very long dirt road which passed a local teenage make-out point known as Panty Hill and then became two ruts through the dry clay prairie until we finally reached the sun dance grounds.
Having worked with Native inmates for seven years by then, I had heard about sun dances, but had never previously been invited to attend one. I knew they were one of the seven sacred rites of the Lakota and not something where it was a good idea for a non-Native person to show up without an invitation. A man we knew had been released earlier in 2007 and invited us to come to watch him as he danced.
We knew that dancers dance as a sacrifice for someone in their family who might be sick, as a plea to the Creator to grant them something very important, or for the benefit of the people. The man we knew was dancing in hopes of getting permanent custody of his three sons. He didn’t think their mother was a fit parent.
The sun dance grounds are set up in a similar way to powwow grounds in a large circle. There is an arbor constructed around them with tree branches making an overhead covering to provide shade. In the middle of the open circle the trunk of a large cottonwood tree has been brought in and planted in the dirt. The tree has many prayer ties and prayer flags made of a bit of cloth in one of the sacred colors (red, white, yellow or black) with a bit of tobacco in it tied to the tree. Some people refer to prayer ties as the Indian rosary since the person making them says a prayer as he or she makes each one and they are tied together with kite string. There is symbolism in how many are made and what color they are. For sun dances, many prayer ties and prayer flags are hung on the sun dance tree.
People coming for sun dances ordinarily camp out in the area around the sun dance arbor and a cook shack is set up so the guests may have meals together. When we drove up, we saw a flatbed truck with the carcass of a buffalo cut in half on it. This is set up away from the dance site since the dancers will not eat or drink anything for 4 days. People also bring along their own folding chairs to use under the arbor. No one is allowed on the dance grounds except for the dancers and the spiritual leader and his helpers. No one watching a sun dance may eat or drink anything while sitting in the arbor. Drugs and alcohol are strictly forbidden anywhere near a sun dance. The dancers spend a year preparing to dance. They are not supposed to drink or get high during this time. Absolutely no photography is allowed at a sun dance.
Even though no photography is allowed, this video, The Sundance Ceremony, explains much of the ceremony. It doesn’t really show the ceremony except for the cutting of the sacred tree, which is done without the tree touching the ground and some powwow dancing is thrown in which doesn’t take place in conjunction with a sun dance, but the reason for the sun dance is explained quite well. This film was done by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) whom you may remember from the occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota.
The first thing we noticed when we walked from my car to the sun dance grounds was that we were the only women there wearing slacks. The man who invited us forgot to tell us that women must wear long skirts at a sun dance. We ended up driving to Walmart in Rapid City 80 miles away late in the afternoon of the first day to purchase skirts. Since my friend had knee surgery shortly before the sun dance, we stayed overnight in the hotel at the tribal casino rather than camping.
The dancers dance four times a day for about an hour each time. The men wear dance skirts which come down to their ankles, have bare chests except for an eagle bone whistle hanging from their neck, and have bare feet. On their heads they wear a crown made from sage and they wear wrist bracelets and ankle bracelets made from sage. The dancers are all together on one side of the arbor when they aren’t dancing and they don’t speak to any of their supporters sitting in the arbor. A drum group drums and sings as they dance. They form a line at the direction of the spiritual leader and dance facing the four cardinal directions. The women wear loose fitting long dresses similar to a muumuu. There are more men than women since in Lakota belief the women do their suffering in childbirth. At this sun dance there were about 20 male dancers and 6 female dancers. Some of the dancers were relatives who had come from Canada to participate.
The heat was intense – in the high 90’s or low 100’s. The dancers with light skins started getting sunburned the first day and were very burned by day 4. The ground where they danced barefoot had small cacti on it so at the end of each dance, dancers picked them off the bottoms of their feet.
The dancers had an area where they rested between dances that was shielded for the most part from the view of the supporters. When the heat became more intense and dehydration set in for the dancers, helpers dug shallow pits in the earth so the dancers could lay in them to cool off.
In my white, Western mind, I kept thinking someone should call for an ambulance since many of the dancers were clearly dehydrated and sometimes their eyes rolled back in their heads. When a dancer was close to collapse, he would walk or crawl up to the tree and put his hand on it. Sometimes a man would blow on the eagle bone whistle hanging around his neck. If someone did start to sag, other dancers would help him up again.
I thought to myself that there would be very few Christians in our present time if they were expected to go through physical suffering like this as part of their religion. I knew that the dancers were free to leave at any time. No one was forcing them to dance. It was painful to watch people in such pain. It was clear that only their self-determination and spiritual beliefs kept them dancing.
Since I had been returning to my car periodically to have a drink of water, it came time for Nature’s call. I looked around for an outhouse. All I saw was a small shack set apart from the sun dance grounds. I saw people standing by it leaning against it with their hands. I thought it must be some type of a chapel where people were going to pray. When I got closer, I noticed that one person would come out of the shack and another person would go to the north side to enter. It was an outhouse. When my turn came, I found there was no door on it. There was a barbed wire fence about 3 feet in front of the door opening and a breathtaking view of the Badlands! When I later related my sun dance experience to some of the Native inmates, they roared with laughter learning I thought the outhouse was a chapel.
As part of the ceremony before the dancers came out, a young boy would walk around the arbor with an old metal coffee can containing cedar that was smoking so we could all smudge. One afternoon, the two year old grandson of the lady sitting next to us rushed up to the can and burned his stomach when he touched it. My friend had ice packs along to put on her knee so she directed me to give ice packs to the grandmother to put on the little boys burn. It helped him a lot with the pain.
On the 4th day when the sun dance was over, the grandma’s son came over to where we were sitting and gave his mother his sun dance skirt, which she had sewn for him, his sage crown, his sage bracelets, and his sage anklets. The grandmother gave all of them to my friend as an act of appreciation for soothing her grandson’s burn with the ice bag except for one sage anklet that she gave to me. It is one of my most treasured possessions. My friend had the skirt and the sage items she received put into a frame which hangs in her office.
Attending the sun dance changed my life. I have the utmost admiration for someone who sun dances. They need to have very deep beliefs to do it. It gave me a much deeper appreciation of Lakota spirituality.
You may wonder why I didn’t mention piercing. There wasn’t any piercing at this dance. The spiritual leader in charge told the dancers they had suffered enough.
When it was over, families were waiting with freshly cut fruit for the dancers. The man who invited us came over to talk to us when it was done. We learned that men usually dance four years in a row. I don’t know if he did, but I do know that he did get custody of this sons. He hasn’t been back to prison either.
Sun dancers in prison are respected by the other Native inmates who understand what they have been through. If a man has danced more than once, he has a lot of scars on his chest and/or back from piercing.
It took more than 6 months for the dust to get out of every crevice in my car where it entered driving on the ruts going to and from the dance. The memory of the sun dance remains deep in my soul.
Mary Montoya
