page_title: Sun Dance
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Sun Dance / Overview
caption_attribution_description: Cheyenne sun dancer
context_page_description: The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by some Indigenous people of United States of America and Canada, primarily those of the Plains cultures. It usually involves the community gathering together to pray for healing. Individuals make personal sacrifices on behalf of the community.
  After European colonization of the Americas, and with the formation of the Canadian and United States governments, both countries passed laws intended to suppress Indigenous cultures and force assimilation to majority-European culture. They banned Indigenous ceremonies and, in many schools and other areas, prohibited Indigenous people from speaking their native languages. In some cases they were not allowed to visit sacred sites when these had been excluded from the territory of community.
  The Sun Dance was one of the prohibited ceremonies, as was the potlatch of the Pacific Northwest peoples. Canada lifted its prohibition against the practice of the full ceremony in 1951.
context_section_description: Several features are common to the ceremonies held by Sun Dance cultures. These include dances and songs passed down through many generations, the use of a traditional drum, a sacred fire, praying with a ceremonial pipe, fasting from food and water before participating in the dance, and, in some cases, the ceremonial piercing of skin and a trial of physical endurance. Certain plants are picked and prepared for use during the ceremony. 
  Typically, the Sun Dance is a grueling ordeal for the dancers, a physical and spiritual test that they offer in sacrifice for their people. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, young men dance around a pole to which they are fastened by "rawhide thongs pegged through the skin of their chests." 
  While not all Sun Dance ceremonies include piercing, the object of the Sun Dance is to offer personal sacrifice for the benefit of one's family and community. The dancers fast for many days, in the open air and whatever weather occurs.  
  At most ceremonies, family members and friends stay in the surrounding camp and pray in support of the dancers. Much time and energy by the entire community are needed to conduct the sun dance gatherings and ceremonies.  Communities plan and organize for at least a year to prepare for the ceremony. Usually, one leader or a small group of leaders are in charge of the ceremony, but many elders help out and advise. A group of helpers do many of the tasks required to prepare for the ceremony.
  As this is a sacred ceremony, people are typically reluctant to discuss it in any great detail. Given a long history of cultural misappropriation, Indigenous people are suspicious that non-Indigenous people may abuse or misuse the traditional ways. Elders and medicine men are concerned that the ceremony should only be passed along in the right ways. The words used at a sun dance are often in the native language and are not translated for outsiders. Not talking about this ceremony is part of the respect the people display for it. In addition, the detailed way in which a respected elder speaks, teaches, and explains a sun dance to younger members of the community is unique and not easily quoted, nor is it intended for publication.
  In 1993, responding to what they believed was a frequent desecration of the Sun Dance and other Lakota sacred ceremonies, US and Canadian Lakota, Dakota and Nakota nations held "the Lakota Summit V". It was an international gathering of about 500 representatives from 40 different peoples and bands of the Lakota. They unanimously passed the following 'Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality':
  "Whereas sacrilegious "sundances" for non-Indians are being conducted by charlatans and cult leaders who promote abominable and obscene imitations of our sacred Lakota sundance rites; ... We hereby and henceforth declare war against all persons who persist in exploiting, abusing, and misrepresenting the sacred traditions and spiritual practices of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people." - Mesteth, Wilmer, et al (1993)
  In 2003, the 19th-Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe of the Lakota asked non-Indigenous people to stop attending the Sun Dance (Wi-wayang-wa-c'i-pi in Lakota); he stated that all can pray in support, but that only Indigenous people should approach the altars. This statement was supported by keepers of sacred bundles and traditional spiritual leaders from the Cheyenne, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota nations, who issued a proclamation that non-Indigenous people would be banned from sacred altars and the Seven Sacred Rites, including and especially the sun dance, effective March 9, 2003 onward:
  The Wi-wanyang-wa-c'i-pi (Sundance Ceremony): The only participants allowed in the centre will be Native People. The non-Native people need to understand and respect our decision. If there have been any unfinished commitments to the sundance and non-Natives have concern for this decision; they must understand that we have been guided through prayer to reach this resolution. Our purpose for the sundance is for the survival o
caption: A Cheyenne Sun Dance gathering, c. 1909.
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