History: Sun Dances during the Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice is today, June 22, the longest day of the year. From today, the days slowly began to get shorter as fall approaches.

While today, only a few people actually celebrate the solstice, but at one time on the Wyoming Plains the Native American’s chose the time of the summer solstice for their Sun Dance Celebration. Nearly every Plain’s Tribe at one time celebrated summer with a Sun Dance, and each was similar but each a little different, and many tribes still practice it today.

These old newspaper stories talk about the Shoshone, Arapaho and Blackfeet Ceremonies. At one time many people turned out to watch the Sun Dance, but today in many tribes it is strictly a religious tribal ceremony, and outsiders have to receive a special invitation.

The Riverton Review and the Riverton Republican July 31, 1914 

This from The Powell Tribune, March 3, 1916, has a detailed description of one Sun Dance – The Shoshone Sun Dance is usually held during the summer solstice when someone in the tribe has had a vision telling of the time and the place for the dance. The man who has had this vision becomes the Medicine-Man, or wise one, and when he tells his friends of his dream and of carrying out the custom of giving the dance, a number of young men are chosen to go to the mountains for trees with which to build a dance hall. After being in the mountains for three or tour days the men haul the trees in a wagon built for the purpose and deposit them on the land where the hall is to be built.

Then the tribe assembles and is divided in two factions for the sham battle which always precedes a Sun Dance. The trees are stripped of their branches and laid in a row. Each tree, or pole, represents an enemy, and the Indians on horseback must spear the poles and whoever captures the greater number is the victor.

For this battle the Indians are decorated in all their gorgeous plumage, warbonnets trimmed with eagle feathers, bustles also trimmed with feathers, handsomely beaded vests and moccasins. The Indians are painted in the most vivid shades of red, green, yellow and brown. …..They ride around the field recklessly and whoop the old time war cry and pandemonium reigns for a while, then victory Is proclaimed.

Then comes the “blessing” of the poles. The Medicine Man says a few words over them duringwhich, the Indians are most reverent, for it must be remembered that the Sun Dance is a religious ceremonial. The largest tree with a prong at the top is used for the centre pole of the dance hall. On this pole are painted three wide black bands which are the “wish rings.”

About thirty feet from the pole a row of trees is planted in a circle, with a space of about two feet between these spaces are thickly banked with leaves and young trees, except for a space about four feet for an entrance resembling the spokes of a wheel. Part of the dance is divided into “stalls” for those Indians participating in the dance, the braves being men who in order to obtain a cure from an illness, or to prevent such, undergo this sacrifice with such determined faith in the power of the sun to cure them that one cannot help admiring their courage.

After sunset the first day, the oldest man in his tribe rides around to the tepees, announcing the time to assemble for the dance. Then the Indians gather together and, forming two lines, march in opposite directions around the dance hall twice. Their bodies are now painted white, they are scantily attired, each man wears a beaded apron, around his neck bangs a whistle made of the bone of an eagle, which is tied with a feather thong and a feather dangling on the end. Around his ankles a cluster of bells, with a rabbits foot, also tied with leather. The constant ringing of the bells and the blowing of the whistle produces an odd effect.

In the hair an eagle feather is jauntily stuck, for it must be remembered that most Indian men wear long hair, a sign of a superior being. As they enter the dance hall, each man takes the stall Then after a short rest the dance begins. To one side sit a number of Indians beating the tom-toms and chanting. To this music, and all the while blowing their whistles, the Indians dance, back and forth from their place in the stall to the center pole, keeping their eyes fastened on the wish ring, never wavering. Thus they dance for four days and nights, without food and drink, and with rests of short duration. If a man is overcome, he is removed from the hall, a disgraced being.

The Natrona County Tribune, July 8, 1908, talks about when the government forbid the Sun Dance on reservations for many years. – Arapaho and Shoshone Indians on the Shoshone reservation have had their last sun dance. The dance started on the first of this month and continued three days, and a delegation of seventy-five Indians from Oklahoma were present to witness and participate in the festivities.

The federal government has forbidden the Sun Dance on the reservation after this year. As a result of this sun dance fifty-five Indians are now completely exhausted because of the part they took in it, who for three days and nights, according to Indian standards, have demonstrated their manhood.

But they are now recuperating near Crowheart Butte from the terrible ordeal of the sun dance. This Indian ceremony originated in remote antiquity and its purpose is to test the strength, courage and endurance of young warriors. Formerly the dancers were attached by throngs run through the muscles of their breasts to a center pole, and about this they danced until their efforts caused the throngs to tear through the muscles. But in later years the government has forbidden the practice, and the Indians now merely dance around the pole for three days and three nights, or until they collapse from exhaustion. The only stimulant taken during the ordeal is tobacco.

The Crook County Monitor, March 19, 1914, talks about a Sun Dance held outside of Glacier Park, Montana. – Picture to yourself on a vast treeless plain with high snow-capped mountains in the distance. On this level stretch of ground Indian tepees are arranged in a semi-circle. Some are white, others are yellow or red or brown. At one side two tall trees are stripped of their branches. This is for the ceremonies of the medicine lodge. There is a crowd of Indians on foot and on horseback. Mingling with them are white men and women from the adjoining country. All are massed around a circular rope fence, inside of which the Blackfeet Indians are holding their annual festival with stories and sacred dances.

If you ware in Montana last June this is what you would have witnessed when 2,000 Piegan Indians from Canada and this country held at Browning, the Indian reservation just outside of the Glacier National Park, their remarkably festival. The varicolored tepees held members of many tribes of Indians. The dances which ware witnessed are old, old, so ancient that the Indian cannot tell when they started. The beaded jackets, strange feathered headdress, medicine bags and deerskin suits which Indian chiefs wear cannot be purchased for money and the strange chants are handed down from father to son. If you press closer to the rope fence and mingle more freely with the onlookers you will see among the crowd white men in khaki suits, high boots, sombreros, and white women watching the dances, which last for four or five days and which afford the Indian an opportunity to renew acquaintances and go through religious ceremonies…..Though some of these Indians may ordinarily dress in the store clothes of the white man they are all interested enough in their tribal dances to assume their ancestral garb when the dance and song festivals occur. They look upon many of these ceremonies as having religious character expressive of their beliefs. The Sun Dance as given by them always has its beginning in a woman’s prayer for the recovery of the sick and the whole tribe come together to fulfill vows, to fast and to pray, as well as to seek what diversion dancing afford.

The Sioux, Cheyenne and the Crow tribes also had the Sun Dance. In the Sioux tradition, several Holy Men found a large cottonwood tree, cut it down and brought it back to camp to be used as the central pole. As the tree fell, it was not allowed to touch the ground. Back at the dance site, the tree was decorated with streamers on the top and erected in the middle of the area.

The warriors first went through a sweat lodge ceremony to cleanse and purify themselves before the dance.

The Sheridan Enterprise, July 6, 1914, talked about a Crow Indian who attended the ‘Big Stampede’ in Sheridan – The most aged Crow Indian attending the Stampede was Looks Up, a man near the nineties, who lives in Lodge Grass, with a cousin, Bear Claw, and his wife. The Indian family was located in one of the tepees in the north end of the circle. Looks Up has been through the “Sun Dance,” which is an Indian belief that he has made a sacrifice to the sun, and he is proud of his scars.

Today, Native American tribes still observe the Sun Dance as a religious ceremony, keeping alive a tradition that dates back into the misty past.