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Thursday, July 18, 2013

It Is Time for all South Dakotans to Celebrate Sun Dance

Saturday, 27 June 2009 06:47

 

Written by Sam Hurst

T

he first Sun Dances of the summer begin this week on Pine Ridge. It is a testament to the vitality of Lakota culture that after almost a century of government and church effort to repress and destroy this cornerstone of traditional Lakota spirituality, there will be over fifty Sun Dances this summer. The dances are closed to the public, and closed to gawking tourists. Photography is forbidden.

In modern American culture, where politicized religion is sold on television like Tupperware, where fear of the devil haunts the sermons of evangelical ministers, the Sun Dance shines as a spiritual expression quietly rooted in family and community. Sun Dance circles have no interest in proselytizing a faith, and no interest in publicly flaunting their beliefs.

For Sun Dancers, the eagle bone whistle, the rhythmic stamping of the feet, the fast, the sacrifice, the love of family provide the spiritual power that drives the celebration.

For most of the 20th century, the Sun Dance and hundreds of other traditional Native American spiritual ceremonies were illegal in America. But Sun Dance culture was not destroyed by the repression. It simply retreated into a thousand hidden canyons, and hundreds of small homes with blankets over the windows. This month, as Sun Dancers celebrate the summer solstice, there are three things that mainstream culture can do to support our Lakota friends. First, leave the dances alone. Respect their privacy. Secondly, we can pick up the slack for Lakota friends and colleagues who "disappear" for a week. Rather than criticizing them for missing work, we should be supporting them. Stronger Sun Dance circles make for healthier Lakota communities. Finally, we should study the history of Native religious repression. Here's a place to start.

From the "Rules Governing the Court of Indian Offenses"-Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. March 30, 1883. "The sun-dance, scalp-dance, the war-dance, and all other so-called feasts assimilating thereto, shall be considered Indian offenses, and any Indian found guilty of being a participant in any one or more of these offenses, shall, for the first offense committed, be punished by withholding from the person or persons so found guilty by the court his or their rations for a period not exceeding ten days..."

For the medicine men, the rules were more severe. "The usual practices of so-called 'medicine-men' shall be considered 'indian offenses' recognizable by the Court of Indian Offenses, and whenever it shall be proven to the satisfaction of the court that the influence or practice of a so-called 'medicine-man' operates as a hindrance to the civilization of a tribe, or that said 'medicine-man' he...shall be confined in the agency prison for a term not less than 10 days or until such time as he shall produce evidence satisfactory to the court, and approved by the agent, that he will forever abandon all practices styled Indian offenses under this rule."

To our friends at Thunder Valley, and all Sun Dance circles over the next month, our hearts are with you.