Sun Dance Research Paper

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Sun Dance



Sun dace is a dance performed by the Lakota people who belongs to the Native American cultures such as the plains. The sun dance is one of the most important religious ceremonies for the pains Indian. The North American Indians preform this dance in honor of the sun, to prove bravery by overcoming pain, and insure the life of the people for another year. It shows continuity between life and death. Indians believe that there is no true end of life. They believe in rebirth and the cycle of symbolic true deaths. According to Jordan Paper in his book “Native North American Religious Traditions Dancing for Life.” The ceremony brings the community together, heal the sick and renew social harmony. To Indians, dancing is how they …show more content…

The get ready by setting up their camps and getting the ground ready for the ceremony. Then they select a large cottonwood tree to be used as the center pole. The pole will be placed in the outside where the dancers could feel the heat of the sun. The men prepare the buffalo skull and placed them around the circle they created for the dance. On the fourth day, depending on the pledge, some dancers chose to be attached to the thong hanging from the pole by having the bone pierced through their back and the buffalo skulls attached. The dancer lean against the thongs until the skewers are torn from their chest. Other dancers, chose to dance around the perimeter of the arbor dragging the heavy skulls round as they dance. By the sundown of the fourth day, if the dancer haven’t been released the holy men remove the bones in reverse to the initial piercing. The men then go to their family and friends for medicine and food, and the holy men sing their praises to the Gods and praying for the dancer to recover shiftily. The once- a year ceremony ends hoping to gather again next year.


According to Encyclopedia of Native American Religions, in the late 1800s, missionaries and the U.S. and Canadian governments prohibited the ceremony. The participant were a subject to arrest that’s why they used to practice it in secret. Because The Dance requires an offering of flesh which is obtained through self-torture, it considered to be barbaric. IN 1934, the Indian Religious Freedom and Indian Culture Act passed a law that Native Americans in the United States could hold a Sun Dance

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