# Sun Dancers
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 21, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423 "2007-08-21T21:05:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/1 "2007-08-21T21:05:30Z")
Any other Sun Dancers out there? I’ve been dancing for 2 years and have 2 years left on my committment. Just wondering what your experiences have been and will gladly share mine. So, if any of you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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### Author:  [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/2 "2007-08-21T21:11:46Z")
Just one question. What’s a Sun Dancer?
Okay. Two questions. Why a four year committment?
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/3 "2007-08-21T21:15:46Z")
[QUOTE=Projammer]
Just one question. What’s a Sun Dancer?
Okay. Two questions. Why a four year committment?
[/QUOTE]
[Sun Dance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Dance)
My questions: Do you pierce? And with whom/ where do you dance (meaning, what tribe)?
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### Author:  [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/4 "2007-08-21T21:29:50Z")
[QUOTE=Projammer]
Just one question. What’s a Sun Dancer?
Okay. Two questions. Why a four year committment?
[/QUOTE]
Sun Dancing is an ancient Lakota ceremony in which we dance so that other’s may live. It is a 4 day event that involves fasting, abstaining from water, and dancing from sun up to sundown.
When one pledges to dance, he/she commits to dancing in the ceremony for 4 years in his/her lifetime.
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### Author:  [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/5 "2007-08-21T21:36:17Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi]
[Sun Dance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Dance)
My questions: Do you pierce? And with whom/ where do you dance (meaning, what tribe)?
[/QUOTE]
I did pierce in this year’s dance.
I dance with a Nanticoke, a Lakota, a Cherokee, a few white folks (including me), and another from a tribe whose name I don’t remember. Our intercessor brought the dance from the midwest where he learned from the Lakotas. In Delaware the only tribes are the Nanticoke and the Lenapis. Our intercessor split from the Nanticoke tribe because of differences of opinion about how strict the tribe should stick to tradition. He was in favor of being more traditional. He was the chief of the tribe and the chiefs of the Nanticoke tribe came from his family going back 5 generations. So, I don’t really dance with any tribe but it is based on Lakota tradition.
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/6 "2007-08-21T21:53:17Z")
[QUOTE=Redfrost]
Sun Dancing is an ancient Lakota ceremony in which we dance so that other’s may live. It is a 4 day event that involves fasting, abstaining from water, and dancing from sun up to sundown.
When one pledges to dance, he/she commits to dancing in the ceremony for 4 years in his/her lifetime.
[/QUOTE]
For others’ information: The sun dance is not a specifically Lakota ceremony but was/is practiced by many Plains Tribes, including the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, and Ojibway. (And the Nakota and Dakota, as well as the Lakota.) It is not necessarily about redeeming life through sacrifice (“dance so that others may live”) although it certainly can be.
Some tribes practice the Sun Dance ceremony complete with ritual mutilation; some (like the Kiowa) never included that element. Some tribes that _used_ to include it no longer do. The Sun Dance was banned by the Canadian and U.S. government at the turn of the 20th century, ostensibly for the mutilation and probably also for its political/religious aspects. This ban was in place for something like 50 years.
ETA: Thank you for your answers.
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### Author:  [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/7 "2007-08-21T22:01:11Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi]
For others’ information: The sun dance is not a specifically Lakota ceremony but was/is practiced by many Plains Tribes, including the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, and Ojibway. (And the Nakota and Dakota, as well as the Lakota.) It is not necessarily about redeeming life through sacrifice (“dance so that others may live”) although it certainly can be.
Some tribes practice the Sun Dance ceremony complete with ritual mutilation; some (like the Kiowa) never included that element. Some tribes that _used_ to include it no longer do. The Sun Dance was banned by the Canadian and U.S. government at the turn of the 20th century, ostensibly for the mutilation and probably also for its political/religious aspects. This ban was in place for something like 50 years.
ETA: Thank you for your answers.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry for the confusion. It isn’t strickly a Lakota ceremony but it is thought to have originated with them. It was illegal to Sun Dance until 1974 or '75 although it was allowed in a very restricted way prior to that. That is, it was allowed as a “demonstration” during powwow’s or other social events without the piercing. And thanks for clearing up that it also practiced by other tribes.
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### Author:  [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/8 "2007-08-22T03:08:28Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi]
The Sun Dance was banned by the Canadian and U.S. government at the turn of the 20th century, ostensibly for the mutilation and probably also for its political/religious aspects. This ban was in place for something like 50 years.
[/QUOTE]
I did not know that.
I saw many Sun Dances as a kid. I grew up smack in the middle of Plains territory, in Southern Alberta just between Brockett and Stand Off.
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### Author:  [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/9 "2007-08-22T22:08:32Z")
[QUOTE=GingerOfTheNorth]
I did not know that.
I saw many Sun Dances as a kid. I grew up smack in the middle of Plains territory, in Southern Alberta just between Brockett and Stand Off.
[/QUOTE]
Most ceremonies were banned until the middle of the 20th century. Some of the Lakota continued to hold the ceremony annually, albeit clandestinely. They risked incarceration and many other things just to keep the ceremony alive. You can read more about that in Fools Crow by Thomas E. Mails and Black Elk Speaks by Neidhart.
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/10 "2007-08-22T22:36:34Z")
[QUOTE=GingerOfTheNorth]
I did not know that.
I saw many Sun Dances as a kid. I grew up smack in the middle of Plains territory, in Southern Alberta just between Brockett and Stand Off.
[/QUOTE]
You would have seen Blackfoot Sun Dances. From further research, it appears Canada only banned certain aspects of the Dance – specifically, the self-mutilation – and never banned Sun Dances entirely like the the U.S. did.
> [@Red Frost](#):
>
> You can read more about that in Fools Crow by Thomas E. Mails and Black Elk Speaks by Neidhart.
_Fools Crow_ is an excellent novel, but it is by James Welch.
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### Author:  [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/11 "2007-08-22T22:58:59Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi]
You would have seen Blackfoot Sun Dances.
[/QUOTE]
Do the Peigan not do them?
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### Author:  [@CateAyo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CateAyo)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/12 "2007-08-22T23:12:33Z")
I danced Lakota in the '80’s. I, myself, am Creek.
CA
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### Author:  [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/13 "2007-08-22T23:31:25Z")
[QUOTE=GingerOfTheNorth]
Do the Peigan not do them?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, yes. 🙂 There’s some difference in terminology betwen Canada and the U.S. (specifically, Montana), but the Blackfeet / Blackfoot peoples include the Peigan (Pikuni), the Northern Peigan (or North Pikuni), the Bloods (Kainai), and the Siksika (Blackfeet). Today, the North Pikuni, the Kainai, and the Siksika all live in Alberta and collectively form the Blackfoot Confederacy. The Pikuni in the U.S. are the Blackfeet Nation, outside Browning, Montana. So the “Blackfeet” in the U.S. are the same nation as the “Blackfoot” in Canada.
To add to the confusion, another group of Native Americans, the Sihasapa band of the Teton (Lakota) Sioux, are also called Blackfeet or Blackfoot. But since there are about 500 Sihasapa and somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 Pikuni/ Kainai/ Siksika, it is the latter group that is generally referred to as “Blackfeet” or “Blackfoot.”
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### Author:  [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sun-dancers/416423/14 "2007-08-23T21:40:43Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi]
You would have seen Blackfoot Sun Dances. From further research, it appears Canada only banned certain aspects of the Dance – specifically, the self-mutilation – and never banned Sun Dances entirely like the the U.S. did.
_Fools Crow_ is an excellent novel, but it is by James Welch.
[/QUOTE]
Fools Crow is a novel by James Welch but Thomas E Mails spent several years with Frank Fools Crow, former Ceremonial Chief of the Teton Sioux. The book I was referring to is a biography and is followed by a second book called Wisdom and Power.