Sun Dance

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 Native cultures and encourage 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 reservations.

The Sun Dance was one of the prohibited ceremonies, as was the potlatch of the Pacific Northwest peoples. Canada lifted its prohibition against practice of the full ceremony in 1951. But in the United States, Indigenous peoples were not allowed to openly practice the Sun Dance or other sacred ceremonies until the late 1970s, after they gained renewed sovereignty and civil rights following a period of high activism, including legal challenges to the government. Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) in 1978, which was enacted to protect basic civil liberties, and to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians.

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.

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