![]() ![]() (10) Cree Indian sun dancers, probably Montana, c. (9) The cover of the 1918 definitive book, “The Sundance of the Blackfoot People,” by leading American anthropologist Clark Wissler, who specialized in the study of the Plains Indians at the turn of the century and authored many important books especially focusing on the Dakota, Gros Ventre, and Blackfoot, including the 1926 “The Relation of Nature to Man in Aboriginal America.” Although he was a product of his time and contributed to the Eugenics movement and early scientific-based racism, many of his studies still provide valuable and well-documented information about native ceremonial ritual. ![]() (8) A Sun Dance scene from “Dances Sacred and Profane,” a 1985 film by the very controversial figure Fakir Musafar (born Roland Loomis), that in part documents the ritual of the Plains Indians’ Sundance, as well as other body piercing rituals. This model depicts a Sioux native blowing on his eagle bone pipe. ![]() (7) A 120 mm scale model of the Sun Dance ceremony created by Stephen Jamison of the Sun Dance ceremony illustrates the skewer method also shown in photograph #6. This young man’s scars indicate five scars on each side of his chest where rawhide was pierce through the skin and muscle and wrapped around a wooden or bone skewer, which was then attached to the central Sun Dance pole. There are different ways to string the rawhide ropes through the chests of Sun Dance participants. (6) Sun dance scars on the Oglala Cane Young Man Afraid of His Horse, at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. (5) Sage is also used in sacred “smudge pots” at Sun Dance ceremonies. From the 1971 book, “Sun Dancer,” by Myron Thompson. Sage is considered a sacred herb by many Plains Indians tribes, believed to conjure the spirits to come and speak to the dancers. (4) A Sun Dancer wearing a sacred sage wreath. (3) A photograph of a Lakota brave participating in the Sun Dance from “The Book of Shadow,” by Raven Coleman. From the Colorado College Indigenous Religious Ceremonies Site. PHOTOS: (1) Photograph by Edward Sheriff Curtis of Crow native performing the Sun Dance in 1908 Montana. ![]()
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