The Sundance

The Sun Dance was not an easy task by any means. It was a punishing and painful ordeal that challenged the physical and spiritual stamina of the dancer. One of the activities engaged in was to make slits in a persons skin on their chest and then insert a piece of bone. This was attached by a thong to a center pole around which the dancer would continue to dance and pull on the thong. Eventually the pulling would result in the piece of bone being ripped out of the chest, taking flesh and blood with it.

It would seem at first that the piercings involved in this Hurricane Dance, and in the related Sun Dance, are basically quite violent, primitive activities. Even more so when we consider that offerings of flesh were sometimes made in the past. People would cut off small pieces of their skin flesh (sometimes fifty or more) and offer it to the Great Spirit.

Yet there is a spiritual basis for this activity. What does a human being have to offer the Great Spirit that is truly his or hers? Surely not physical objects such as money, dead animals, etc, for the Great Spirit is responsible for the making of all those objects. They are other; not truly of the individual. When an individual offers pieces of flesh, or allows his/her flesh to be pierced, and then dances in the Hurricane Dance or the Sun Dance, he/she is offering what is truly hers/his; his/her flesh, her/his pain, his/her respect. No other person can thus offer what is uniquely yours. This you give of your own free will to the Creator.

Such dances, of course, were often feared by the white man and military might was used to stop some of them (particularly the Ghost Dance which whites feared was going to lead to a general Indian uprising). Freedom of religion most definitely did not apply to Native Americans. Their children were forcibly taken from them and placed in government schools; not permitted to speak their own language or practice their own religion. Ceremonial activities could be totally outlawed, driving traditional Native Americans underground in their practices. Christians made fun of the spiritual beliefs, attacking them as a form of animism.

Animism is the belief that natural phenomena such as storms, rain, etc., and objects living and nonliving have an innate soul. Thus, all things are truly alive. Christianity of course, held that only human beings had a soul, and a corrupt one, at that.

Interestingly enough, both Plato and Pythagoras held an animistic view. They believed that an immaterial force was behind the entire universe, much as the concept of 'the Force' in the Star Wars mythos.

When considered on a logical basis, one can see how this belief would increase respect for all things. If all plants, animals, minerals, etc, have a form of soul, then all such things are deserving of respect and should not be abused. This does not mean of course, that humans should not eat animals or plants, or should not use minerals. It is using these things with respect that is important. Native Americans believed in the pre-invasion past that the buffalo was sacrificing itself to them. This was a spiritual concept.

In our own world, we have totally disassociated ourselves from the procurement of our food. We do not kill cows, etc, and thus, no longer think about their deaths. We have separated ourselves from how our food and other items are obtained. This makes them into things that are to be used. We become the controllers of the earth, rather than beings who are an integral part of the earth and are no better and no worse than other animal-beings, plant-beings, and mineral-beings.

The Native American approach places us within Nature, not opposed to it. Such an approach of respect would not allow the development of massive nuclear dumps, toxic waste dumps, and the huge amount of trash dumped into pits throughout the United States. Perhaps all people should consider adapting that approach to their own lives.