1948: You can put pants on an Indian, but every so often you can expect him to revert to feathers and paint

Indian Tribe Still Stages Sun Dance

Though Its Meaning Long Forgotten

by Kenneth Allen

1948, Sep 11 Valley Morning Star 

Fort Hall, Idaho - You can put pants on an Indian, but every so often you can expect him to revert to feathers and paint. Especially when he has need of a heart-to-heart talk with the Great Manitou.

     So nobody in Idaho is surprised when the Bunnock-Shoshoni Indian roll back the centuries for the staging of a sun dance, which in its more serious aspects is a simple prayer for the cleaning of the soul and a supplication for strength and beauty of body.

1948, Sep 11 Valley Morning Star 

     The average Bannock-Shoshoni Indian of the twentieth century lives on his own farm on the reservation here. He does a little farming, a little hunting and a little studying. In fact, any activity he engages in a susceptible to description by the word "little."

     The average Indian takes part in tribal affairs, voting and perhaps holding tribal office. He may serve as a juryman, drive a jalopy in a manner fearsome to behold and wear a costume of mixed store and reservation-made clothing. 

     The next effect is best summed up by an indefinite "picturesque," best calculated to exact twitters from female tourists. 

     Casual acquaintance inevitably provokes wonder that these patient, often obese, creatures could ever have caused our western pioneers any considerable difficult. However, forebears of these quaint boys wrote many a bloody page in the history of the west.

     * * * 

     Each year these junior members of the world's greatest civilization abandon reservation manners and dip deep into the ages for the ritual of the sun dance.

     This even is held late in summer. For four nights and three days, painted braves dance their prayers for the gifts of strength of body and purity of soul.

     The ritual officially begins when a painted chieftain in full beaded regalia rides through the tepees, summoning braves to their ordeal with formal speech and magnificent gestures. He's quit a sight.

     Ceremonial garments of Bannock-Shoshoni chiefs are valued at more than $1500. Solid beading is stitched to doeskin as soft as woolen crepe. 

     As the last rays of the setting sun tint the ceremonial enclosure, the chief nods and the dance begins. Paint-smeared braves, their only costume a blanket wrapped around their middles, start a peculiarly-cadenced shuffle toward a center pole on which is mounted the skull of a buffalo. On this bony relic, the prancing braves fix their gaze.

     Music for the occasion is furnished by hide covered drums and the chanting of a native orchestra composed of squaws and braves too old to stand physical rigors of the dance.

     The braves themselves contribute to the din by blowing whistles, made from the leg bone of an eagle. These whistles, one to a brave, are decorated with plumed feathers.

     The braves are expected to last the long dance without food. Once they did it without water, too, and any who failed the ordeal faced disgrace. 

* * * 

     Fatalities were too common, so the Great White Father, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs argued that both water and short rest periods would be equally acceptable to the Great Spirit. Nowadays participants take short rests and are permitted to allay their thirst with water.

     The willow arena is erected on a site that has never been used for a sun dance before. Frequently the site is far from roads, located on a lonely part of the sagebrush covered land that is included in the reservation. 

     In the center of the arena a single pole upwards of 30 feet high is set in the ground. Some 30 to 40 feet back, a ring of poles is [imbedded] in the ground. There are 12 of these poles in the center ring -- symbolic of Christ's apostles, according to some informal tribal historians.

     A framework of willow wands is fastened to the outer ring of poles and to the center post. On these wands, leafy branches are woven to form a rude shelter, open to the sky and open to the east. As the first rays of the rising [run] enter the arena, a special sunrise ceremony is held.

     Each brave selects a spot under these willows at the perimeter of the arena. From here he starts his dance. He shuffles toward the center pole, half jogging, half-prancing.

     Then, keeping his eyes on the buffalo skull, he backs away with the same dance steps. Forward and back, countless times during the 80-odd hours the dance lasts.

     Toward the end of the ceremony ruts have been cut in the sandy soil and the dust has been thoroughly pulverized. 

     This description of the mechanics of the dance does not do justice to the ceremony. Thousands of palefaces witness the dance yearly.

* * * 

     They are welcome, so long as they preserve the dignity and show proper respect. Few have seen the ritual without being impressed with the solemnity of the occasion.

     A free translation of the chants that accompany the dance can be had, but the literal meaning has been forgotten by even the tribal patriarchs.

      Wrinkled old men claim the chants are prayers -- not to the sun, but to the Great Spirit. The prayers supposedly are carried to the Great Maniton on sunbeams.

     One translation of a typical chant runs:

          "Oh Father God, give me strength of body.

          "Of Father God, keep my spirit pure.

          "Drive away the evil spirits.

          "And make me strong and pure."   

     Many of the tribesmen have embraced Christianity and the modern dance has many Christian symbols woven into the superstitions of earlier Indian beliefs.
      Wrinkled old braves feel the dance is doomed, because the meaning is gradually being lost. They believe young braves participate, not through spiritual motivation, but in order to take part in the watermelon feast and barbecue that is staged at the end of the ritual. The feast is financed by an admission change to visitors.
     Whites are discouraged from photographing the ritual.The accompanying photos were taken by two photographers, the only two to photograph the ceremony as far as the Idaho State Historical society knows. It is the practice of braves to remove film from cameras when visitors reach the dance area.
     A modern invitation was the dancing of a Victory Dance held following surrender of the Japanese. Many tribesmen saw service in the military forces of the Great White Father in Washington.

1948, Sep 11 Valley Morning Star