It was about the middle of the summer of 1879 that I saw the last great Sun Dance of the Sioux. The Brules were holding the dance about six miles southwest of Rosebud Agency, on the place where old Chief Two Strikes's band now have their allotments. As I started for Carlisle Indian School in the fall of 1879, I cannot say whether this was the last dance held or not.
I have read many descriptions of this dance, and I have been to different tribes which claimed they did the 'real thing', but there is a great difference in their dances from the Sun Dance of the Sioux.
The Sun Dance started many years before Christopher Columbus drifted to these shores. We then knew that there was a God above us all. We called God 'Wakan Tanka', or the 'Big Holy', or sometimes 'Grandfather'. You call God Father. I bring this before you because I want you to know that this dance was our religious belief. According to our legend, the red man was to have this dance every summer, to fulfill our religious duty. It was a sacrificial dance.
During the winter if any member of the tribe became ill, perhaps a brother or a cousin would be brave enough to go to the medicine man and say, 'I will sacrifice my body to the Wakan Tanka, or Big Holy, for the one who is sick.
Or if the buffalo were beginning to get scarce, some one would sacrifice himself so that the tribe might have something to eat.
The medicine man would then take this brave up to the mountain alone, and announce to the Great Spirit that the young man was ready to be sacrificed. When the parents of this young man heard that he was to go through the Sun Dance, some of his brothers or cousins would sacrifice themselves with him as an honor.
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