THE CHEYENE INDIANS: The Sun Dance [SOLD]

THE CHEYENE INDIANS: The Sun Dance

by George A. Dorsey

Field Columbian Museum, Publications 99 and 103, Anthropological Series, Vol. IX, Nos. 1 & 2

Part I: Ceremonial Organization.  First published in March 1905

Part II: The Sun Dance. First published in May 1905

This Rio Grande Press, Inc. Hardback first edition published in 1971

Both articles illustrated in color, 250 pages

Famous Cheyenne Indian artist, educator and lecturer Dr. Richard West was consulted by the publishers at The Rio Grande Press, Inc., for his recommendations of a book about the Cheyenne Indian Tribe that he would recommend being brought back into print.  West recommended these two publications authored by George A. Dorsey.  The Rio Grande Press published the two as a single book.

As Dr. West stated “The Cheyenne have long been a people whose entire existence was guided by the sacred ceremonies.  The Cheyenne, as it was with most Plains tribes, were and still are people who believed their culture to be well worth living and dying for.  There are profound spiritual depths in the older sacred ceremonies with their constant theme that man’s vocation or duty is to live in harmony with the creator and with creation as a whole.

“Traditionally, the men who were entrusted with and who conducted the ceremonies and guarded the sacred bundles were persons of real strength; men who were sometimes priests, lawgiver and warriors, simultaneously.  They possessed the awareness that worship must permeate and give meaning to every phase of life.”

Early in the 20^th century, the United States and Canada passed laws prohibiting some Native tribes’ practices of sacred ceremonies.  The Sun Dance was one of the prohibited ones.  In 1978, the United States Congress passed a law 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.  The Sun Dance was allowed to resume but is no longer open to non-Indian persons.

This is a detailed description of the Cheyenne Sun Dances held in 1901 and 1903 as witnessed by Dr. Dorsey.  At the 1903 ceremony, the United States Agent present made the “foolish threat that he would stop the ceremony by calling out the troops.”  Fortunately, his threat was unenforceable as the Cheyenne had the legal right to their ceremony and no one could lawfully interfere with a religious performance.