[Gutenberg 36224] • Notes on the Kiowa Sun Dance

Excerpt

The sun dance was normally an annual ceremony, but sometimes a year passed without one. The dance was theoretically dependent on someone going to the keeper and saying, "I dreamed of it (i.e., the sun dance)," or on the keeper himself dreaming of it. On two occasions a second dance was held in the dance lodge after the keeper had removed the sacred doll at the close of the first dance, because a second man had also dreamed of it.[12] After the dream is announced the keeper hangs the image on his back and rides out to all the camps, announcing, as he circles them, that he will conduct the ceremony the following spring (May or June). This announcement was sometimes made immediately after the close of the preceding dance, but usually it came just before they intended to hold the dance.[13] The keeper fasts while he is making the announcement, even if it takes three days, as may happen when the camps were scattered. When they know the dance is to be held, others vow to dance for a specified number of days, and all gather near the dance ground. No one may absent himself: they are all afraid of his medicine. When the tribe is assembled, the keeper circles the camp, again bearing the sacred doll on his back.