SUN DANCE
It was several days later when Pinkerton Agent Joshua Strongheart on majestic Eagle pranced through the various tribal circles of the giant encampment along the shores of the Rosebud Creek in Montana territory. Literally thousands of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho milled about in various activities. Strongheart had been stopped several times but many knew who he was by reputation, and he was always a welcome visitor. He arrived at his late father’s tribal circle and dismounted.
Within two hours, Joshua found himself in a large lodge smoking a pipe with his uncle Praying Bear, the mighty Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man Sitting Bull, Oglala Lakota war chief Crazy Horse, Cheyenne chief Gall, Lakota chief Rain-in-the-Face, who swore he would someday cut out the heart of Custer’s brother, Medal of Honor recipient Tom Custer, and eat it, and other famous chiefs.
Sitting Bull drew thoughtfully on the long-stemmed pipe waving smoke over his head with one hand, blew out a long stream of blue smoke, which mated with the rising mist over the large fire, and watched it ascend upward and out the smoke hole of the bull-hide lodge.
He said, “We all know that Wanji Wambli, who the wasicun call Joshua Strongheart, comes to us with news from the wasicun. When a warrior prepares for the sun dance ceremony, he takes one or two summers. Wanji Wambli fought and took the medicine of the mighty We Wiyake. He has prepared, so before we speak we will sun dance together. A tree has been prepared. That is all I have to say.”
There it was. Strongheart was elated yet disheartened simultaneously. It was such an honor to be invited to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
On the other hand, he was in a rush to try to stop the decimation of the Plains tribes because of the Indian Ring. Joshua wanted to hurry and make things happen, and get to the bottom of Hartwell and Belknap’s scheme, however the venerable holy man Sitting Bull invited him to participate in the sun dance ceremony before he could even address his concerns to anybody. It was the Lakota way: First things first, don’t rush into conversations.
His uncle, the chief of his father’s tribe or familial circle, provided Strongheart with a teepee, and he went there to rest, start fasting, and prepare himself for the grueling ordeal ahead.
It was the middle of the night and there was a scratching on the buffalo-hide lodge. He grabbed his Colt Peacemaker and held it under his buffalo-hide bedcover.
“Yes,” he said softly.
She entered.
This woman was beautiful, remarkably beautiful. Lila Wiya Waste, which meant “beautiful woman,” was his cousin who secretly loved Joshua. Her husband had been killed by a she-grizzly with two cubs. In the past, Lila and her mother had nobody to bring meat to their lodge, but Joshua Strongheart would come to her village and help her get meat for the lodge, because he was her closest relative. She remembered fondly how Joshua told her not to just marry again but to wait on a warrior who was worthy of her.
She stared at Strongheart over the glowing embers of his dying fire. His eyes were entrancing, and then she reached up and undid the leather thongs holding her dress. It fell around her ankles revealing a muscular, well-proportioned female physique. She was ravishing and now she stood before Joshua naked in the firelight, dancing light from the flames highlighting her sensuality even more.
Strongheart stood and looked at her longingly, many thoughts flashing through his mind.
Joshua slowly reached down and grabbed her buckskin dress and raised it up over her shoulders. Disappointment showed on her face.
“Lila,” he said, “We are cousins. I am like your older brother, your protector. But I am also a man, and any man would want you very much. You have such great beauty and so much more to offer a man. But, my cousin, I loved Belle very much. I found her after We Wiyake butchered her, and I see it many times each day. I will always feel like she died because of me. We Wiyake wanted to steal my medicine, so he took the one thing I truly loved, her. When I love, that fills my heart, and I cannot ride two horses at once. In the same way, I cannot love two women at once, and I still see Belle everywhere I look each day, and in my dreams at night. You honor me very much, my beautiful cousin, but this cannot be. I will always love you, but you are my family.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she spoke quietly, “I can never love another man, either, because, Joshua, I have always loved you, and I always will.”
He stood and she did, too. He stepped forward and held her in a warm embrace, but not a romantic one. She laid her head on his muscular chest and Lila sobbed while he stroked her hair slowly. She stopped crying, and he pushed her back a step and wiped her tears with the back of his index finger.
He said, “You will find a great man someday when the time is right, if you let God, the Great Spirit, prepare that man just for you.”
He kissed her on the forehead and said, “I must sleep and prepare myself for the sun dance.”
Lila smiled bravely and left the teepee. Strongheart lay down and could not sleep. He pictured her beauty over and over, and the man in him felt frustrated thinking how easily he could have just taken her and not looked back. Then he would picture Belle in all her beauty and would feel ashamed of himself.
Finally, Joshua steeled his mind for the task ahead. He knew he would soon be going through an ordeal when Sitting Bull summoned him.
Sun dance is a traditional Lakota ceremony representing life and rebirth, and it occurs during the summer solstice. The dancing and piercing begins at the full moon during the last four days of the four-week ceremony. Normally, a person is invited to participate but must spend a year in preparation for the sun dance. There are many sweat lodges and some warriors go on vision quests, usually in the mountains. Because of the ordeal Strongheart had been through hunting down the seven-foot-tall crazed killer, We Wiyake, or Blood Feather, who had killed Joshua’s fiancée as well as many Lakota and whites, Sitting Bull had let Strongheart know that he had already been through more than a year of preparation.
The previous day was called Tree Day and a selected brave went out with several assistants and looked for a cottonwood tree that would be just right for the ceremony. The cottonwood was considered a sacred tree because its shape was said to have inspired the shape and construction of the very first Lakota teepees. The scout had searched along the banks of the Greasy Grass, or as the whites called it, the Little Big Horn, and had found one a quarter mile downstream from the giant encampment. The area was prepared for the dance and rest of the ceremony.
The next morning there was scratching on Joshua’s lodge, and his father’s best friend, Yellow Horse, came to him with an eagle fan and eagle-bone whistle. Joshua was to go to a sweat lodge and was led downstream to the ceremony site, where he entered the lodge.
Outside the sweat, he saw the stoic Oglala Lakota war chief Crazy Horse, who wore a red-tailed hawk feather tied down on the back of his hair and a pebble behind his left ear. He also always wore a sheep’s-wool anklet over his left ankle to hide the bullet scar from years before. Everybody felt Crazy Horse was blessed by the Great Spirit and could not be touched by bullets, and he did not want to spoil their image of him. He was noted for being very aggressive and courageous in battle, but with the Plains tribes, being close to or blessed by the Great Spirit drew higher accolades than courage in battle.
In the sweat lodge were several dancers including the mighty medicine man Sitting Bull, who spoke no words. This was not the right time for Joshua to speak to him about anything, as the sun dance ceremony was a very private personal occasion. Each man was alone with his own thoughts, and Strongheart decided he would take full advantage. After all he had been through, he needed this time of great introspection.
When the sweat concluded, the scout who found the tree led the dancers and others to the selected cottonwood. Everyone gathered around the tree in small groups at the four compass points and offered prayers. A piece of braided leather rope was tied to the top of the tree by the scout who climbed to the top. Then Crazy Horse, because of his many battle honors, came forward and counted coup on the tree. Three other select warriors came forward to cut the tree down, taking turns chopping. In the meantime, Sitting Bull, Joshua Strongheart, and the other dancers were given blankets to catch the tree in as it was lowered by the rope. Blankets were placed on the ground anywhere the tree might touch as it was carried to the ceremonial circle.
The dancers were instructed to carry the tree into the circle from the west, and it was again laid down on a series of blankets, with no part of it touching the ground. Next, the dancers tied bundles of sage and, in some cases, tobacco, to the top of the tree. Then like a Christmas tree, the sun dance tree was raised up and the trunk was carefully placed in the hole in the center of the ceremonial site, which had already been dug out by younger warriors.
For three days, Strongheart, still fasting and only drinking that sage tea and water, did the sweats and meditation in the morning, then danced all day, taking breaks to go off and pray and ask for a vision. The men and women of the village and the sun dancers would start dancing each morning and would dance in a clockwise motion with warrior men on the inside and women on the outside.
Then, on the third day, which Lakota actually call “piercing day,” the heyoka would start dancing. These were clowns, people with mental illnesses, or any who have shown themselves to be very spiritual people. This was to motivate the sun dancers as all of these three groups were considered very sacred and spiritual. Only the heyoka would wear black-and-white and dance in a circle going the opposite way of the rest of the people. The heyoka clowns would also do silly or ridiculous things trying to get the sun dancers to laugh even as the latter were expected to maintain a very serious meditative demeanor.
In the afternoon, the sun dancers were stopped and those who elected to be pierced, which was a much greater honor than simply dancing, were all made to lie down. Piercing was, by far, the most sacred part of the sun dance ceremony of the Lakota, which was the only nation to practice it. They saw it as making a personal sacrifice for the good of all red brothers.
One by one, holy men from each tribal circle went to each sun dancer and cut two holes in that dancer’s chest slightly above the nipples on the pectoral muscles. In Joshua Strongheart’s case, instead of a sharp knife, a ceremonial golden eagle talon was used, which did make Joshua feel even more special. Then wooden or bone pegs were inserted into the holes as that sun dancer was blessed and prayed over by the medicine man. Before they all stood again, Sitting Bull sat up and cut himself up and down his arms and sides, making fifty additional cuts on his body to show he was really willing to sacrifice for mankind.
The sun dancers were told to approach the tree and the medicine men attached braided leather thongs from the top of the sacred tree to the pegs sticking through the flesh on each man’s pectorals. The most senior medicine man there, a leathery and very wrinkled old man, instructed the dancers to dance up to the tree, then back until the pegs pulled their flesh out. They were told to do this three times, then on the third try, they were to dance backward and when the flesh started stretching, they were to thrust themselves backward with all their weight and strength tearing the pegs through their flesh. Strongheart noticed that the much older Sitting Bull was bleeding profusely, so the Pinkerton decided he would endure whatever happened. He did. Some dancers did not tear their flesh when they tried, but Joshua made his rip free and he fell on his back and look skyward, barely conscious as his father’s village medicine man came forward, cut the remaining pieces of flesh with a sharp knife, and placed them in the ceremonial fire.