The Sun Dance.

In our earlier paper upon the bundles of the Blackfoot, we have concerned ourselves with ceremonial functions in which the ownership and chief responsibility, in theory, rested in a single individual. We come now to an affair initiated, it is true, by the owner of the natoas bundle, but yet a composite of other rituals and functions, each of which has a definite place in a program carried out by the whole tribal organization. The only trace of a similar tribal participation is in the now almost extinct tobacco-planting ceremonies conducted by the beaver owners; but here there was no complex of other unrelated ceremonies and functions. In short, the sun dance was for the Blackfoot a true tribal festival, or demonstration of ceremonial functions, in which practically every important ritual owner and organization had a place. Nevertheless, there were certain rituals peculiar to it which gave it its character.

Since the plan of this section is to give an ethnological presentation of the Blackfoot sun dance, rather than a logically unfolding description of the ceremony as seen at a specified time, we shall present the general program now and take up later a somewhat analytical detailed discussion of the various phases of the ceremony. By this method, we shall be able to concentrate our attention upon a single ceremonial concept without the distraction arising from contemporaneous and intrusive procedures based upon other concepts, for as we shall see, this sun dance is a true composite. The following schedule is not given as the one observed by the writer, but as the one regarded as proper and believed to have been followed before the various divisions of the Blackfoot were under the complete domination of the Canadian and United States governments.