The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot IndiansWissler, Clark
Religion
The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians
Wissler, Clark
Siksika Indians; Sun dance
Now, when the first sweathouse is to be made, orders are given in
the morning to one of the societies to get the willows to make the
hundred-willow sweathouse. Another man is to get the creeping
juniper to use in the smudge place in the medicine lodge, and still
another is to cut out the smudge place. The moves are short. The
people all move camp, as before, and the society goes on ahead and
stakes out the camping ground. When the tipis are pitched at the new
camping ground, the society comes in with the willows and the rocks
for the sweathouse. They circle once around to the right of the
lodges and stop outside of the circle, west of the medicine lodge.
They must neither eat nor drink while building the sweathouse. They
gather wood from among the tipis until they have enough to heat the
rocks. Robes for covering the sweathouse are borrowed from the
people of the camp. One man goes to the medicine lodge and digs out
the smudge place.
When the sweathouse is ready for the medicinemen, four of the men
who helped in the construction go and inform the men and women. They
carry the parfleche with the tongues in it on a robe, each man
holding a corner. The two medicinemen take the lead, the two women
follow, then come the four men with the parfleche. Four stops are
made before they reach the sweathouse. The instructor leads, and is
followed in single file by the other man, and the two women walking
very slowly and singing. They march once around the sweathouse in
the direction of the sun. The other old men who are to join them and
the two medicinemen go in while the two women remain seated on a
robe just west of it with the parfleche beside them. A smudge is
made with sweetgrass, and a crescent-shaped place marked out between
the square hole and the rear of the sweathouse and live coals are
placed on the dot in front of the crescent. A song is sung while the
smudge stick is taken up and a man goes after the coal for the
smudge. The sweetgrass is placed on the live coal and the two songs
for the smudge are sung: "Spring grass I take. Where I sit is
powerful." A pipe is handed in and the pipe bowl and stem painted
red. The man holds the pipe over the smudge and prays for the one
who gave it to him and then passes it to the last man to his right
who lights it and all smoke it. When the pipe is all burnt out, the
man who blessed it, takes it, and with a red-painted stick loosens
the ashes and empties some of them on the southeast corner of the
square hole in the sweathouse, then on the northwest corner, on the
northeast, and finally in the center.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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