Sundances were present in many primitive tribes around the world in order to greet the sun, or, alternatively, in order to help the sun rise again. However, it is not possible to understand the real meaning and purpose of such rituals, without understanding the symbolism of the sun in ancient cultures.
The sun which rose above the horizon every day was just a physical representation of the inner sun that guides people's lives, as the movement of the sun is also the movement of the human soul towards spiritual growth – it rises, reaches its peak, descends, and dies, only to rise again the next morning, representing rebirth and reincarnation.
So, the sundance was a way to help the inner sun arise from the darkness, or spiritual life emerge from the instinctive life.
Sundance – Body Piercing and Suspension
The sundance of the Native Americans was a religious ceremony performed around the summer solstice, and sometimes included sacrifice and flesh offerings, as well as piercing and body suspensions. This ritual was called O-Keep-a by the Mandan. The dancers should find a specific type of tree, cut the branches off and use it as a center pole to represent the tree of life, or the fine line that connects heaven and earth.
In some tribes, such as the Sioux, dancers had their chest pierced by hooks made of bone or wood, with ropes attached to the center pole, inflicting a lot of pain when the flesh was pulled by the hooks. This whole process should last until the flesh was naturally ripped, so the ritual could last up to four days.
In other tribes, the dancers were literally suspended by the hooks, maintaining their feet off the ground for many hours. The purpose of these rituals was to reach a trance state in which they would receive spiritual guidance from the invisible spirits, as well as instructions about plants and herbs that could be used as medicine.
Transcending Pain to Achieve Spiritual Enlightenment
The practices to expand consciousness through pain date back to thousand of years. Often misunderstood, these kinds of religious practices were persecuted by the Canadian and American governments for many years until 1951 (Canada) and 1978 (USA) when the sundance was legalized through the American Indian Religion Freedom Act.
For many, it is hard to understand how such painful practices can lead to union with God, but this cannot be comprehended through the modern mentality – it is necessary to see through the eyes of the indians, who believed that body was an obstacle to the spirit, and by overcoming the pain caused by their rituals, they would be in touch with this higher part of consciousness which controls the pain, and, therefore, transcend the limitations of the physical body.
Symbolically, this practice represented the death of the body and the awakening to the spiritual realm. If an indian has control over the pain, he has control over the body, which means that he is more than just his physical figure. After the trance, when the he is free from the hooks, he is also free from the prison of the physical limitations, he is reborn, like the sun, and is one step ahead of the rest of the population, as the others have not experienced what it is like to discover that there's an instance of consciousness that does not collapse along with the body, during the ceremony.
So the offering of the flesh was a way to offer the physical body in exchange of spiritual life. The sun's new rise every day represents the new man's rebirth after a symbolic death, in which the body is left behind.
Modern Primitivism, the Revival of the Suspension Rituals
In today's world, there is a movement emerging among adepts of body art and body modification which aims to revive the spiritual experiences of the primitive tribes by performing rituals such as body suspension and body piercing (see the fifth image at the bottom of this article).
Adepts use metal hooks in different parts of the body and are suspended with the help of trained professionals for some minutes. Interestingly, many people who have gone through the experience state that the pain is easily overcome by the sensation of being above the physical senses.
Do not try to do this at home!
Articles About Sun Rituals
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Sources:
Low, Colin; Gil Cardinal. Circle of the Sun. Curator's comments. National Film Board of Canada. . (Retrieved on October 27, 2010)
GeorgeCatlin.org (Retrieved on October 27, 2010)
Steven Conn. History's Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
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