Crow Dog : Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men (9780062200143) (26 page)

Soon after came the sun dance, the most sacred of all our rituals. The sun dance has often been misrepresented as a ceremony
to initiate boys into manhood or to show courage. But that is not why you suffer, why you pierce yur breast or hang from the tree; you do that because the sun dance is a sacrifice. You undergo pain to make a sick relative well, or to bring a son back alive from war. I danced so that my people should live. As old Chief Lame Deer put it: “The whites have made it easy for themselves. They let Jesus do the suffering for them, once, two thousand years ago. But we Indians take the pain upon ourselves, experience it in our own bodies. We make a vow: ‘Grandfather, next year I will dance. I will pierce myself, to get somebody well, to make our people whole.’”

For many years, the government forbade the sun dance. They called it barbaric, savage, superstitious. Indians were jailed if they were caught sun dancing. Even to purify oneself in a sweat lodge was a crime. But it never stopped us from performing our sacred rituals. We danced in secret, where the wasichu could not find us. During all the long years when our religion was outlawed, somewhere, in hidden places, the Lakota were dancing. My father’s chest is crisscrossed with the scars from many piercings. He danced in spite of the missionaries, government agents, and BIA police. He danced across the river, at Picket Pin’s place. He danced up on the hills among the pines. He danced way out on the prairie, in hidden valleys, in clearings among ancient cottonwoods. If you look for them you can still find the traces of our old dance circles. My father always wanted his piercings to be prayers for all the people.

Ever since 1971, in early August there has been a sun dance at Crow Dog’s Paradise. But the one in 1977, just after my release, had a special meaning for me. Bill Eagle Feathers ran it. The sacred tree was brought in, the tallest Cottonwood they could find. They planted it in a hole filled with buffalo fat and the four kinds of sacred food. Chief Eagle Feathers prayed for an eagle to bless us, and at once a large bald eagle appeared, flying in from the east, circling over the sun dance ground, and then disappearing slowly toward the west. More than one hundred dancers had
come, all in their red kilts, with wreaths of sage crowning their heads, blowing on their eagle bone whistles, making a sound of a thousand birds. The drum pounded, uniting us all in its heartbeat. The singers intoned the sun dance song:

We danced so that our Lakota nation should live. We took upon us the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in the white man’s jails. My wife and my sisters pierced on their arms and collar bones. Ten- and eleven-year-old boys pierced. Everywhere people made flesh offerings. My friend Jerry Roy hung from the tree. Seventeen-year-old Bobby Leader Charge dragged twelve buffalo skulls attached by rawhide thongs to skewers imbedded in the flesh of his back. He did this to bring back his half-brother, who was still imprisoned. I danced looking at the sun until my mind was filled by a bright light from another world. I danced with the tree. It talked to me. I was outside myself, way beyond myself, seeing the world with chante ishta, the eye of the heart, not the eyes in the face. All along the rawhide thongs reaching from the skewers in my chest to the top of the sacred tree, I communicated with the Grandfather Spirit and with the stars. Before I tore myself loose, I danced with the tree so that it swayed in rhythm with my movements. Nobody had ever done this. I called out to the eagles. When I finally finished, a great shout rose from the people. I had come home.

I end my story here, at the high point of my life. I will never dance again as I danced then. There will never be another Wounded Knee. I became what I had been before I gave myself to the movement—a medicine man performing the ancient ceremonies for my Lakota people. Pedro and my teenage son, Anwah, already run yuwipi and Native American church meetings. They know all the songs. They will follow on my trail when I am gone.
Clearwater and Buddy Lamont are looking down on me. Raymond Yellow Thunder and Pedro Bissonette are looking down on me. Much of what I am doing, I am doing for them.

Mitakuye oyasin.

L
EONARD
C
ROW
D
OG
was born in 1942 on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, where he still lives.

R
ICHARD
E
RDOES
has written or coauthored over a dozen books, including
Lakota Woman and ohitika woman.
He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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Also by Richard Erdoes

Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (
with John Fire Lame Deer
)
The Sun Dance People
The Rain Dance People
The Pueblo Indians
The Sound of Flutes
Picture History of Ancient Rome
Saloons of the Old West
The Woman Who Dared
American Indian Myths and Legends (
with Alfonso Ortiz
)
A.D. 1000: Living on the Brink of Apocalypse
Lakota Woman (
with Mary Crow Dog
)
Gift of Power (
with Archie Fire Lame Deer
)
Ohitika Woman (
with Mary Brave Bird
)

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1995 by HarperCollins Publishers.

CROW DOG
. Copyright © 1995 by Leonard Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Epub Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 978-0-062-20014-3

ISBN: 9780060926823

First HarperPerennial edition published 1996.

Line drawings and photographs by Richard Erdoes

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Crow Dog, Leonard, 1942–

    Crow Dog : Four generations of Sioux medicine men / Leonard Crow
   Dog and Richard Erdoes. — 1st ed.

        p. cm.

    ISBN 0-06-016861-7

    1. Crow Dog. 2. Crow Dog, Leonard, 1942–. 3. Brulé Indians— Biography. 4. Brulé Indians—History. I. Erdoes, Richard. II. Title. E99.B8C753 1995

    929.2089975—dc20               94-40695

ISBN 0-06-092682-1 (pbk.)

11 12 13 14
/RRD 20 19 18 17 16

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