Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria

Author:Ella Cara Deloria [Deloria, Ella Cara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNP - Bison Books
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

The Dakota Sun Dance might vary in minor details from band to band, but in essentials it was all the same—in purpose, in mood, in character. And in importance it was rated higher than any other ceremonial. For there was brought together, into one great religious event, the fulfillment of all the vows that men in their distress had made during the preceding year; there also the corporate prayers for the tribe’s well-being were offered, in tears.

Time was, so the ancient ones said, when each man fulfilled his pledge to the Great Spirit singly. Fasting and weeping and singing, and sometimes even scarifying himself, out alone on some distant peak, he did his praying solitarily. But long before Waterlily’s time the Sun Dance had become an organized complex, made up of many small rites and elements accompanying the actual dancing while gazing at the sun.

Rainbow’s party were about to witness the Sun Dance as Palani’s people staged it. And now, some days after the arrival of the Omahas and of tribes coming in groups from many places far and near, they were ordered to move to the site that had been selected for the main ceremony. The traditional specification was observed, “A virgin spot apart, unpolluted by humankind.”

No sooner had the crier completed his round, telling the people to get ready, than tipis began to come down and in an unbelievably short while the move began. The destination was not far; it could have been easily reached without the necessity of stopping to rest on the way. But this was a ceremonial move and it was essential to make the four ritual pauses along the way, in honor of the four sacred directions, the Four Winds.

At the new site the people placed their tipis in one vast circle that embraced hosts and visitors together as one. From then on, the events at hand were the subject of all conversation. One heard people saying, “Tomorrow is the day they bring home the tree for the sacred pole.” “Already the scouts have located it … very straight and tall it is, they say. The finest in the woods.” “Did you know that tonight the holy men will sit in a special tipi and sing prayers the whole night through, asking for a clear day?” “It will be a clear day tomorrow … You wait and see.” “It never fails; that prayer is always granted.” And it was a clear day with a sky unmarred by even one cloud.

The preliminary rites leading up to the Sun Dance itself always followed a certain progression. Already some of them had been finished at the old site. And now one more, perhaps the most significant, was at hand: the getting of the sacred pole. A solemn rite must first be performed in front of it as it stood in the woods, as though it were sentient and understood what was going on.

For some unexplained reason Palani was most insistent that Waterlily and Prairie Flower attend this.

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