Elder Keith Chiefmoon and The Sacred Sundance: Preserving the Traditional Ceremony

ReThreading Madness

In 1895, the Canadian government banned the Sundance. Intent on destroying the first nation’s way of life and spiritual practices, the colonizers banned various ceremonies and certain practices (like piercing) along withholding sacred objects required for those ceremonies. While this was legally reversed in 1951, it took many years before all First Nation Communities were aware of this change, many more for the fear of retribution and arrest to lift, and even more to feel empowered to engage again in activities such as piercing. Overall, as Keith Chiefmoon describes, the damage to this important ceremony, based on oral traditions, has had long lasting repercussions to their sense of self, community, and mental health that stretch into our present day. In this podcast, Keith Chiefmoon of the Kainai Nation and Blackfoot Confederacy, generously describes how several decades ago, an elder told him – and sternly so - that the spirits had identified that he was to bring back the traditional Sundance. During several days of praying and fasting on Chief Mountain those spirits outlined this Sundance: the location, the arbor, dancing, drumming, singing, praying, dry fasting (no food or water for 4 days), and piercing (a very sacred offering) – “The old way,” Keith says. And the Spirits were clear: he was to accept any person who wanted to Sundance regardless of their colour: First Nation, black, white, or Asian. This Sundance is currently the only one which does so.

“Natosi Okhan is the only Sun Dance society in the region that accepts pledges from non-Indigenous people who do not have long-standing connections with the community and this is highly controversial within the community itself and beyond. This Sun The Sun Dance as a Space for Experiential Learning 49 Dance started around 20 years ago when Keith Chiefmoon, who was a Sun Dancer with another community, decided to give life to a sacred dream where people from the four directions arrived on his family land to dance. In the dream the dancers were very clueless, even to the point of asking inappropriate questions. Keith was told to treat them with utmost respect because their spirits had been called by the land and by all our ancestors to be there to dance in order to heal all relations. Keith was told, and tells us often, that the sun shines the same on everyone—from the tallest mountain to the thistle on the Sun Dance grounds (which are abundant); the sun does not differentiate, and neither should he/we.” From Towards Scarring Our Collective Soul Wound by Cash Ahenakew
music by Shari Ulrich
Photo of Keith Chiefmoon by Colin Bolin