thumb|300px|Sun dance, [[Shoshone at Fort Hall, 1925]]
The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by some Native Americans in the United States and Indigenous peoples in Canada, primarily those of the Plains cultures, as well as a new movement within Native American religions. Members of otherwise independent bands gather to reaffirm beliefs about the world and the supernatural through rituals of personal and community sacrifice. Typically, young men would dance semi-continuously for several days and nights without eating or drinking; in some cultures, self-mortification was or is currently also practiced.
thumb|Diagram of an [[Eastern Shoshone Sun Dance lodge.]]
thumb|1889 drawing of Sun Dance participants; note the leather thongs tying the dancer to the stakes.
After European colonization of the Americas, and with the formation of the Canadian and United States governments, both countries passed laws intended to suppress Indigenous cultures and force assimilation into Christianity and majority-Anglo-American culture. The Sun Dance was one of the prohibited ceremonies, as was the potlatch of the Pacific Northwest peoples. An attenuated form was practiced after Canada lifted its prohibition against the practice of the full ceremony in 1951. In the United States, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) in 1978, which was enacted to protect basic civil liberties, and to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of Native Americans, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians.
Description
thumb|upright=1.2|Placing the clan poles, .
Several features are common to the ceremonies held by Sun Dance cultures. These include dances and songs passed down through many generations, the use of a traditional drum, a sacred fire, praying with a ceremonial pipe, fasting from food and water before participating in the dance, and, in some cases, the ceremonial piercing of skin and trials of physical endurance. Certain plants are picked and prepared for use during the ceremony, such as Artemisia ludoviciana (white sage), which the Lakota use to make bracelets.
Typically, the Sun Dance is a grueling ordeal for the dancers, a physical and spiritual test that they offer in sacrifice for their people. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, young men dance around a pole to which they are fastened by "rawhide thongs pegged through the skin of their chests." Piercing was accomplished using skewers or piercing needles through a small fold of skin on the upper chest or back; leather was then used to attach a bison skull or other heavy weight to the skewers. A dancer would dance while bearing the weight until he collapsed or the skin was torn loose. Anyone who engaged, assisted or encouraged (either directly or indirectly) was liable to imprisonment.
Contemporary practices
The Sun Dance is a living tradition</blockquote>
In 1995, efforts to continue practicing the ceremony on a tract of unceded Secwepemc land led to an armed confrontation known as the Gustafsen Lake standoff.
In 2003, the 19th-Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe of the Lakota asked non-Native people to stop attending the Sun Dance (Wi-wayang-wa-c'i-pi in Lakota); he stated that all can pray in support, but that only Native people should approach the altars. This statement was supported by keepers of sacred bundles and traditional spiritual leaders from the Cheyenne and Sioux who issued a proclamation that non-Native people would be banned from sacred altars and the Seven Sacred Rites, including and especially the sun dance, effective March 9, 2003 onward: