INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



This account of the Cheyenne Sun Dance is the second of a series 

 of reports resulting from a study of the Sun Dance of the Plains tribes, 

 that of the Arapaho having been the first. The method of treatment 

 of the ceremony under consideration follows somewhat closely that 

 of my account of the Arapaho ceremony.* 



I first witnessed the Cheyenne Sun Dance in 1901, at which time 

 it was held on the north fork of the Washita River, a few miles from 

 Watanga. The second Sun Dance which I witnessed, in 1903, was 

 held a few miles east of Eagle City, also on the north fork of the 

 Washita. The Sun Dance held in 1902 near the town of Calumet I 

 did not witness. The ceremony was not pledged for the year 1904, 

 and it is possible that it will never again be pledged, owing to the 

 unwarranted and unjust notoriety given the ceremony of 1903 by 

 false reports concerning certain events of the ceremony, made by 

 John H. Segar, United States Indian Agent, of Colony, Oklahoma, 

 to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. 



During the performance of 190 1 I was given authority by a council 

 of chiefs to witness all the rites of the ceremony, and I remained 

 throughout this performance, using De Forest Antelope as inter- 

 preter and Bushy-Head, a well-known medicine-man from the King- 

 fisher district, as chief informant. At that time my knowledge of 

 the Cheyenne was slight; it was impossible, therefore, for me to make 

 close observations of the rites in the Lone-tipi. I spent the greater 

 part of the three preliminary days of the ceremony in obtaining 

 from Bushy-Head such information as to the meaning of the cere- 

 mony as he could furnish. The ceremony of 1901 was unsatisfactory 

 from the facts that the rites of the Lone-tipi were much hurried and 

 that the number of dancers was small, and the ceremony came to an 

 abrupt end. 



The ceremony of 1903 was, from the point of view of the Indians 

 themselves, entirely satisfactory; for, although the United States 

 Agent at Cantonment had made the foolish threat that he would 

 stop the ceremony by calling out the troops, yet the assurance given 

 them that they had a legal right to their ceremony and that no 

 one could lawfully interfere with a religious performance caused 

 them to feel at ease and the priests and dancers entered into the 



*Cf. The Arapaho Sun Dance, Field Columbian Museum, Anthrojxjlogical Series, Vol. IV. 



