PART I.— GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



Before considering the detailed rites of the ceremony as they are 

 enacted during the successive days that constitute the performance 

 it is necessary to explain briefly certain preliminary events connected 

 with the ceremony, such as its name, time, duration, etc. 



NAME OF THE CEREMONY. 



The name given by the Cheyenne to the Sun Dance is the New- 

 Life-lodge. According to the interpretation of the priest, the name 

 means not only the lodge of new life, or lodge of new birth, but it is 

 also the new life itself. The performance of the ceremony is sup- 

 posed to re-create, to re-form, to re-animate the earth, vegetation, 

 animal life, etc. ; hence it would not be inappropriate to speak of the 

 Sun Dance as the ceremony of rebirth or of the renaissance. Addi- 

 tional information as to the significance of the name of the ceremony 

 may be found in the following remarks made by a priest in answer to 

 a question as to the meaning of the word: "Formerly this dance 

 represented only the creation of the earth. The Cheyenne grew care- 

 less and combined other things with the ceremony. At the time of 

 the Lone-tipi, though everything is barren, the earth is beginning to 

 grow. Now it has grown. Thus they make the earth, buffalo wal- 

 low, grease, wool, and sinew to make growth. By the time of the 

 end of the lodge things have grown, people have become happy ; the 

 world has reached its full growth, and people rejoice. When they 

 use the bone whistle they are happy like the eagle, which is typical 

 of all birds and of all happiness." 



THE VOW. 



The Sun Dance of the Cheyenne, like that of the Arapaho, but 

 unlike that of the Siouan tribes, is the direct result of a vow or pledge 

 made by a single individual. The ceremony of 1903 was pledged by 

 an individual by the name of Little-Hawk (see PI. XVIII.), whose 

 wife is one of the medicine-women of the tribe. It seems that shortly 

 after the ceremony of 1902 Little-Hawk's child was taken suddenly 

 and violently ill, and at that time he vowed that he would, on the fol- 

 lowing year, give the ceremony. 



The ceremony of 1901 was the direct result of a vow made by 



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