232 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



of the tribe during the year has passed through some trying oi'deal, 

 and in accordance with her religious ideas and desires, has prayed to 

 Xatos for health for herself or some of her relations, and has vowed 

 to Natos, that if her prayers are answered, she will become responsible 

 for the annual celebration of the Sun-Dance. 



The announcement having been made, the young men repair to the 

 woods to })rocure the necessary materials to build the lodge. When 

 it is cut, lariats are fastened around it, and it is dragged along the 

 ground to its destination by young men on horsel)ack, amid the ex- 

 ultations of their comrades, who as they ride singing and shouting, 

 shoot incessantly with their guns into the logs. A level piece of 

 ground is selected near the middle of the camp and the erection of the 

 lodge is joyfully undertaken. The lodge is circular in form and of 

 various dimensions. Those that I have .seen among the Blood Indians 

 were about thirty feet in diameter. In the centre stands the sacred 

 pole fr-om the top of which, heavy ridge poles extend to the sides? 

 which are aljout five feet in height, strong supports are placed around 

 the sides, the spaces intervening being tilled with light brushwood. 

 There is a large main entrance and a lesser one. Opposite the m in 

 entrance and against the .side of the lodge is the bower for the woman 

 and her husband who have undertaken the celebration of the festival. 

 At the foot of the sacred ])ole burns the sacred fire. At the left of 

 the bower facing the main entrance a band of young men sit beating 

 on drums as an accompaniment of the ceremonies, in the centre sit the 

 chiefs near the sacred jiole, and all around the sides the general 

 assemblage is aiTanged as participants in the rites or merely as 

 onlookei"S of a strange scene of a decaying* religion and civilization. 

 In the interests of science I have attended four Sun-Dances and taken 

 extensive notes of all I saw, and a description of one of these will 

 illustrate the prevailing ideas of the Indians. As the influences of 

 religion and civilization are slowly undermining the native religious 

 system, in a few years the celebration of this festival will become a 

 thing of the past, and the opportunity for recoiding these religious 

 customs will be gone. 



On a warm day in the latter part of July, I visited the Blood 

 Indian camp, and found the Sun-lodge as already described. There 

 were by actual count one hundred and ninety -eight lodges, comprising 

 about two thousand souls. An old man was riding through the 



