Sun Dance at Whiterocks, 1919

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 40, 1972, No. 3

Sun Dance at Whiterocks, 1919

BY KARL E. YOUNG

TO THINK BACK ON relatively recent events from a historical point of view might help one put things in a proper chronological focus. The sun dance at Whiterocks which is to be described here took place in 1919 — only fifty-three years ago. From several points of view the intervening period seems short. That sun dance occurred less than a dozen years before some of my colleagues and I started teaching at Brigham Young University. It doesn't really seem so far back.

But now think of a fairly similar period of time preceding the sun dance in question. The battle of the Little Big Horn, in which Custer and more than two hundred men of his command lost their lives, took place in 1876, only forty-three years before the sun dance of 1919. The shameful slaughter at Wounded Knee occurred near the end of December 1890, not a full twenty-nine years before this sun dance. Sixteen years after Wounded Knee a band of more than three hundred Utes, led by Red Cap, left Whiterocks on the Uinta River to go to Pine Ridge and live with the Sioux. Their departure was a mere thirteen years prior to the sun dance I am talking about.

The point to be arrived at here is this. If what happened fifty-two years ago does not seem terribly remote, then by analogy what happened forty-three years before the sun dance of 1919 probably did not seem extraordinarily remote as far as the Indian people were concerned. There were probably a good many Indians present at the ceremony of which I write who were adults in 1876 and who could remember vividly and with pride the reports which no doubt spread all over the Indian country of the smashing defeat of the Blue Coats at the Little Big Horn. The Ute Indians near the end of the second decade of this century were probably a lot closer to their grandparents' ways of life and thought than Utes of today are to the mores of their grandparents.

During the summer of 1919 I was living in a tent on the bench lands above the Green River about five or six miles from Ouray, where a ferry was operated. I was helping my father prove up on a piece of ground which he had homesteaded. I can remember seeing strings of ponies come up out of the river bottoms at daybreak and trot single file off in the direction of Whiterocks. Men, women, and children rode these ponies, and they had come, so I was told, across the Book Cliffs on a long ride from the Southern Ute Agency in the southwest corner of Colorado.

Indians on the local reservation traveled by horseback, too, or drove buckboards with the women and children seated on the floor in the back. The older women all wore moccasins. They buckled their calico dresses in with long beaded belts and carried their coins in dangling, beaded buckskin purses. The older men also wore moccasins and dressed their hair in braids. They covered their heads with broad silk handkerchiefs when they rode, leaving only a narrow slit open in front of nose and eyes and crowning the whole with tall, wide-brimmed black hats. The heavy silk, I learned, was a protection against the swarms of gnats, "no-seeums," that made life miserable.

It was people like these who came to the sun dance in 1919. None of them drove cars. Not many of the white farmers in the area had cars either. I can remember the many ponies and buckboards that came down to the sun dance grounds from the shacks and cabins around Whiterocks, Randlett, Ouray, and Myton. If the hay needed cutting, no matter. It could wait until after the big annual ceremony at Whiterocks.

The dance site was an open flat of coarse grass, dotted with scant growths of wild rosebushes and buffalo-berries and located about three miles south of Whiterocks and half a mile north of the Uinta River. Judging by the number of sun dance ghosts, that is, the tall, forked center poles which were left standing after each of the yearly ceremonies, one might surmise that these grounds were the traditional spot where the dance had been held ever since the Utes had been forced out of their lovely mountain valleys in Colorado and had been obliged to settle on lands far less desirable for farming than their own grassy meadows back on the White River. Some of the cottonwood ghosts looked very ragged and weatherbeaten indeed. Occasionally one might see a bundle of willows still lodged in the cleft of the pole, ten or twelve feet above the ground. Nothing else remained standing of the structure which each year housed the ceremony.

Originally there was a leafy wall of branches surrounding the center pole. This enclosure measured probably sixty feet in diameter. The branches were woven into a circle of sturdy cottonwood posts which supported a dozen straight young lodgepoles, peeled and beautiful, like the spokes of a great wheel overhead. Their butts rested in the stubby forks of the circling posts; their tips were interwoven above the forks of the center pole; and within these forks was lodged the sacred medicine bundle.

Ringing the interior of the 1919 enclosure was a series of individual booths, hugging the west wall and extending around the arc north and south. The east side of the enclosure was open. It faced directly toward the point where the rising sun would emerge above the low hills. The booths were shallow enough to provide plenty of room for the dancing, but each booth was separated from its neighbors by a leafy panel on the two sides, thus providing a certain feeling of privacy to the individual who occupied it.

No white man could predict precisely on what day the sun dance would commence in the summer of 1919. I am not certain that any given Indian could either. The schedule was arranged according to Indian time, which allowed for plenty of latitude. For three days prior to the dance we drove up to the sun dance grounds, expecting on each evening to see the dance commence. What held the ceremony up I could never find out. The Indians who occupied the camps which had been set up in the surrounding flats and bottomlands did not seem concerned enough about the delays to know why they happened. Or at least they did not care to share their concern with us. "Will they dance tomorrow?" we asked. "Mebbeso. You come long sundown. Mebbeso dance," was the best we could get out of them.

On the day when the dance did commence we arrived before sundown and wandered around the campgrounds, watching various groups of men playing monte on a blanket spread out in the shade or absorbed in the stick game. This was a fascinating gambling routine in which a participant, skilled in sleight-of-hand maneuvering, juggled two small peeled sticks, while men on his side kept up a rhythmic tapping on a pole laid in front of them. Players on the opposing side watched narrowly until one of them was certain that he knew which hand the marked stick was in. Then he pointed. If he was right, the two sticks went over to the other side and a counter was added to the winner's pile.

Meanwhile I tried to keep an eye on the big tepee — the only one around — which was pitched about seventy-five yards from the sun dance corral. Occasionally a man with a bundle lifted the door cloth and went into the tepee. After the sun went down, as twilight set in, the stick games and monte stopped, and people began to gather in front of the sun dance corral. It was quite dark when, abruptly, a loud boom sounded on a big drum. All talk and bustle ceased. Then another boom came and a third. I forget how many booms there were, but the pace was very slow and the tension was great. Then a blanketed figure emerged from the tepee and began to walk around it. He was followed by a second figure, and a third, until all the dancers had come out and were walking with slow, dignified tread in single file about seven or eight paces apart. They were muffled in blankets or robes, hanging full length and drawn up over their heads, partially concealing their faces. From the lips of each dancer an eagle bone whistle protruded through the folds of the blanket and emitted an eerie, melancholy note which was repeated again and again.

The line of dancers walked toward the dance enclosure and circled it three times — once for each night and day that the dance was to endure. Meanwhile the big drum boomed at slow, regular intervals. After the third round, the dancers entered the enclosure and took up their positions in the booths facing the sun dance pole. It was too dark to see what ceremonial gestures, if any, were performed by the dancers, but, dimly, one could make out that they were arranging personal items within the booths which they were to occupy during the next three days. They folded their robes and straightened their loin cloths, some of which hung from naked waists to naked feet and were broad enough to encircle the whole body. Other dancers wore more conventional style G-strings, looped over a belt before and behind and hanging down several inches below the knees.

The slow pounding on the drum had now ceased, and one became aware of the origin of this accompaniment. Halfway between the open east entrance to the corral and the center pole and then off toward the south side of this quarter of the encircled area hung a large drum. It was suspended in a horizontal position by thongs which were looped over four stakes that had been driven there for the specific purpose of supporting the drum. Five or six singers knelt around the drum, waiting now for the ceremony to commence. Presently the sun dance chief came forward and stood before the center pole. The other dancers stood motionless, facing him. He sang then, without accompaniment, four short songs initiating the rites. He walked back to his position, and abruptly a high, quavering voice struck out on a spine-tingling song. Immediately the beaters came down in nine measured thumps, then fell into a steady rhythm as the other voices of the chorus joined in unison singing. The dancers meanwhile lifted their faces to the forks of the pole, where the sacred bundle was lodged, and began blowing their eagle bone whistles — high, piercing notes which were as wild and lonely as the cry of an eagle among the cliffs and clouds.

Now the dance began, each dancer advancing in a straight line toward the center pole. With elbows tucked in against their sides and forearms extending straight out in front of them, trunks erect, eyes fixed on the medicine bundle above them, feet together and knees slightly bent, the dancers came forward in a succession of swift, short jumps. The movements were somewhat like those of white men participating in a sack race, except that in such a race individuals would leap as far and as rapidly as they could. Here, however, the Indians advanced only a few inches, perhaps no more than three, in each jump. But since the effort was to keep time with the beating of the big drum, the exertion must have been enormous. I know this because I had tried the steps myself when I was ten years old. With my younger sister, whom I had browbeaten into accompanying me, I went through the motions in our old corral, dancing back and forth towards a snubbing post instead of the sun dance pole. I remember being completely winded within minutes.

How the dancers kept up the performance as long as they did really astonished me. But I soon discovered that, contrary to the white man's credulous belief in the story about the Indian's dancing without stopping for a period of three days, these dancers stopped before they became exhausted and lay down to rest in their leafy bowers. Some of them hung sheets across the entry to their niches, thus achieving a degree of privacy during rest periods. It was soon apparent that certain dancers would continue dancing considerably longer than others, and there was evidently no set pattern of when to rest and when to take up the dance again.

The chorus at the big tom-tom kept up the songs, one after another, with hardly a pause, showing such familiarity with the music that I was certain they had spent many hours practicing before the day when the dance began. Such habits of song practice are common among the Pueblo people of the Southwest before big ceremonial events. Occasionally a singer would tire and leave the group. Then his place would be taken by someone else. As far as I could tell, there were no words in the singing which accompanied the dancing but rather a characteristic vocalizing of the notes, also a very common practice in Indian singing.

And thus the night wore on. Spectators who had edged into the sun dance corral and sat down in the space between the chorus and the opening in the eastern wall lay on their sides with legs drawn up, an almost universal posture among the Indians present, and went to sleep. But the songs continued, and intermittently the dancers labored back and forth towards the center pole or reclined in their narrow booths. I noted, however, that oftentimes dancers would stand in the openings of their booths, flexing their knees to the rhythm of the song and the drum something like the loose-jointed jogging which boxers learn to perform while standing in one location. Always, nevertheless, the action was accompanied by the plaintive piping on the eagle bone whistles, which reminded one of the mysteries inherent in this rite.

At last as the gray of approaching dawn began to appear over the distant mountains, the dancers all stopped their night-long routine and commenced elaborate preparations to greet the sun. They combed their hair and smoothed their braids. They painted their cheekbones and brows and put all items of dress in order. They tied eagle down fluffs in their hair and folded their robes neatly. And then presently all of them had come forward and were standing in rows before the sun dance pole and directly facing the growing light in the east. In front of their ranks stood the sun dance chief, intent on the imminent miracle of the sunrise. With eyes fixed on the horizon and eagle bone whistles between their lips, all of the dancers stood motionless, waiting the moment when the rim of the sun should first appear above the sharp edge of the sloping hills.

The moments dragged as the sky paled, turned white, and gradually yielded to the burning edge of the sun. Immediately the bone whistles shrilled and piped. The men lifted their arms and stretched out their hands to the dazzling brightness. They blew long, penetrating notes on their whistles and began to rub the sunlight into their naked arms and shoulders. They reached out their hands at arms length again and again toward the sun and then stroked their breasts and sides, their braids, their brows, and their cheeks with the blessings and power that the sun was bringing to them.

I could not for an instant bear to look directly into that sun light, but the dancers gazed steadfastly at the blazing ball during the whole period of its ascent above the horizon. That they were not all blinded immediately and permanently by this fanatical act is more than I can understand. Perhaps they focused their eyes immediately above the burning center, but to me, twenty feet away, they seemed to be staring into the total brightness.

After the sun had lifted completely above the hills, the drumming and singing ceased, and all of the dancers turned towards their booths to rest and relax before resuming the arduous pounding up and down those little paths which their feet were wearing in lines radiating out from the pole to their individual booths. Some of the dancers paused as they turned back from the welcoming of the sun to stroke the sunlit face of the pole and again rub this magic into their limbs and over their breasts and hair.

The Indian audience melted away, too, as people retired to their tents to eat and rest before returning to the ceremony. For the dancers there was nothing but rest and meditation. None of them would touch food or water during the next three days.

What was the significance of the sun dance? I heard various interpretations. Commonly I was told that it was a healing ceremony. But as I regarded the dancers in full daylight, I was impressed by the appearance of well-being, especially in the younger men who participated. Several of these young men, I assumed, were dancing for the recovery of someone else to whom they had pledged the rite, or else they had committed themselves to the ceremony out of a desire to take part in a public spectacle and were consequently more interested in the drama of the presentation than in the ritual. Considerable talk went around among the white spectators concerning those dancers who seemed to endure the hardships of thirst and fasting best and at the same time perform most often the arduous dance forward and back to the center pole.

According to the tradition among Plains tribes, the sun dance is commonly vowed by someone who seeks to prevent sickness from attacking him or his near relatives. The significance of the ceremony is, however, surely not simple. Within the tradition, according to George A. Dorsey of the Field Museum in Chicago, there are elements of fertility worship, of success in war against a great enemy (sometimes symbolized by the center pole), of acknowledgement of the influence of the stars and cardinal points of the compass, and of rebirth and regeneration.

It was clear to me, from the mystery surrounding the presence of the big tepee, in which, no doubt, secret rites were performed, that the whole ceremony was divided into two parts, a secret part and a public part. Had I been present when the center pole and the long overhead rafters were selected and cut down, I might have witnessed a symbolized warfare, in which the enemy was felled and dragged into camp by whooping, triumphant warriors on horseback. I heard about this from Indian informants whose names I was too naive to learn at the time — if, indeed, I could have learned them.

The willow bundle in the fork of the center pole may have represented the nest of the thunderbird, whose cry was imitated by the blowing on the eagle wing bone whistles. At least, this was a well-known element of the rite among other Plains tribes.

Though there were some men taking part in the dance for whom the religious elements perhaps had little meaning, there can be little doubt that for the tribe as a whole this was the greatest event of the year. Other dances, such as the bear dance, the round dance, and the turkey dance, were distinctly minor events in the Ute calendar. For the Utes, as for other Plains people, the sun dance was the chief expression by the tribe as a whole of their religious beliefs.

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