Talk:Sun Dance

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 * NB: The American Indian community is sensitive to cultural appropriation of their traditions. This article summarizes an anthropological perspective and does not provide specific guidance on authentic ceremonies.

Article content
A problem with the current version of the article is that it doesn't explain what the Sun Dance is or why it is performed, but simply describes it as a "religious ceremony." Also, most of the article seems to be concerned with Canadian issues, with about 90% of the body of the article covering this. Someone with no knowledge of Sun Dances would come away from this article having really learned nothing about it. Exploding Boy (talk) 01:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The article gives reasons and general descriptions. To go beyond that would get into "how-to". - Kathryn NicDhàna  ♫ ♦ ♫ 17:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It doesn't really. Besides a brief commentary on piercing, the article only says it's a religious ceremony; what for?  There's really no description at all.  See for instance the article on Catholic Mass.  There needs to be more substance.  Exploding Boy (talk) 19:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The details given of the Catholic Mass are public things that can be observed by anyone who walks into a church. Anyone off the street can observe these things. In contrast, an authentic Sun Dance is a private ceremony. There is very little written down that is accurate, and this is on purpose. It's not intended for outsiders. - Kathryn NicDhàna  ♫ ♦ ♫ 20:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, the article must include more than vague comments and descriptions. Exploding Boy (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia standards notwithstanding, the nature of this ceremony is such that the more knowledgeable a person is about it, the less likely they would ever post anything about it on the internet. It's just not going to happen. -Uyvsdi (talk) 22:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Different Ceremony
In a Man called Horse, the ceremony depicted was a rendering of the Mandan Okipa ceremony (see George Catlin's 2 - vol book on Indians of N.A.), not the plains sun dance, which one would expect given the tribe's identity in the movie was Cheyenne/Sioux? Randall J. Brown (Comment moved from article - Kathryn NicDhàna  ♫ ♦ ♫ 21:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

This article needs a lot of work!
Anyone interested in learning about the Sun Dance is not likely to learn much from this article. It's also very unbalanced (giving a lot of info about a few specific things and virtually no info about other things that I think many people would see as being more important), poorly organized, biased (using words like "desecration" to refer to the idea of non-natives attending the Sun Dance), and seems inaccurate to me. For one, the intro has a big thing about non-natives being banned from the ceremony which I don't think is true. I know a lot of non-native people who go to Sun Dance, as dancers, singers, and as supporters. It's not like just anyone can (or should) go, you of course have to be respectful, committed and invited by someone, but there certainly doesn't appear to be any rule about non-natives going. So is that part of the article referring to a decree that has since been changed? Or does it vary between the different dance locations? Or what? It also says that in Canada the Sun Dance goes by other names, but it is well-known in Canada as the Sun Dance. Is content for this article just extremely difficult to come by because of Wikipedia's policy on reliable published sources? Is there a huge problem with writing a proper article because of people who say that would be exposing sacred cultural secrets? There's got to be some way to at least make it a little better than it currently is, even if we can't add many more details. MsBatfish (talk) 02:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Smoking template
I pulled the smoking template off the page since secular tobacco habits has little or nothing to do with the Sun Dance. Template:Wines doesn't link to the Eucharist article. Smoking tobacco is part of an overwhelming majority of indigenous American religious ceremonies; however, smoking tobacco is not central to Sun Dance. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Lindy hop which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 07:31, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Lindy Hop which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:46, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll fix the cats. Sacred ceremonies that involve some movement should not be in the same category as social or performance dance styles. - Co rb ie V  ☊☼ 18:52, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Poles in mythology
Now we have a new article Poles in mythology, Please see and include suitable feature of sun dance, if any, in article Poles in mythology

Rgds

Mahitgar (talk) 06:04, 4 October 2015 (UTC)