Oglala Sun Dance: The Hunka Ceremony: The Ceremony

THE CEREMONY.

At dawn of the next day the people were astir, preparing the morning meal, and for the ceremony of the day. As the sun appeared over the horizon, the Conductor faced it and chanted an invocation to Wi, invoking that God to speak for the people to Taku Wakan, the Gods of the weather. While he was doing so the people remained in a reverential attitude. Immediately after his invocation, women erected a large tipi to be used as the ceremonial lodge with its door toward the entrance of the camp circle, that is, toward the east. Near the south side of the area, with its door toward the south, they erected a smaller tipi to be used as the preparation tipi. On the previous day, the Conductor had appointed an akicita, or marshal, of the camp, and he now appeared, with three black stripes painted perpendicularly on his right cheek as the insignum of his office.

Soon after the Conductor returned to his tipi he began chanting and drumming in a low tone and continued so for some time. Then the people began to appear in gala attire, painted and decorated according to their fancies, and wearing such insignia as they were entitled to have: the Hunkayapi, with the red stripes on their foreheads; the buffalo women with their hair partings marked in red. When the Conductor came from his tipi his hands and body were painted red and his face was striped in red; red zigzag lines decorated his arms. These decorations were all symbolical, as explained in the section on the Sun dance (p. 82). His regalia as the Conductor consisted of a headdress or cap made of tanned skin, to which a small buffalo horn was attached at each side so as to stand out from the head as the horns do on a buffalo. The cap was further adorned with hawk quills and strips of white weaselskin. In his right hand he held the ceremonial pipe and in his left a hawkskin. The latter was his wasicun, or