From Sun Dance to Body Suspension. A Cultural Adaption?

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Analytical research

3. Conclusion

4. Bibliography

1. Introduction

“The body is . . . a point from which to rethink the opposition between the inside and the outside, the public and the private, the self and other, and all the other binary pairs associated with mind/body opposition.” (Pitts 2003: 1) Starting from a detailed description of a young body modifier’s profession and life, Victoria Pitts in In the Flesh ventures into the deep historical and cultural backgrounds of what is known today as body modification, an art focusing on changing the body and hence using the same as some sort of physical medium to broadcast mostly symbolic attitudes. As the citation implies, the body naturally takes on a vital role in storing, carrying, expressing and communicating information of identity (therefore allowing for a contrastive comparison of the self and the other), which may be linked to what we nowadays call body language. Additionally, a particular emphasis on an individual’s attitudes and beliefs may be realized by modifying the body, which results in establishing a visual contrast to the other through which a symbolic mindset of individual opinions is more or less ‘permanently’ maintained and protected. Hence, the “modified” may also have a strong interest in influencing and “modifying” his environment on a spiritual or mental level: “For many body modifiers, modern primitivism operates as a political statement, as an expression of cultural dissent. They describe modern primitivism as a way to promote critical thinking about issues such as ecology, cultural boundaries, sexuality, bodily ownership, and community.” (Pitts 2003: 128) By modern primitivism, Pitts alludes to the name of the movement coined by the Iranian Fakir Sufi Musafar, on which the respective body art is based and “which links body modifications to non-Western, spiritual, communal rituals.” (Pitts 2003: 8) One type of body modifications enjoying great popularity in 21st century America and parts of Western Europe is Body Suspension, which, from a cultural perspective, dates back to the famous Sun Dance practiced by the indigenous Plains Indians. Nowadays, Body Suspension involves skin piercing with inserted hooks attached with cords to bars on which the human body is “suspended”. It is this that the term paper aims at examining in further detail. Considering the above mentioned theoretical principles relating to the body, it is a central aspect of this paper to discover which symbolic functions Body Suspension may carry and how the art relates to the Indian Sun Dance. Most importantly, it must be examined why the physically potentially dangerous and aggressive Sun Dance was practiced in some tribes and why the Plains Indians as well as some Native Americans today identify with the ritual. This approach will reveal the messages that Sun Dance - or Body Suspension rituals may try to convey instead of labeling these customs as absolutely senseless and brutal. Because of the vast number of existing Plains Indians tribes, the following analytical essay will restrict the investigations to only two tribes of North America, that is, to the Arapaho and the Cherokees. Still, this focus in the forthcoming section will not eliminate regular reference to the Plains Indians in general terms.

2. Analytical research

““Jim’s role in the first part of the sun dance that we’ll do will be as a pledger, as a sun dancer, we’ll be sun dancers together. Both of our chests will be pierced, and attached with a rope to this cottonwood tree, and we’ll dance against the piercings until we break the skin free.” They hold eagle feathers in their mouths. Bells announce the movement of the ropes pulling at the pierced skin. They rip at the flesh for hours until they break free. Later, Musafar disrobes. Eagle feathers are pinned to his legs, arms and forearms in preparation for a flesh hanging. “If anything goes wrong,” says Musafar, “we’ll be in a bad way. But we don’t think about that because the Great White Spirit is in charge of this ceremony, and if we’re lucky we’ll meet the Great White Spirit.”” (Pitts 2003: 125) Such a detailed depiction of the Plains Indians’ Sun Dance was realized by the above introduced founder of the modern primitivism movement, Sufi Musafar in the documentary film Dances Sacred and Profane in 1987. It is of great interest to consider these descriptions in the sense that they reflect the highly religious and spiritual dimension of the Plains Indians’ life. The importance of the Indian belief in spirits must not be underestimated. Indeed, it seems that some tribes were ready to have sacrifice transcend the ‘natural’ moral and ethical borders that are generally represented in the western human mindset: “White dogs were sacrificed by the natives of Northeast Woodlands; self-mutilation occurred in the Sun Dance of the Lakota and in the Mandan Okeepa (Okipa) ceremony; the Pawnee sacrificed a young captive girl to Morning Star. This latter example is expressive of the major life-death-life theme found in farming religions, for the young girl was a personification of the vegetation whose necessary death promotes the growth of plants.” (Barrett 2004: 591) No matter how evil or bad such sacrifices appear to humans, literature nevertheless suggests that the reader therein adapts a neutral and overly patient perspective in order to avoid misjudgments. It seems important to accept such explanations without imposing a moral evaluation on the situations based on our western set of values. Obviously, the previous example with the young girl is logically justified but appears most irregular to us when entering an argumentative stage in which a Christian mindset contradicts almost instantly and labels such deeds as undoubtedly inhuman. Nevertheless, it may be argued that for the sake and protection of the vast number of dead people that a poor harvest would claim, it is still for a human purpose that the respective person is sacrificed. Regardless of our disbelief in Indian spirits, it seems inevitable to simply approve the Indians’ overly pious belief in spirits in order to more easily get used to what we may label as the ‘dark side’ of sacrifice. Accordingly, it may be easier to understand the following descriptions relating to some of the Cherokees’ deeds in terms of enemy killing if we refuse to close our eyes and interpret these habits as inseparable components of the Cherokees’ cultural and spiritual identity: “Unlike war, in which mostly men participated, torture gave all Cherokees an opportunity to help send the spirits of their deceased relatives to the darkening land. Vengeance was also important to Cherokees because they believed that they must keep the world in balance, in a state of equilibrium. When a Cherokee died, the world was out of balance until the person responsible for that death also died. The Cherokees thought that if they did not maintain equilibrium, then droughts, storms, disease, or other disasters might occur. Cherokees believed that the principal people’s major purpose was to keep the world in harmony and balance.” (Perdue 2005: 13) It is, similarly to the previous situation, the overly anxious concern of mighty dangers and the immovable belief in powerful spirits preventing these dangers that are responsible for carrying out such actions. Sometimes, a Sun Dance with pierced Plains Indians sacrificing flesh was performed for thanksgiving reasons to honor the existence of important components of life, such as the Sun or the Buffalo. Interestingly, the dangerous piercing of skin here is interpreted as a highly positive and necessary act implying no negative connotation whatsoever: “[…] returning some of one’s own flesh and blood to the Creator was considered a thanksgiving, a giving back; it was not considered immolation, mortification, or torture.” (Barrett 2004: 705) Sacrificing rituals, such as the Sun Dance, or other piercing customs, were often practiced for reasons of spiritual protection before going to war. However, it must be mentioned that the Plains Indians tribes were not interested in gaining land when fighting in wars. In fact, Jason Hook in The American Plains Indians puts forward the idea that “as a nomadic people their borders were vague, and-in contrast to the men who forced them from it-the Plains Indians had no conception of actually owning the Sacred Mother Earth.” (Hook 1993: 4) Theda Perdue seems to equally identify with the idea that e.g. the Cherokees had no intention to fight for land but rather to struggle for the above mentioned necessity to reestablish balance in an otherwise chaotic and potentially dangerous world: “The Cherokees did not fight for territory or out of patriotism. The only reason they went to war was to avenge the deaths of Cherokees who had been killed by an enemy.” (Perdue 2005: 11) Additionally, one may cease to question the genuineness of the Indians’ concerns and anxieties of the dangers of life when bearing in mind the fact that already children of the Arapaho tribe had their ears pierced during a Sun Dance ceremony for reasons of protection and security: “The piercing here symbolized being struck by lightning—so the child was thereafter protected against enemy arrows.” (Fowler 2006: 16) Stunningly, the Arapahos ascribed an even greater importance to the ear piercing ritual, that is, the divine power of life-long protection: “The ear-piercing ceremony was, in effect, another prayer for a long and successful life.” (Fowler 2006: 16) Summing up to this point, it seems that the Sun Dance ceremony was purely practiced for reasons of humanity. The fighting in wars, worshiping of life, enemy vengeance as well as ear-piercing rituals were carried out to promote a heightened level of equilibrium and hence security in life, by literally defending the holy Mother Earth against human damage and harm. But how compatible does the Sun Dance ceremony of the Plains Indians prove to be with today’s Body Suspension ritual of the modern primitivism movement in terms of symbolic expression and attitude?

To locate a possible answer on the area of this subject, it is of the utmost importance and relevance to consider the political perspective of the Sun Dance ceremony in further depth. Originally, the Indian Sun Dance ritual dates back to 1890, when it became increasingly popular in many Plains Indians tribes together with the emergence of other Ghost Dance ceremonies. These were all practiced for spiritual reasons to express gratitude for life and for holy spirits that would have a decisive influence on the success of hunting and on life quality. However, from 1881-1920 (cf. Barrett 2004: 704), the Sun Dance with piercings went underground due to the massacre at Wounded Knee, after which a Christian mindset was rather radically imposed on the Indians’ lifestyle to have their identity modified. After the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and a preceding unsuccessful ban of the Sun Dance by the US government, Indians were again authorized to hold the ritual openly. Still, the US government continued to weaken the political, cultural and economic independence of the Indians, for which in 1977, the Pan-Indian movement confronted the United Nations with its Great Law of Peace. Based on this law which “warned against the ill effects European colonialism on the earth’s people and environment” (Barrett 2004: 530), thousands of Native Americans started a 5 months demonstration in the following year by walking from San Francisco to Washington D.C in order to express their revolt against foreseen laws weakening the Indians’ rights. Interestingly, it was during this long walk that spiritual Indian rituals such as the Sun Dance were mentally reconsidered in the sense that they were now interpreted as props of moral support protecting the (Plains) Indians’ vulnerable and endangered identity: “During this period, dubbed the Longest Walk, many participants found new spiritual meaning in their status as Indian people, and one Buddhist monk on the walk called for a New Age of peace. Pan-Indianism thus has a definite spiritual and religious aspect, which rejects Christianity as a colonial force and embraces old Pan-Indian traditions such as the Sun Dance.” (Barrett 2004: 530)

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