Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A barbarous religious ceremony practised in honor of the sun by certain tribes of the North American Indians, as the Sioux and Blackfeet.
Etymologies
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Examples
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"We should be role models in keeping the earth clean," says sun-dance chief Robert (Dude) Perry.
Dirty Dancing 2008
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To such elements many other things have been added, but the fact remains that our own formal dances, as well as the sun-dance of the Indian and the mad whirl of the Dervish, are modern products which have truly evolved.
The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its Scope Henry Edward Crampton
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The most important of their religious practices is the sun-dance (okan), an elaborate ceremonial performance which needs months of preparation and ends with a week or so of festivities, in which fasting, self-torture, and self-mutilation are joined with rejoicings and frolics of every description.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2: Assizes-Browne 1840-1916 1913
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"Well, I've been a 'hoodoo' all my, life; and if I only lead some one into luck now -- good luck -- oh, wouldn't I learn a sun-dance, and dance it!"
That Girl Montana Marah Ellis Ryan 1900
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"In the sun-dance canyon," answered the Inspector.
Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police; a tale of the Macleod trail Ralph Connor 1898
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But the red man no longer set up his tepee in these secluded groves; the wapiti and red deer had fled to the north never to return, the snarling wolf had stolen into regions more barren; the ceremonial of the ancient people no longer made weird the lonely nights; the medicine-man's incantations, the harvest - dance, the green-corn-dance, the sun-dance had gone.
The Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Gilbert Parker Gilbert Parker 1897
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But the red man no longer set up his tepee in these secluded groves; the wapiti and red deer had fled to the north never to return, the snarling wolf had stolen into regions more barren; the ceremonial of the ancient people no longer made weird the lonely nights; the medicine-man's incantations, the harvest-dance, the green-corn-dance, the sun-dance had gone.
The World for Sale, Complete Gilbert Parker 1897
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But the red man no longer set up his tepee in these secluded groves; the wapiti and red deer had fled to the north never to return, the snarling wolf had stolen into regions more barren; the ceremonial of the ancient people no longer made weird the lonely nights; the medicine-man's incantations, the harvest - dance, the green-corn-dance, the sun-dance had gone.
The World for Sale, Volume 1. Gilbert Parker 1897
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All day, from the closing of the ceremony of shooting at the sun-pole, the attention of the Indians was occupied in constructing this inclosure, where, within a day or two after its completion, they performed those barbarous rites and ceremonies of cruelty and self-torture that have placed the sun-dance of the Sioux on a level with the barbarisms of any of the far more famed devotees of Juggernaut.
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Nearly half way between the reservations the two forks of the Chadron (or Shadron) creek form a wide plain, which was chosen as the site of the great sun-dance.
Gammerstang commented on the word sun-dance
(noun) - A custom was formerly in vogue of rising early on Easter-day to see the sun "dance," the superstitious believing the sun really did dance on that day. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
March 16, 2018
bilby commented on the word sun-dance
'barbarous'...who writes this stuff?
March 17, 2018
bilby commented on the word sun-dance
But all is not lost, perhaps we can get Van Morrison to culturally appropriate it.
March 17, 2018