Little boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails.

I've been here for a few weeks now and I've already seen the growth and progress in my knowledge of this place.  We've had a few visitors over the last week or so, where I've found myself talking about my experiences thus far and realize how much I know.  This particular morning was about dogs.

When I first got here, I rode with my supervisor to one of the Episcopal churches that we work with.  On the way, she explained lots of different things about tradition, culture, geography, history, etc, etc.  We passed a Sun Dance site.  Apparently, there are lots of different Sun Dances over the summer, including a Sun Dance just for the white people!  Hah!  This sorta makes sense, since in 2003 a group of tradition keepers for several tribes met and decided to ban non-Native people from any of the Seven Sacred Rites.  I'll do my best to do some more research on all of this, but here's what I've found about it from one website:

The sundance is the predominant tribal ceremony of Great Plains Indians, although it is practiced by numerous tribes today as a prayer for life, world renewal and thanksgiving. On a personal level, someone may dance to pray for a relative or friend, or to determine their place in the universe, while on a larger scale, the sundance serves the tribe and the earth. Indigenous people believe that unless the sun dance is performed each year, the earth will lose touch with the creative power of the universe, thereby losing its ability to regenerate....there is a three to four day sun dance that takes place each summer, usually in July. The preparation is too detailed to describe here, but involves building a lodge from a large cottonwood tree, with a forked branch in the middle. Twelve upright poles are placed about 13 paces from the center pole in a circular fashion, with rafter poles connecting the outside of the circle to the inner pole. From an aerial view, this appears as a wagon wheel with a hub in its center. This symbolizes the tribe (on the outside of the circle) trying to find their way straight to the center. (http://www.native-americans-online.com/native-american-sun-dance.html)

I've also read that Sun Dances traditionally involved body piercings.

As I mentioned, one of the things that I realized I learned during that first day of driving around, came back to me this morning, when one of our community members made a joke about eating Steve.  As many of you know, Steve is my faithful puppy who has joined me for this year at Pine Ridge.  I was warned that people would make jokes about eating him.  I figured it was the Coyote or Trickster Spirit and that I would just laugh with them.  I've been told that part of the Sun Dance ritual is to eat a meal made of puppy stew.  The puppies are to be so young that they haven't been weaned from their mother.  They also can't have names.

In addition to eating puppies for the Sun Dance festival, some people just love dog meat!  In fact, one woman told me that it's rather tasty, since it's a "soft meat...very tender."  Another woman reported climbing under her porch looking for a stray puppy who had wandered onto her property in hopes of eating him.

Now, before y'all go running and screaming for PETA or get grossed out by people eating dogs, remember that some of us (not this vegetarian) choose to eat animals.  Cows, chickens, pigs, lambs, turkeys, deer, rabbit and even squirrels will grace the tables in many of your homes.  Why is a dog any more taboo than a turkey?  Because you have it as a pet?  People have pigs as pets.  Have you watched Honey Boo Boo?!  Anywho, remember that we eat what we do because that's how we were raised or it's what we've experienced.

In the mean time, I'll keep Steve away from any big soup pots.

 

Other interesting factoid:
In Lakota, "sukawakan" means "sacred dog," which is actually a horse.  "Suka" means dog and "wakan" means horse.