Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1890 — A HORRIBLE, SICKENING PRACTICE. [ARTICLE]

A HORRIBLE, SICKENING PRACTICE.

rwaatag Out b Warrtar", Breast at aa Indian Sun Daaue. At the sun dance, one of the young Indian devotees is suddenly seized by the medicine men. He is stripped naked and laid on the fiat of his back. Then the flesh of his brawny chest is gathered in the left hand of one of the “doctors, ” who with the other drives a keen knife through the muscles and tendons, and forces after It a stout wooden peg or skewer, which is left to protrude a couple of inches. A similar skewer is drawn through the left breast. Stout thongs are fastened to the ends of the pegs and these in turn to a long lariat attached to the top of a pole perhaps twenty feet high. White men who have been permitted to look on turn away sick anfl,faint even at this part of the performance, but the warriors never wince. Now they stand the bleeding victim on his feet, and give him an eagle’s wing bone whistle, and now, my brave, is your turn. Fix your eyes on the blazing sun; never remove them for an instant; blow your whistle, and set to work. Leap, tug, strain; throw your whole weight against the skewers. What you have to do is to tear yourself loose from that awful pole, and to do it these skewers must rip their way through tendon, muscle, and bleeding flesh. Aye, leap, howl, run backward with all your weight against your tortured breasts, and break loose if you can. Only thus will your vow be fulfilled. Sometimes the splendid muscles hold out for hours. Sometimes the sun goes down, and still the fainting victims strain at their fearful flesh. Sometimes they swoon away, exhausted from loss of blood, but mostly they bear torture as only Indians can. And when at last they succeed in breaking loose, and fall with their torn and bleeding breasts plowing the dust of the terrible inclosure, a rush is made by the friends and relatives of the triumphant brave. He is borne tenderly and proudly away. He is petted and nursed, praised, his wounds are dressed, and their scars become in after life the silent and hideous witnesses of his heroism.