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Even those of us with the most rudimentary knowledge of Native Americans will be familiar with one tradition, the rain dance, though in truth there were several different dances important to the tribes, all of which served different purposes.

The Grass Dance

Honours the tribe’s ancestors (and also helps flatten the grass as the dancers stomp about) and in which the dancers, attired in bright colours and wearing stalks of sweetgrass in their belts (from which practice the name of the dance comes) sway in time like the movements of the grass on the prairie.

The Hoop Dance

This, on the other hand (and legs, and body) looks to be about the most ambitious multi-hula hoop challenge ever attempted, as various hoops, symbolising the never ending cycle of life, were used to tell stories and impart wisdom. The dance began with one hoop, representing the world, to which others were added, in turn signifying animals, the wind, humans, water and seasons. The hoops were used to create stylised shapes, and the Hoop Dance is still popular today.

The Snake Dance

By contrast, this one was practiced mostly by one people, the Hopi, and involved - you guessed it - live snakes. And not harmless ones either: most of the ones used in the ceremony were rattlesnakes. But the Hopi revere the snake, believing it to be the guardian of water, so precious a commodity, and consider them their brothers. Not quite sure what the snakes thought of it all. The Snake Dance was not a spontaneous event; the snakes were gathered and then watched over by the children of the tribe for sixteen days, then carried by the dancers in their mouths. After the dance the snakes were let free, in the four directions, to carry the prayers of the tribe to their ancestors. No figures exist for how many, if any, dancers have been bitten by a snake during the performance of this ritual.

The Stomp Dance

This was performed at night, for the health of the community, and as part of the Green Corn Festival, of which more shortly. It seemed to have been a sort of early conga line, with the leader circling the fire and those who wished to join in following behind him, in order of age and experience, men and women in alternate positions. Another night time dance, it usually involved the taking of certain herbs, fasting and continued on till sunrise. And that brings us to one of the most popular and well-known, and perhaps feared, and certainly most depicted in movies, of the Native American tribal dances.

The War Dance

Surely needs little explanation, as it does exactly what it says on the tin. Surviving in some sort of semi-way in the Haka, performed by the South African rugby team before a match, it is designed to rile up the blood and to stoke feelings of bravery and resolution just before a battle or raid. The war dance could last all night, and usually involved painting of the face, smoking of pipes and the handling of sacred items. Animal masks would be worn to symbolise and conjure the spirits.

The Sun Dance

Performed at the summer solstice, the Sun Dance was a ceremony to allow the tribe to offer sacrifices and prayers for the continuing health of the family and community. Sometimes the body would be pierced, and often eagle feathers and buffalo skins would be used, as both animals are considered central to the dance. There is also one of the more important dances, the Ghost Dance, but as this only came into being in the nineteenth century, and as a direct result of oppression by the US Army and government, I’ll hold that one over until we get to that point in the timeline. For now, then, that leaves the big one.


The Rain Dance

It’s not hard to understand the idea behind the Rain Dance. For a people who lived on the plains, where the weather could be arid and dry, rain was a vital, life-giving gift, needed not only for the health of the people but for their crops too, and for their animals. Without it, all three would die, and of course given the already mentioned affinity of the Native American people for them, they would have been concerned for the welfare of the earth, the grass, the trees and so on almost as much as for their own. The Rain Dance, then, served as a petition to the spirits to send down rain to irrigate the fields and allow life to flourish on the plains. Usually, and not surprisingly, it was a spring dance, performed when the need for rain was greatest.

It was somewhat unique in that not only men participated in the dance, unlike others apart from the Stomp Dance, and although many different costumes and types of jewellery were used, feathers and the colour blue predominated, these signifying the wind and the rain, respectively.

Healing Rituals

Unlike western medicine, Native American rituals, while they could be and were used for individual purposes, such as curing a wound or treating a disease, were often also used as a sort of ceremonial healing of the tribe, village or community; a way of bringing harmony to, or back to, a large group, and re-establishing the ancient and important links between the people and the land. Sacred objects such as a medicine wheel or healing hoop would be used, and these communal healing ceremonies could take several days to conduct. Among the first of what are now called ethnobotanists in the world - in other words, people who studied, understood and knew how best to use plants, herbs and grasses in medicine - roots, tubers, plants and herbs all played a big part in Native American healing. They had, after all, no access to the sort of pharmaceuticals we have today, with the invention of things like penicillin hundreds of years away, and so they had to use what nature provided.

Of course, using the plants which grew in the ground was second nature to the Native Americans, who believed all life connected, and so were taking from Mother Earth her bounty, and using the spirits of the herbs and plants to help them heal and be better. One of the most widely-used herbs was sweetgrass, but they also used sage, bear berry, red cedar and even tobacco in their medicine. They also utilised sweat lodges, perhaps an early iteration of the sauna, in which sick or ailing individuals would sit, rubbing herbs upon their body, smoking a remedy and/or watching while a holy man conducted sacred rites to drive angry spirits away and make the man whole again.

Peyote was another thing used, ground down in tea for ceremonies such as baptisms, funerals and healing. The peyote is the dried fruit of a small cactus, and in current times has been used as a hallucinogenic, most famously by the band The Eagles while recording their first album in the desert. Perhaps they knew of the rites which lasted from sundown to sunup and utilised eagle feathers, as well as incense and fire, for cleansing mind and body. Apparently you can get just exactly the same high by taking LSD, not that I would know, Lucy.

Green Corn Festival

Probably best described as a harvest festival, this took place in midsummer and was, of course, inextricably tied in with the importance of corn as a staple of the Native American people. The ceremony would typically last three days and entailed dancing, singing, feasting, fasting (isn’t it odd how, with the removal - or addition - of one letter that word becomes its complete reverse?) and religious observation. No corn could be eaten until the Great Spirit had been appeased, and the Green Corn Festival also served as an opportunity for village committees and councils to meet and consider infractions and past sins of the village, which would usually be forgiven at this time. It was also a naming festival, where babies would be given names, and a time of coming of age for youth. Sports would also be played, and spiritual as well as physical purification practiced, including the burning of waste and the cleaning out of homes, while at the end of each of the three days a feast was held to celebrate the good harvest.

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