Most spectacular and important religious ceremony of the 19th-century Plains Indian s.
Ordinarily held by each tribe once a year in early summer, it was an occasion for purification and strengthening and an opportunity to reaffirm basic beliefs about the universe and the supernatural through rituals. The ceremony, which originated with the Lakota, was most highly developed among the Arapaho , the Cheyenne , and the Oglala division of the Lakota Sioux . The central rite involved male dancers who, to fulfill a vow or seek "power" (spiritual energy and insight), danced for several days without stopping for food, drink, or sleep, their ordeal ending in frenzy and exhaustion. Among some tribes, piercing and sun gazing were practiced.