This Earth is Holy Ground
The bus jerks along the gravel path until it opens into the grassy Sundance grounds. I try
to slow my breathing, chewing on my tongue. We get out of the van, and walk toward the sweat
lodge’s misshapen dome. Men sit around the fire, discussing the time since they were last
together.
“Michigan!” one of the men points to my Grand Valley shirt, “Where from?” “Grand
Rapids,” I yell across to where he loops bones through a teepee door. “The Calder sculpture!” He
excitedly amends, “I’m a sculptor and I’m from Michigan. Are you a Michigan fan? When I say
‘Go Green!’ you say ‘Go white. ‘Go green!’” I respond, “Go white!”
My fingers clutch at my pink and white striped towel, eyes flicking across the campsite.
One man carves a branch, “I’d make that thinner,” someone on the car bench gestures. “If it’s all
men, I don’t want to go,” I whisper to Shelley, observing the twenty shirtless men wandering
past. “It’s OK,” she smiles at me. My tongue presses hard against my front teeth, but tears run
down my cheeks anyway. I rub my face in the towel trying to pretend nothing happened.
“If I go in, will you?” Debra glances over to where I sit on an upturned log. “Yeah,” I
know I just need that one person to get me in the door. “Women? Do we have all the women in?”
I twist a corner of my towel. “I’m going in,” Debra begins peeling off her sweat pants. I scramble
to get my jeans over my shorts. “Chavala!” Connie yells after me. I turn back and she nods.
‘What am I doing wrong? Did I wear the wrong shorts?’ I get on my knees in the powdery dust,
mouthing the words Dave instructed us to say, “Mitakuye Oyasin” or “All my relatives” as I
crawl through the entrance.
I sit on a blanket between Debbie and Marian. Slowly, the men crawl through the door,
filling up the twelve foot diameter lodge with twenty-four people. A shovel full of glowing rocks
shoves through the door flap and lays them in the shallow pit. More and more rocks are piled
into the center. I can feel the heat curling through my body, covering my skin with goosebumps.
We watch silently as a white bucket of water is placed just inside the door. The flap is dropped,
and my eyes are filled with darkness. A ladle of water sizzles through the silence, and steam
tendrils through the lodge. Another ladle. Another, and another. I can see the coals glowing red
hot until a man shuffles in front of me. Heat presses against me like a malleable wall. I forget to
breathe. Then I test the thick air, gingerly sucking in a shallow breath of burning oxygen. Voices
dance through the darkness, chanting prayers for strength. An eagle bone whistle vibrates its thin
melody in time to the pulsing drum.
Debbie touches my knee. I reach out and take her hand, clinging to it. “Chavala, I need to
get out. Can you tell Marian?” I don’t know her. She’s an elder. I don’t want to be
disrespectful. But I lean over, “Marian, she needs to get out.” The singers, bring their prayer to
an end, and they lift the door-The First Door. Debbie crawls out. “You can go too,” one of the
men offers to me. “I’ll stay.” They nod approval. Once the door opens, cool air pushes back the
heat, and sweat begins trickling across my skin. “Do you have more room?” an invisible man
calls. “We have space for four or five more.” Oh, sure, we have space for four or five more. I
move closer to the outside of the lodge, half on the blanket, half on the dirt. “Here, you can use
my towel. Sometimes it’s easier to breathe through,” Andrea lays part of her towel across my
knees.
We pray for strength for the dancers, for the spirit of the grandfathers to be present, for
the end of drugs and alcohol. The heat burns against my skin. I can feel sweat dripping off me. I
pray for myself, feeling my utter humanity. I pray for the dancers. I move my body to the beat of
the drum. The heat is all I can think about. My foot falls asleep and I try to focus on the tingling
pain, but I forget even that. Now I’m against the lodge wall. I try to lift my head from my chest,
but I can’t breathe. Next to me, a man’s elbow continuously drips sweat onto my knee.
“He needs to get out,” I can barely hear the shout over pounding voices. “He needs to get
out. He needs to get out!” the shout is getting more desperate. They bring the prayer to an end,
the door lifts-The Second Door. One of the elders, an eighty year old man who was in a coma
last year, has almost passed out in the lodge’s hottest seat. We shuffle out of the way as much as
possible as the men lift his body along the narrow margin of earth surrounding the burning coals.
“Put your arms around my neck.” “He can put his foot here.” “That’s my face!”
A man lifts the edge of the lodge to give Andrea and I a chance to breathe the cool air.
Should I leave? I don’t know how long the next doors will be, but I’ve made it for two already.
The chanting begins again. We stuff down the edge of the lodge, blocking out all light. An
unseen sun beats against me, and I bury my face in Andrea’s towel, finally taking a deep breath,
wiping sweat from my eyes. The singing gets quieter, and I try not to expect the next door. A
different man shuffles in front of me, his huge frame shielding me from some of the heat. His
quilt falls onto my knees, and I try to wriggle out of is cotton warmth. I attempt to move my
knee, but it slips against his back. I have no way of telling time. Dave said it could last anywhere
from forty-five minutes to three hours. The door lifts. The sky is dark.
A ladle of cool water is passed around. Should I drink it? I think it’s OK. I take a tiny
sip, the metal cool against my fingers. I grope for the next ladle, surprised that there was another.
“It’s for the dancers tomorrow,” a man tells me. I drink again and pass the ladle to Andrea. I’ve
lost track of which door we are on.
The flap lifts, and Marian crawls out. I follow, watching the others file out. I can’t stop
my frantic breathing, my eyes are wide. I get my towel. I know it’s cold, but I feel hot. My body
tingles, paralyzed like when I finish performing and leave the stage. I stagger in the grass trying
to get my jeans back on my sweat slick legs. I need human contact. The world is hazy. “Can I
hold your hand?” I whisper to Shelley. She grasps my sweaty palm. Andrea comes up, “Are you
okay?” “Absolutely!” The man whose elbow dripped on me, shakes my hand. “I wasn’t going to
let you out!” I smile. “Don’t worry, I was just joking,” he grins back. Some of the dancers shake
each person’s hand, “Thank you for your prayers.”
“So how was it?” Dave asks. “It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.” I
don’t have anything else to say.
***
Lakota Sundance. I type the letters into my phone’s search bar.
“The purpose of the dance was to remove the bone pieces from the dancer’s body.
Dancers at the pole pulled themselves backwards, trying to tear their flesh and release
themselves. Those with skulls attached to their backs danced over rocks and through
bushes. They hoped to catch the skulls on something and rip them from their bodies.”
‘They don’t do that anymore.’ I stop reading.
“All women have to wear skirts,” I overhear Lloyd and scramble into my tent, grabbing
my pink striped towel, the only makeshift skirt I have. We approach the grounds, slowly
bumping over the washed out road. We wait for Sandy to bring the women skirts. I stumble in
the gravel trying to get the brown cotton around my waist; jean clad ankles stick out beneath the
skirt hem.
Together we approach the ring of dancers. A sixteen foot Cottonwood rises from the
center, sun rippling off the red, yellow, green flags twisted into the branches. The bass rhythm of
a tribal drum rings out. Thumping. Thumping. Thumping. Four men breathe in and out, their
eagle bone whistles in rhythm with the drums. White prayer ties circle the dancers, red fabric
cinched around their waists. Six women circle the tree, one red shirt declares “Cookies”.
A warrior is beckoned to the Cottonwood, he breaks from the circle and stands before
Chub, the medicine man. Eagle bones are clutched between his teeth. Chub’s rubber gloved
hands pierce the man’s back, embedding the bones into skin and muscle. Eight buffalo skulls are
strung across the ground. The first is painted red, the second yellow. Two men tie rope to the
bones in the man’s back. He is on his knees, crawling around the circle, dragging the skulls
through snagging grasses. Other men pull on the rope. Women follow behind with burning sage.
They circle. Again. And again. Blood trails down his back. I can see pain scrawled across his
face; he stops, exhausted. He lifts himself up, hands of other men on his shoulders. With his last
strength he runs, tearing skin from muscle: free.
I take off my shoes and hat, piling them by a bush. Cautiously I follow Josiah under the
arbor, and feel the shade on my skin. I watch another man labor past. I’m waiting for the right
moment to cross the grounds to join Lloyd and the others. I watch Dave lift his feet. I wonder
whether I should too. Then it’s too late. “You need to move. You’re in the elders way,” Connie
touches my shoulder. I can’t believe I did that. Hurriedly I wedge myself between Josiah and a
tree trunk. Connie and Andrea stand in front of us. Andrea moves her entire body in time to the
pounding drums, her tasseled skirt swaying. I study Connie’s movements, trying to dance. I
match my steps to the dancer in blue, moving my feet with his rhythm. Right. Left. Right. Left.
Another man walks toward the tree trunk, he hugs it, anticipation of pain glittering in his
eyes. Bone pierces skin, rope strung alongside red and green streamers. I look away, then glance
back. The man dangles in the air, skin stretched from his body. He hangs, suppressed screams
thick in the air. Hands on his shoulders tear him from his skin and he lands on the dusty earth.
When it’s time to leave, I solemnly follow the others. I fold my skirt and leave it in
Sandy’s tent. Andrea smokes outside, “it’s my first time experiencing all of this too. My
boyfriend is out there.” We say goodbye.
***
I am humbled that I was allowed to participate in the Lakota’s sacred ceremony of
Sundance.