Cosmology and Moral Community in the Lakota Sun Dance: Reconceptualizing J. R. Walker's Account

by Fritz Detwiler

Overview

Drawing on Indigenous methodologies, this book uses a close analysis of James R. Walker’s 1917 monograph on the Lakota Sun Dance to explore how the Sun Dance communal ritual complex – the most important Lakota ceremony – creates moral community, providing insights into the cosmology and worldview of Lakota tradition.

The book uses Walker’s primary source to conduct a reading of the Sun Dance in its nineteenth-century context through the lenses of Lakota metaphysics, cosmology, ontology, and ethics. The author argues that the Sun Dance constitutes a cosmic ethical drama in which persons of all types – human and nonhuman – come together in reciprocal actions and relationships. Drawing on contemporary animist theory and a perspectivist approach that uses Lakota worldview assumptions as the basis for analysis, the book enables a richer understanding of the Sun Dance and its role in the Lakota moral world.

Offering a nuanced understanding that centers Lakota views of the sacred, this book will be relevant to scholars of religion and animism, and all those interested in Native American cultures and lifeways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367725587
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/31/2021
Series:	Vitality of Indigenous Religions
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Fritz Detwiler is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Leadership at Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan, USA. His specialty is Native American ontologies. Fritz is a charter member of the Society for the Study of Native American Sacred Traditions and has functioned as its treasurer and meeting coordinator since the society’s inception.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Lakota

2. Čhaŋgléška wakȟáŋ — The Lakota World

3. Candidacy and individual and communal responsibilities, Part 1

4. Candidacy, Part 2, and the Journey to the Sun Dance site

5. The Preliminary Camp

6. The Ceremonial Camp, Days One and Two

7. The Ceremonial Camp, Days Three and Four

8. Concluding Thoughts

Appendix A: A Phonetic Guide

Appendix B: A Glossary of Lakota terms