Tanec slunce - Krvavý rituál síly a posvátné bolesti – Procházka Petr (2006)

This Czech-language book explores the Sun Dance, an ancient and sacred Lakota ceremony involving religion, sacrifice, physical endurance and sacred pain. Dance has accompanied humanity since its beginnings, and Indigenous people dance in joy and despair, when they are full or exhausted and hungry. Lakota medicine man John Oheň/Kulhavý Jelen describes the Sun Dance as the oldest and most sacred ceremony, the ancestor of all others, dating back to a time when people, animals, earth, grass and sky were all there was. Although religion is often associated with joy, compassion and love, it also contains cruelty and sacrifice, including frightening blood rituals. The book examines the ceremony’s piercing of dancers, fasting, prolonged dancing beneath the sun and in cold nights, prayer, self-inflicted wounds and encounters with spirits. Such rituals may express a feeling of being imprisoned in the body, together with the desire to transcend individual limitations and reach higher things. During the Sun Dance, participants encounter the world of the Highest Powers and offer a sacrifice, with their own bodies and blood regarded as the most valuable gift. George Catlin recorded his horror at the ceremony in 1834, yet the book explains that suffering, self-mutilation, blood rituals and appeals to supernatural forces represent only a small, though significant, part of the whole. The Sun Dance is presented as a precisely structured and carefully directed symphony of rituals, culminating in the painful piercing of the dancers. When the ceremony ends, they are filled with inner peace, having experienced the deepest range of emotions and been spiritually reborn.