“These Indians are having a sun/ dance around the large pole/ with the flags-they have a great/ many tents to go into when/ they stop dancing-/ Geo B Bush Otter” (Artist's inscription, verso)

“Represented in this drawing is perhaps the greatest of Sioux rituals, the Sun Dance. This is a bird's-eye view of the Sun Dance lodge (at the left) and the encampment of tipis. The lodge itself was temporary. An open circular structure built of upright logs with boughs of trees forming a canopy around the perimeter, it provided a place of rest and shade for the participants. In the center is the Sun Dance pole to which the dancers were attached by means of thongs with skewers placed through their pectoral muscles. The object was to rip the skewers loose by pulling back. This self-torture feature had as its goal the shedding of one's blood in fulfillment of a personal vow made by the dancer. A crowd (shown by the many circles representing heads) is seen gathered about the lodge viewing the dance.” (p.28)

William S. Wierzbowski and Helen M. Mangelsdorf in Images of a Vanished Life: Plains Indian Drawing from the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1985.