The Sundance Trust - A Charitable Trust
Putting Lakota Cultural Values and Traditions First.
The Sundance Trust was created to ensure that one of the seven traditional Lakota ceremonies is held each year for living and future generations. The Sundance ceremony takes place over a four-day period each summer on most Sioux Indian reservations. It takes practically the full year before each ceremony to prepare the Sundance grounds properly to ensure the safety of the dancers and the ability to carry out the ceremony as it has been since time immemorial. The Sundance Trust was the brainchild of traditional Oglala Lakota, Melvin Adams, who grew up in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. He participated in a Sundance ceremony for the first time when he was 11-years-old. Upon returning to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in 2005 to again participate in the ceremony, he realized that many aspects of preparing for the ritual had become difficult, such as building an arbor, because the raw materials were hard to come by, and foodstuffs had soared in price beyond the means of most Sundance families. Yet still the dancers and their families came. Mr. Adams realized that he could assist directly in keeping his own tradition alive by making the nuts and bolts of the Sundance more accessible to Sundance families and giving them peace of mind that the people will be fed. In 2006 Mr. Adams was able to raise $1800.00 U.S. and purchased supplies so one sundance could have outhouses. With that success, he realized that other people might want to help, too, and so his wife, an attorney, created the Sundance Trust as a legal entity to allow people to donate. In 2007, one $7,000 donation to the Trust helped rebuild the shade portion of a Sundance arbor with treated wood that will last for up to 20 years. Since that time, he has been besieged with requests for assistance. The idea had taken off. But he had to find a way to reach out to potential donors. This website was the result of his efforts to widen the scope of the donations. Donations will be used to purchase lumber, logs, building materials, arbor materials, and traditional foods such as buffalo meat, choke cherries, and timsila (wild turnips) to feed people supporting the dancers in the extreme conditions the dancers must endure. The Sundance Trust also purchases firewood to help keep the ceremonial fire burning for four days, since firewood is now scarce on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation due to deforestation. Additionally, the Trust seeks individuals and corporations who would be interested in planting/donating seedling cottonwood, ash, elm, and pine trees since trees are a renewable resource that the Sundance families can manage and use year-after-year.
The Sundance Trust is exclusively commited to ensuring that the Lakota Sundances are carried on for future generations to see and participate in, because, once the traditional ceremonies die, the culture dies. The funds used by the Trust for the benefit of the Lakota Sundances do not alter the ceremony in any way and do not go to any individual. Instead, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe who is also a trustee of the Sundance Trust, personally oversees every project from start to finish to assure that donation dollars and items go solely toward the purpose for which they were intended. Each donor will receive recognition on the website and can contact the Sundance Trust to find out what their donation did for a particular Sundance ceremony. Additionally, each donor will receive a receipt for their donation. The trust will also strive to help retain ceremonial trees for years to come by replacing what has been cut down for ceremonial purposes by purchasing saplings. One of our major contibuters is the well known indian movie star Adam Beach.