The ceremonies usually took place from six months to a year
after the making of the vow, in order to admit of suitable
preparation; always in midsummer and before a large and imposing
gathering. They naturally included the making of a feast, and the
giving away of much savage wealth in honor of the occasion,
although these were no essential part of the religious rite.

When the day came to procure the pole, it was brought in by a
party of warriors, headed by some man of distinction. The
tree selected was six to eight inches in diameter at the base, and
twenty to twenty-five feet high. It was chosen and felled with
some solemnity, including the ceremony of the "filled pipe," and
was carried in the fashion of a litter, symbolizing the body of the
man who made the dance. A solitary teepee was pitched on a level
spot at some distance from the village, and the pole raised near at
hand with the same ceremony, in the centre of a circular enclosure
of fresh-cut boughs.

Meanwhile, one of the most noted of our old men had carved out
of rawhide, or later of wood, two figures, usually those of
a man and a buffalo. Sometimes the figure of a bird, supposed to
represent the Thunder, was substituted for the buffalo. It was
customary to paint the man red and the animal black, and each was
suspended from one end of the crossbar which was securely tied some
two feet from the top of the pole. I have never been able to
determine that this cross had any significance; it was probably
nothing more than a dramatic coincidence that surmounted the
Sun-Dance pole with the symbol of Christianity.