Painting of San Ildefonso Sun Dance Participants by José Encarnacion Peña

San Ildefonso artist Jose Encarnacion Peña presents us with a view of three participants of a San Ildefonso Sun Dance. We see the backs of the dancers, popularly presented from this view because of the elaborate Sun symbol shield circled with feathers, and the backs of the pair of female dancers with their embroidered skirts of simplified sun symbols. The females wear traditional white moccasins with leather leg wraps, and each has a white sash wrapped around her waist.

T. Harmon Parkhurst photographed a San Ildefonso Sun Dance in the early 1920s, an indication that this dance has continued for at least 100 years and quite probably for longer. Although we have found no published description of the Sun Dance, we know it, like other dance ceremonies, is dramatizations of religious myths. What one sees in the plaza as a dance ceremony is usually the last day of many days of ritual, unseen by the public, and fasting of the men in the kiva.

Non-participants can enjoy the dance without fully understanding the meaning behind the celebration, yet understanding that there is a purpose to every step, every song, every drumbeat, and every item of clothing, rattles, evergreen boughs.

It is encumbered on witnesses to view the dance with an open mind, accepting that it may be a different interpretation of a religious ceremony than one is familiar with. It is a remarkable artistic as well as a religious performance, with sometimes hundreds of participants operating in a coordinated fashion, as beautiful as a choreographed ballet or dance performance. It is a privilege to witness a pueblo dance ceremony.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: this Painting of San Ildefonso Sun Dance Participants by José Encarnacion Peña is from the collection of a client of Adobe Gallery

Recommended Reading: Handbook of Indian Dances, Museum of New Mexico, 1952

TAGS: painting, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Tonita Peña, Richard Martínez, Luís Gonzales, Abel Sánchez, Romando Vigil, Tonita Peña, Santa Fe, Dorothy Dunn, José Encarnacion Peña