"Lakota life was physically trying; people needed to be strong in heart and physically strong,"said Carole Barrett, associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Mary.

That explains the ordeal elements of the Sun Dance ritual, essentially an elaborate four-day prayer time and one of seven overarching rites of traditional Lakota religion, she said.

Sun dancers offered prayers - for healing, for families and for thanksgiving. The ritual piercing of the chest at the conclusion of the Sun Dance was not the torture ritual sensationalized in movies, or a puberty rite, she said, adding that no one was forced to participate and the rite was always voluntary. The intricate preparations of the ceremony included sacred songs, dancing, fasting, naming ceremonies, veterans' stories and much more, she said.

Of the other rites, the most familiar are the sweat lodge and the vision quest, Barrett said.

According to Barrett, all use the sacred pipe as a means to prayer. The grains of a filled pipe, using not tobacco but the scrapings of red willow bark, are offered to the four directions and the heavens and earth, the pipe smoke creating a sacred space and representing the prayers of all people.

The sweat lodge uses a circle of heated rocks in an enclosed space as a means of purification, Barrett said. Those using the sweat lodge to pray "go into the dark like a womb and emerge as a rebirth."

The wave of efforts to dismantle Native religious traditions took hold with the so-called Second Great Awakening in the 1790s, which coalesced into a vision of America as a Christian nation. This vision included the conversion of so-called pagan Native peoples to Christianity, Barrett said.

By 1802, the U.S. government was giving money to missionary societies to build school for Indians so that they might be taught to read the Bible, she said.

In 1819, the federal government invested money in schools in the Civilization Fund Act with the goal of assimilating Native peoples. Territorial squabbles ensued between Protestants and Catholics, she said, adding the Indian people had good relationships with some missionaries, who visited the sick and took care of people. But because political and religious goals were tangled together, missionaries and churches were seen by some as complicit in the oppression of the Native people.

The first government policy that affected reservations in this region was the (President Ulysses S.) Grant Peace Policy in the 1870s.At this crossroads, the government faced a choice with Native peoples, Barrett said - extermination or conversion.

So the government parceled out reservations to religious denominations. Native people knew them as "black robes" (Catholic) or "white robes" (Episcopal), she said.

Christian missions often had good intentions, but even good intentions can do harm, Barrett said. Boarding schools removed and isolated children from their families and this also prevented the passing down of rituals and traditions to the next generation, she said.

In 1883, the Indian Offenses Act outlawed the Sun Dance and sweat lodge, forcing Native practices to be done in secret, she said.

During the World War II era, some traditional practices revived. After the Second Vatican Council in the early to mid-1960s, the Catholic Church began to promote the inclusion of ethnic worship practices. The Episcopal church has had a tradition of raising up Indian catechists, she said.

In the 1970s, the American Indian Movement saw a renaissance of Native religion and a real reaction against the churches, which people felt had become intertwined with government politics, Barrett said.

Not until 1978, during the Carter administration, did the American Indian Freedom Act finally formally acknowledge Indians' freedom to practice their religion.