The Sun Dance is the most sacred of all Plains ceremonies. During the Sun Dance, men went without food and water and participated in religious ceremonies that included a buffalo head on a pole, seen at the center of this painting. The Sun Dance ceremony was held to thank the Creator for the abundance of the earth and to ask that the needs of the community continue to be met.

Dancers wearing eagle feather bustles and war bonnets dance a Grass Dance around the center of the painting. The Grass Dance has much in common with today's pow-wows, a time for celebrating and socializing. Near the edge of the hide, hunters on horseback are hunting buffalo. The buffalo was so important to the survival of Plains people that they considered it to be sacred.