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Why were the Sun Dance and potlatch ceremonies suppressed by government authorities?

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A dancer in a bright pink shawl with fringe, wearing traditional regalia adorned with blue and black accents, performs at an outdoor cultural event. — Native American November is the traditional time of harvest, gathering, and celebration in Native communities.

Government authorities in the United States and Canada suppressed Indigenous ceremonies like the potlatch and Sun Dance as part of broader, ethnocentric assimilationist policies designed to break cultural continuity and replace traditional Indigenous ways of life with Euro-American norms, including the adoption of Christianity.12

Authorities rationalized these prohibitions by framing the ceremonies as harmful to the public welfare rather than as protected religious expressions. Specifically:3

Potlatch: Officials argued that the ceremony, which involved the distribution of wealth, impoverished the sponsors and created an underclass that the public was forced to support.3
Sun Dance: Government personnel characterized the ritual as a form of torture due to its practices of self-mortification, claiming it was inherently damaging to the public good.3

These justifications were used to bypass fundamental principles of religious freedom and individual self-determination. Such policies were enforced through legislation, such as Canada’s 1884 amendment to the Indian Act and U.S. administrative orders in 1883, and were not fully dismantled until the mid-to-late 20th century.31