The ceremony to release the soul started with a buffalo hunt. A special lodge was constructed. Kinnikinnik, sacred tobacco, was smoked in the Pipe and special food was buried as an offering to the Earth. The bundle containing the soul was carried outside the lodge, and as soon as it reached the air the soul was released. The soul then traveled along the Spirit Path, which is the Milky Way, until it reached Maya Owichapaha, the old woman who judges each soul. If she judged it worthy, she sent the soul to the right, to Wakan Tanka. Unworthy souls were sent to the left and remained until they finally become purified and could join Wakan Tanka. 

In the old days, a large tipi was built and several ritual objects gathered or made.   
One of these was a round rawhide circle, representing the sun. It was painted red,   
with a smaller blue circle in the center, which represented Wakan Tanka.  
Many singers came to sing the sacred songs, and a drum was brought   
.It's roundness representing the universe, its steady beat the pulse of the heart.  

Central to the ceremony was a cottonwood tree, a "rustling" tree,  
which was placed at the center of the tipi. It represented an enemy  
who has been attacked and conquered. A group of people went out to find   
the cottonwood, and when they did, a sacred Pipe was smoked.   
One person was selected to make the first cut on the tree.   
This symbolized counting coup on the tree, or enemy.  
Others then helped cut it down, but it was not allowed to touch the ground.   
The tree was carried back to the dance place and put into the earth at the   
center of what became the sweat lodge.  
Then all of the ritual objects and the tree were purified with the smoke of sweetgrass.  

A sweat lodge was built around the tree and the chosen dancers   
entered it and were purified in an Inipi.   
The Pipe was smoked and sacred songs were sung. One of them was:  

"The Sun, the Light of the world.  
I hear him coming.  
I see his face as he comes.  
He makes the beings on earth happy  
And they rejoice.  
O, Wakan Tanka, I offer to You this world of Light. "  
-- Black Elk's The Sacred Pipe.   

Wreaths of sage were placed on each dancer's head.   
Then each described what he or she would sacrifice.  
The sacrifice was either pieces of flesh or piercing of the flesh.   
Flesh represents ignorance, so the tearing or cutting of  
the flesh represented freeing the body from the bonds of ignorance.  

On the final day of the Sun Dance, some dancers had their flesh pierced,  
and rawhide thongs were threaded through the flesh and tied to the tree.   
Wreaths of sage were placed on each dancer's head and around their  
wrists and ankles. As they danced, they blew eagle bone whistles.   
As singing and drumming continued throughout; they danced until the   
thongs break free. Other offered pieces of flesh to Wakan Tanka,  
to the Earth or the four powers of the four directions.  
When the dance was done, the dancers went into the sweat lodge  
and smoked a Pipe. Then all returned to the tipi and a feast was held.