Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 121, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1915 — INDIAN DANCES of the SOUTHWEST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INDIAN DANCES of the SOUTHWEST

by HERBERT J. SPINDEN

COURTESY OF THE AMHUCAN MUSEUM JOURNAL

SHE numerous dances of the Pueblo Indians are never entirely free from a religious idea. Some are so deeply religious that they are jealously guarded from all profane eyes and are held at night in underground lodges. The war captain's men keep watch at every road so that no outsider can glimpse the masked dancers impersonating gods. Even in the underground lodges the faces of the uninitiated children are covered while the dance is in progress so that they may hear but not see. This secretiveness is most developed in the villages along the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, where the native religion has encountered the opposition of the Catholic church for nearly four hundred years. Other dances are held In the plaza of the village, and here visitors are usually tolerated while on the annual feast day of each pueblo they are welcomed to a more or less innocuous entertainment. The characteristic of the Pueblo Indians are strikingly different from those wild gyrations that we associate with the nomadic and warlike Plains Indians There are, to be sure, a number of such dances — Enemy dances they are called —that have been taken bodily from this or that wild tribe and are known by the tribe’s nafne. such as the Cheyenne dance, the Pawnee dance, the Navajo danc,e. These foreign dances are mostly concerned with war and are not regarded as having any Important religious character. Yet it is significant that title to use them was obtained by purchase or trade before the dances were included in the village repertory. Of course the foreign songs had to be learned by rote and a special set of costumes made in keeping with the .place of origin.. In one of the introduced dances that is popular at Taos— a woman’s dance and therefore not gymnastic —there is x-rst, in the center, a chorus of men. Some of these sit around a large drum ’which they beat in unison, while others kneel and mark, time by scraping notched sticks that rest on a log for a sounding board. Around them in a circle, or half-circle, are dancing girls. These are not in their everyday Pueblo attire of woven blanket dress with colored belt and whitened deerskin boots but in the fringed deerskin dress of their plains-bred sisters, with moccasins and leggings. Scarcely lifting their feet from the ground, as they keep time to the song and the throbbing rhythm of the drum and the notched stick instruments, the girls move slowly round the circle using their two hands in a graceful warding-off motion. Outside the circle of girls is a larger circle of men tn blankets, each resting his right arm across the shoulder of the man in front and ail moving in a direction opposite to that taken by the girl dancers. These men represent Pueblo Indian visitors at the camp of the Plains Indians. The girl dancers and the inner chorus of men are the hosts who provide the entertainment While the steps in many Indian dances are simple in the extreme, there is a delicate pulsing rhythm that affects the whole body and makes the dance almost impossible of imitation for one of another race. Dances In which both men and women appear are perhaps , more common

among Pueblo Indians than elsewhere in North America. There is rarely the slightest body contact between dancers of different sexes and never an embrace such as characterizes our own dances of pleasure. Pueblo dances proper are mostly Concerned with rain, fruitful harvests, and abundant supplies of game. Much of the prescribed regalia represents clouds, falling water and blossoming plants. The symbolism is worked out in feather headdresses, embroidered aprons, painted wands, etc., and is magical or coercive in character. Wild animals are supposed to be pleased by dances in which they are mimicked and to allow themselves to be killed in return. All the persons chosen for important dances have to undergo four days of preparation and purification during which they are Isolated from their townsfolk. The religious heads of the village, called “caciques;” are masters of ceremonies and the war captain and his men are watchers, warders and providers. The public dances in the plaza are more or less processional but the advance is very slow and the trail of footprints in the dust shows how the dancers have inched their way. There are definite spots for stationary dancing and here counter-marching is used to make new quadrille-like formations. A good example of this sort of dance is the so-called Tablita dance which takes its name from a painted tablet representing clouds that is worn on the heads of the women. It is a spring and summer dance connected with maize and is designed to bring rain for the growing crops. The costume is especially devised for this occasion and every detail of dress and ornament has a special Import. Of course, variations are to be noted from one Pueblo to another. On the great feast day of Santo Domingo in August this dance is celebrated and several hundred persons take part in it Besides the man and woman dancers, who are divided into two divisions according to the social grouping of the clans, there are Chiffoneti or Delight-takers in two orders and a number of individuals painted to represent special mythological beings. The Chiffoneti are clowns whose naked bodies are painted with broad stripes of black and white and whose hair is smeared with mud and tied with corn husk. The ostensible purpose of these clowns is to make merry and do what mischief they can but in reality they are the only persons who can conduct the gods of rain and fruitfulness into the village and they thus occupy an Import -ant esoteric place in Pueblo religious life. ........... - The Buffalo dance, the Deer dance

and the Eagle dance are examples of mimic -animal dances. Headdress and body coverings are made when possible from the skins of the animals in question or color is used where skins cannot be worn. At the secret dances held at night in the underground lodges the dancers wear masks and impersonate the mythological beings. Most of these have definite and well-known characteristics and are at once recognized. Although dances of this sort in the Rio Grande region cannot be seen by outsiders and must be studied from information and native drawings, still similar ones are danced In the open in the Hopl villages of Arizona. The dramatic instinct comes out strongly in some of these secret dances. This is particularly true of the ceremonies preceding the arrival of the masked dancers who represent mythological beings. These mythological beings are supposed to live In the under world and to come up through lakes and springs when they visit the upper world. The Chiffoneti or clowns are the Intermediaries between mortals and these gods. The caciques determine when a masked dance is to be held and they select the dancers. The latter are locked up for four days and purified by fasting and ablution. At the appointed time all the villagers go to the underground lodge and seat themselves in readiness for the performance. Soon two clowns appear at the hatchway in the room and come down the ladder. They make merry with the spectators. Then one says to the other, “My brother, from what lake shall we get out; masked dancers tonight?” “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s try Dawn Canyon lake. Maybe some Cloud people are stopping there.” Then one clown takes some ashes from the fireplace and blows it out in front of - him. “Look brother,” he says, “do you see any Cloud people?” They peered across the ash cloud and one says, “Yes, here they come now. They are walking on the cloud. Now they stop at Cottonwood Leaf lake.” Then the other clown blows ashes and the questions are repeated. Thus the Cloud people are drawn nearer and nearer until they enter the village. The clowns become more and more excited and finally cry: “Here they are how!” and the masked dancers stamp on the roof and throw game, fruit and cakes down the hatchway. When the masked dancers enter, the children are covered but the older people drink in the divine presence with the palm of their hands as one scoops up and drinks water. These masked dancers may not talk although they make peculiar sounds. Their wishes are told in pantomime.