Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1915 — Page 2

INDIAN DANCE of the SOUTHWEST

by HERBERT J. SPINDEN

OOURTE3Y or me AMSUCAJi museum journal

HUE numerous dances of tha 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 (hat 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, wjiere 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 dances 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 natne. such as the Cheyenne dance, the Pawnee dance, the Navajo dance. 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 urst, 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 girts move slowly round the circle using their two hands in a graceful w&rding-off motion. Outside the circle of girls is a larger circle of men in blankets, each resting his right arm across the shoulder of the {nan in front and all 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 r 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

PUT END TO HIS SUFFERING

Trapper, Fatally Mangled by Bear, Commits Suicide—Leaves Pathetic Note. The news of a terrible and dramatic tragedy of the hills was brought to this country when William Austin, a prospector, reached Seattle. Wash., from Valdez, Alaska. He brought with him a scrap of paper upon which King Thurman, a widely known trapper and prospector, had written a last

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 prnameht 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 important esoteric place, ip Pueblo religious life. - a The Buffalo dance, the Deer dance

message after he had been mangled by a bear’s claws and before he had ended his sufferings with his revolver. Austin and John Wilk, a companion, found the body of Thurman near his cabin. The trapper had ended his life by shooting himself in the temple. His right side had been torn and chewed from hip to shoulder, and the note which he left had been printed in letters formed by his own life blood with his left hand, laboriously and apparently whim he wes suffering tor-

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

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 one's are danced in the open in the Hopi 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 our masked dancers tonight?” “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s try Dawn Canyon lake. Mayhe 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 blow? 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 now!” 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 np and drinks water. These masked dancers may not talk although they make peculiar sounds. Their wished are told in pantomime.

ture most terribly from his wounds. The ground was tom up for 20 feet with claws and boots, and a crushed water pail under the body of the trapper showed what brought him from his cabin unarmed. The note read: “Have been tom np by brown bear. No show to get out Good-by. lam sane, but suffer terribly—want death.” The irregularity with which the last few words of the note were printed showed clearly that Thurman could barely complete them.

BEST TO COMPROMISE

DURATION OF PULL SKIRT STYLE IS UNCERTAIN. Wisest Courts la to Hsve Them Mads of Moderate Width With a Leaning Toward Fullness —Altering Last Year’s Gowns. In going over the season’s wardrobe it is the best to stake one’s chances on the wide skirt staying with us until July or August. There are dressmakers who are prophets, and who say that we shall probably wear the full Bkirt for two or three years at least. There are others who say it will be out of fashion by midsummer. The only way to be even partly safe is to compromise on moderate width with a leaning toward fullness.

If your last summer skirts had long tunics, the remedy is easy. That truism has been repeated over ahd again for two months. The added fact that the new skirts, both plaited and circular, have wide bands of a different fabric and sometimes of a different color at the hem, gives one even more hope for successful alteration.

Plaiting is la high demand and the knife-plaited tunic, therefore, which was considered as an unfashionable garment, cain be made into a skirt by the addition of a deep band. It may be of satin if the skirt is of cloth, or cloth if the skirt is of silk. No one objects to these combinations nowadays. Then there is the question of the long sleeve to be answered. Suppose the gowns of last year, also the coats, had three-quarter sleeves —what then? Fortunately, fashion has brought about the use of double sleeves. The upper part is opaque, the lower part transparent; therefore one can add chiffon or muslin, net or lace to a short sleeve and bring it down to the wrist. These lower sleeves are very often full as well as transparent, and they are finished at the wrist with a velvet bracelet and a narrow, ruffle. All these details are good to remem-

Matching Parasol and Frock —Blue and White Striped Chiffon With Parasol to Match.

ber when you are up against the task of altering sleeves. There has come about an odd combination of fabrics in the last month which allows a plaited skirt to be attached to a straight, long-waisted, beltless blouse of another fabric. This Idea is very helpful to the woman who is altering clothes. Take, for instance, a white serge

DISGUISE THE POWDER PUFF

Quaint Designs That Make Ornaments of the Ever-Essential Toilet Article. - -- ■ * i Here are two novel ways of disguising the ever-essentlal powder puff. The first can be made of ribbon about four inches wide and eight or nine inches long, the selvage edges folded and sewed together, except for about two inches at the center, 'making a strip of double silk nine inches long and two inches wide. Now gather each end up tightly and attach a silk tassel the same shade or contrasting with the color of the ribbon. Slip two ivory rings over the little bag, and you have an old-fashioned purse just like grandmother used for her pennies, but which you will use to hold in (me end a powder puff, very diminutive, but quite adequate, and in the other end aT mirror of the same dimensions. This little “vanity bag can be carried opt in the shades of the favorite evening gown, and makes a ‘ dainty and inconspicuous accessory for the carrying of the evening’s ammunition. The second puff is for the dressing table, mid is in the shape of a bisque ballerina, with voluminous maline skirts, who poises lightly atop of a glass powder Jar. The puff is attached in some mysterious manner to the little bisque body, and the maline skirts act as a pretty ornament and a practical cover for the powder beneath. They can easily be renewed from time to time as they become soiled or mussed. , Flat picture hats of leghorn are among new models.

IN NATURE OF A REVIVAL

In the old “pelisse” style: A model in blue serge. Made like an old-fash-ioned “pelisse,” this model is carried gown copied from a late Callot model in which the long, straight, girlish blouse was of white satin attached under a line of embroidered scallop below the waist to a knife-plaited skirt of thin, supple white serge. The long, white satin sleeves were laced out in blue serge, over a foundation of black corded silk, with a drapery of silk drawn round the hips. The upper part of the frock opens over folds of cream net, the collar being of black silk, while the embroidery appearing in the front is in silks, black bugles and silver thread. One of the new close-fitting black-velvet hats, edged with a tiny trimming of skunk, completes the costume.

at the back from wrist half way to elbow with blue and red silk cords through whitp embroidered eyelets, and there was a turnover collar of white embroidered linen. As strong as the belt and normal waist line seemed to be among the majority of gowns, there is also a very fashionable frock that calls for a straight line from shoulder to hem. It is slim until it reaches the hips, where the side plaiting begins to spring out and give it a flare. These frocks have low hip pieces formed of embroidery or machine cording to break the long lines down the body. They are especially effective in white linen trimmed with pale yellow and in pongee and shantung. (Copyright, 1915, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)

Hour for Stout Women.

Now is the time for the stout woman to rejoice, for, indeed, her hour has come at last. No longer will she have to look on in helpless envy while her slender sister frivols around in wide, graceful circles. She *1 never have to sit silently by and watch the conquest of the beach carried off by a clinging vine. The worm has turned at last, and the “sturdy oak” type of woman can rest assured that her martyrdom is over. The spring styles prove conclusively that the narrow belt has come to stay.

Callot's Umbrella Dress.

Over a box-plaited plaid silk skirt, a fulled skirt of black pussy willow taffeta is turned back and gathered to the waist in the back, forming a puff. The front of the skirt hangs loose, forming a pocket effect, the line over the hip being especially well planned. The black taffeta bodice of this fascinating costume fastens to one side with a series of small bows of the plaid silk. The bodice is nar rowly piped with the plaid silk.

Damask Lunch Cloths.

Souse of the newest lunch cloths are being shown of embroidered damask. The material itself is unfigured, but the embroidery is usually elaborate. A very silky mercerized cotton is employed for working out the design, and this, with the soft sheen of the damask, makes a very rich cloth almost too pretty for tible use. These cloths are more practical when made in the size of a large centerpiece, for then the individual plate and tumbler dollies of plain laceedged damask can be used to protect the polished table surface and are more easily laundered than the heavily embroidered cover.

Convenient Veils.

The most convenient veils are those with an elastic run through the upper edge. The large veil may be adjusted In the twinkling of an eye, and its lower edge will fall with perfect grace over the shoulders. Some of the new veils in filadora and hexagon weaves fall in deep points at the edge, the longest point coming in front. These veils are exceedingly graceful and add expressible style to a simple costume.

Strengthening Sock Heel.

Strengthening the heel is invaluable in knitting socks and stockings, especially in the socks knitted now for army use. The method recommended as being the best by many authorities ft to knit in a thread of silk. This is durable, and not clumsy and liable to contract as is the double woo}. Silk is softer than cottqp, but a spool of black cotton. No. 20, unglssed, will answer the purpose.

ilfegpi

Viewpoint.

“Ton shouldn’t be dissatisfied. Look at all you have.” "Yes. but look at all I haven’t.-

REAL SKIN COMFORT Follows Uss of Cutieure Soap and Ointment. Trial Free. By bathing and anointing these fragrant supercreamy emollients impart to tender, sensitive or irritated, itching skins a feeling of intense skin comfort difficult for one to realise who has never used them for like purposes. Cultivate an acquaintance with them. Sample each free by mail with Book. Address postcard, Cuticura, Dept. XT. Boston. Sold everywhere.—Adv.

He Should Worry.

"How do you account for Nero fiddling during the burning of Rome?” asked the professor. "I suppose hq had the place heavily insured,” suggested the senior who was specializing in finance.

THE PROFESSOR’B BTATEMENT. Prof. Aug. F. W. Schmitz, Thomas. Okla., writes: "I was troubled with Backache for about twenty-five years. When told I had Bright’s Disease in its last stages, I tried Dodd’s KidjK 1 ney Pills. After using two boxes I was somewhat relieved and I stopped the treatment. In the spring of the next year I had another atProf. Schmitz. tack. I went for Dodd’s Kidney Pills and they relieved me again. I used three boxes. That is now three years ago and my Backache has not returned in its severity, and by using another two boxes a little later on, the pain left altogether and I have had no trouble since. Tou may use my statement. I recommend Dodd’s Kidney Pills when and wherever I can.” Dodd’s Kidney Pills, 60c. per box at your dealer or Dodd’s Medicine Co., Buffalo, N. Y.—Adv.

Psychology of Practice.

The question of short versus long periods of practice in training the human muscles for any particular kind of work is obviously one having farreaching application. Some interesting experiments on this subject have been carried out by Dr. K. S. Lashley of Johns Hopkins university. Acquisition of skill in archery was selected as the subject of observation. Twenty untrained persons were divided Into three groups. One group shot five’ arrows with the English longbow per day; another, twenty shots per day; and the third, forty shots. The results showed conclusively that the group shooting only five times a day Improved in accuracy with less expenditure of time in practice than was required by either of the other groups for the same amount of Improvement. A report on the experiments says: "The relatively greater efficiency of short periods of practice continuing for many days is in accordance with the fgsults of the study of animals and of speech habits in man, and Indicates that in training to muscular feats, in both animals and man, the length of practice periods required is usually too great for. maximum efficiency.”—Scientific American.

Comparisons.

*'My Income,” said the boastful theatrical star, “is much larger than that of the president of the United States.” “Yes,” replied the conservative person. “But you can’t judge by incomes. Jack Johnson’s income used to be larger than yours.”

INSOMNIA Leads to Madness, If Not Remedied.

“Experiments satisfied me, some 5 years ago," writes a Topeka woman, “that coffee was the direct cause of the insomnia from which I suffered terribly, as well as extreme nervousness and acute dyspepsia. “I had been a coffee drinker since childhood, and did not like to think that the beverage was doing me all this harm. But it was, and the time came when I had to face the tact, and protect myself. 1 therefore gave up eeffee abruptly and absolutely, and adopted Postum for my hot drink at mealed ’1 began to note Improvement in my condition very soon after I took on Postum. The change proceeded graduaHy, but surely, and it wae a matter of only a few weeks before I found myself entirely relieved —the nervousness passed away, my digestive apparatus was restored to normal efficiency, and I began to sleep restfully and peacefully. “Theme happy conditions have continued during all of The 5 years, and 1 am safe in saying that I owe them entirely to Postum, for when I began to drink it I ceased to use medicines.” Name given by Postum Co., Battle Creek. Mich. Read “The Road to Wellvllle,” in pkgs. Postum comes in two forms: Postum Cereal —the original form — must be well boiled. 16c sued 26c packinstant Postum —a soluble powderdissolves quickly in a cup of hot water, and. with cream and sugar, makes a delicious beverage Instantly. 80c and 50c tins. Both kinds are equally delicious and cost about the same per cop. -sold by Grocers