Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 289, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1915 — AMERICAN INDIAN DANCES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMERICAN INDIAN DANCES

By ROBERTH.LOWIE

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HE word "dance,” as applied Tby the Indians, has a meaning very different from that which it carries in our own language. When we hear VV dancing, we think, first of all, of music and steps. These features are, of coarse, not lacking in aboriginal dancing, but they are completely overshadowed by other aspects of culture with which they are associated. To put it briefly, our dancing appears in the same context with restaurants, hotels, debutantes, attempts at a social rapprochement of the sexes. In Indian society, dancing is largely connected with war and agriculture and the chase, with processions, magical performances and religious observances. In short, with the serious affairs of life. Indian dances, as far as the steps are concerned, are often of remarkable simplicity. A widespread “squaw dance,” found among the Shoshone, Crow and other northwestern tribes, consists simply In the circle of dancers shuffling the feet alternately to the left, each man in the circle standing between two women, with his right arm around his partner’s shoulder or waist, or in some cases with arms encircling a partner on each side. With short intermissions and an occasional introduction of the war dance, for variety's sake, a squaw dance of this type is sometimes kept up all night, to the supreme gratification of the performers. The tobacco dance of the Crow Indians, is, if possible, of even simpler character. The participants stand up several in a row, holding sacred objects in their hands, and alternately bend each kpee and raise or lower each hand without at all moving from their position. The highly popular grass dance of the Plains Indians is of a more strenuous character. Only men take part, and they move about briskly, sometimes in pairs, sometimes separately, vigorously stamping the ground with their feet, and frequently mimicking martial exploits. The orchestral equipment of the Indians is not very comprehensive. The flute (or flageolet) is restricted to use in courting. For dancing, the drum and the rattle are by far the most Important instruments, although other types were used over a relatively large area; this applies, for example, to notched sticks rasped with other sticks and bird-bone whistles, usually worn suspended from the neck. The drum varies considerably in form. On the northwest coast the natives merely beat a plank or box. The Plains Indians commonly use a skin stretched over a hoop, held by strings crossing underneath, but a large double-headed drum suspended from four sticks also occurs. Rattles are likewise of widely varying kind, such as gourds containing small pebbles and ring-shaped or globular rawhide bags —for which in the dance of today baking powder cans make favorite substitutes. Sometimes a certain instrument is considered distinctive of a particular dance, and various forms of costume are also ' considered badges. Thus dress comes to occupy in the Indian dance a place of significance to which there is no correspondence in the dances of civilized races. Sometimes, to be sure, the apparel merely is designed to give an appearance of picturesqueness, while in other instances lack of clothing is sometimes compensated for by face and body paint or by a profusion of regalia held in the hand. The Crow grass dance might be chosen as an example of the social type of Indian dance, the Pawnee iruska and the Mandan buffalo women’s dances as representatives of shamanistlc or religious performances.

while the Mandan okipa illustrates well the great tribal festival type of dance. The Crow grass dance, or, as the native call it, the “hot dance,” is regarded as the joint property of four clubs, to some one of which nearly every man as the tribe belongs. In a sense these are mutual benefit organizations, for whenever a member is confronted with a difficulty his comrades are expected to help him in every way. In each of the districts of the Crow reservation, these four societies share with one another a substantial dancehouse. When the time for dancing comes, a committee of men proceeds from lodge to lodge, planting a stick in front of each. This means that each household is to contribute to a feast to be held by the clubs after their dance. A crier rides through camp heralding the performance and calling on all members to present themselves at the dancehouse. On one occasion I have known four marshals to be appointed to punish the laggards; those who had disobeyed the summons either had to pay a fine or submit to the indignity of being thrown into the creek. In the meantime, the people assemble until the dancehouse is charged to its utmost capacity. Then the musicians, seated in the center around a big drum, strike up a tune, later re-en-forced by the voices of some of the women, and the members of some one of the four societies rise to perform the vigorous turns and bendings characteristic of the dance. They give vent to penetrating cries in rapid succession, they brandish weapons at an imaginary foe, and thus proceed around the lodge until the ceasing of music makes them come to a sudden stop. A very different phase of dancing is presented by the Pawnee iruska. The members of the society practicing this dance were supposed to be masters of fire, and their attitude toward it was to be like a Pawnee’s attitude In facing the enemy. Spectators were invited to their gatherings, their songs were chanted and the members began to dance. After the third set of songs had been sung, the attendants built a big fire and hung a kettle of water and dog meat (or buffalo) over it. The leader advanced to the kettle when it was full of boiling soup, plunged his arm into it and took out a piece of meat. All the other members followed suit and unscathed pulled out meat, for they had secured medicine power that enabled them to overcome the force of the fire. An evidently related ceremony occurs among other tribes. In the hot dance of the Mandan and Hidatsa, the performers not only executed the trick practiced by the Pawnees, but also danced with bare feet on glowing embers until they had stamped out the fire. This was like wise a usage of the crazy dancers of the Arapahoes, who indulged in other queer antics, such as doing everything in reverse fashion and expressing the

opposite of their intended meaning, thus lending to an otherwise solemn performance an aspect of buffoonery. While the activities just described seem to have had no object beyond the exhibition of the performer’s supernatural power, the dance of the Mandan Buffalo Women’s society was intimately connected with tribal welfare. Whenever the supply of buffalo had failed and the village was threatened with famine, the members of this organization were called upon to execute their dance in order to attract the herds. According to an early observer, they never failed, for they simply never ceased dancing till buffalo had been sighted. Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied gives a good first-hand account of a performance witnessed by him in the early thirties of the last century. There were two men acting as musicians, with rattles and drums, one of them holding a gun. The leader was an elderly woman wrapped in the skin of an albino buffalo cow. The Mandan okipa represents again a wholly different type of dance. It was the great several days’ annual festival that corresponded to the sun dance of neighboring people. Ostensibly it was a commemoration of the subsidence of the deluge recorded in native mythology, and Borne of the important characters of the myth were impersonated by performers. On the other hand, there was a great deal besides. A marked dramatic feature was supplied by numerous mummers representing animals and closely mimicking their peculiarities. Prominent among these were buffalo masqueraders who imitated the wallowing of the animals represented and whose actions were expected to entice the game to the village. Many tribesmen voluntarily submitted to torture. The wide scope of activities embraced by the dances of our native American population makes perhaps the main point of interest over and above all special features. For what must strike every observer of primitive cultures most forcibly is that things which we consider quite distinct, men of a ruder civilization join. Thus the stars are to us a subject of purely scientific study, but even our ancestors invested theill with all sorts of mystical properties, and the North, American Indian personifies them and identifies them" with the heroes of his folk-tales. Thus, too, we hava ornamental designs and often do not give them any symbolic interpretation. Primitive man is indeed less given to symbolism than perhaps has been sup posed; nevertheless his tendency to invest a geometrical pattern with meaning remains greater than our own. So dancing, which to us is merely a form of amusement and exercise. becomes in primitive communities an important social function, an opportunity for sleight-of-hand performances, for religious ritualism, and may become charged with an atmosphere of supreme holiness.