THE ACORN DANCE
“THERE’S only one knot left. Can’t we start now?” shouted Heema, as he untied the next to the last knot.
“Not until afternoon; but you may go to the marsh with me to gather reeds to blow on at the dance,” answered Massea.
Just before lunch, Heema burst into the hut where Ama was busy putting food into their baskets.
“I got all these reeds myself and I tied them together myself,” he cried. He held up a bunch of reeds tied together with a deerskin string and almost as big as he was.
“Such fun as we shall have at the acorn dance!” he exclaimed, pulling a reed out of the bunch, and cutting it in such a manner that it made a rude flute. He began to jump around the hut, blowing on the reed meanwhile. As he gave an extra big jump, he lit on the edge of one of the baskets, tipped it over, and spilled the clams in it all over the ground.
“I wish you would be more quiet, like Docas,” said Ama.
“Never mind, I’ll pick up the clams,” said Heema, hurrying to get the clams back into the basket again. “Docas wants to be a man. You can’t have much fun with him these days,” he said.
Just as he put the last clam back, Docas and Massea came in sight, and Heema ran to meet them.
By the middle of the afternoon, everything was ready, and they started with their reeds for the village of Chief Yeeta. They carried a great many clams and much grass-seed bread, for they were to be gone several days. Yeeta’s village was about eight miles away, by the side of a little brook.
The Red Deer
Docas walked quietly along by Massea’s side, but Heema ran around so much, chasing squirrels, that he began to grow tired.
Suddenly Docas said, “There’s Apa.”
“He has come to meet us. We must be almost there,” said Heema, forgetting that he was tired, and running forward.
From the top of the next hill Heema could look down on the village where Apa lived. In a minute he came running back to Docas.
“Oh, there are so many people there! And they are making a big circle by sticking green boughs in the ground out in an open place,” exclaimed Heema. “Please hurry up, Docas, you are so slow.”
Docas laughed and said, “Not when I get started, Heema,” and he began running toward Apa. Docas could run fast, so he reached Apa long before Heema did.
“Why are the people putting grass down in a circle?” asked Heema, as the three boys walked into the village.
“That’s where they dance, and they want it to be soft so that they can lie down when they get tired,” answered Docas.
It was dark before all the invited people had come, so they all had supper and went to bed.
Next morning the dancing began. Massea stood on one side and stamped on a hollow log, while the women and the other men made one big circle, and swayed back and forth, singing as they danced. They kept time with their singing and dancing to Massea’s stamping.
By and by they grew tired and stopped dancing.
Heema had gone down to the brook, for he was tired of watching the dance.
“Come, Heema,” called Docas. “We must take around the acorn porridge now. The people are hungry.”
After the porridge had been served, the men stepped out again into the circle, while the women sat on the ground outside and looked on. Yeeta had a big rattle in his hand, and each of the other men had a reed.
Yeeta stood in the centre and shook his rattle. The other men blew on their reeds, and began jumping toward the right. The dance went on for a little while, and then suddenly Yeeta stopped shaking the rattle. The men, who were watching him, stopped dancing and blowing their reeds at the same time.
“Good,” said Docas, who was standing near. “No one got caught that time.”
Yeeta again began shaking his rattle, and the dance went on once more. This time he had been shaking the rattle for a long while, when suddenly he stopped a second time.
“Look at them! Look at them! Half the men were not looking at him, and they are still dancing,” shouted Docas, and he laughed and pointed his finger at the dancers who were caught. The other boys laughed too, and the careless men looked foolish.
And so the dance went on for days, until they had eaten all the food they had with them. As they went home, Docas said to Heema, “I wish next autumn were here so that the acorns would be ripe again, and it would be time for another acorn dance.”