The Delight Makers

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

The drum beats to signal the close of the intermission. The clowns are becoming too impudent, too troublesome, so that an end must be made to their pranks. The society of the Koshare will appear now for the last time, as after the next dance they retire. While this is at its height, Topanashka rises and returns to his former place.

Walking slowly past his daughter, he looks at her. She meets his gaze cheerfully, and with a slight nod of approbation he moves onward.

The dance is over, and the Koshare depart to scatter beyond the large house and to rest. On the disappearance of the last of their number, including the jesters, whoops and shouts fill the air again from without, and a second procession similar to the former marches into the court-yard. It is composed of different persons similarly costumed, except that their paint is bluish instead of white. No clowns accompany them. They go through a similar performance, and sing the same songs; but everything is done with gravity and even solemnity. This band is more numerous by at least ten couples, and as a consequence the spectacle is more striking on account of a greater variety of dress and finery. A tall, slender young man opens the march. It is Hayoue. His partner is a buxom lass from the Bear clan, Kohayo hanutsh, a strong, thick-waisted creature, not so good-looking for a girl as he is for a man, yet of such proportion and figure as strike the Indian fancy. They pay each other little attention. During the pauses each one follows his own bent, and when the time calls they meet again.

In an Indian dance there is no need of engaging partners, though it is not unusual for such as fancy one another to seize the opportunity of so doing. The mere fact of a certain boy stamping the earth beside a certain girl on a certain occasion, or a certain maiden tripping by the side of a particular youth, does not call for that active gossiping which would result if a couple were to dance with one another alone at one of our balls. A civilized ball is professedly for enjoyment alone; an Indian dance is a religious act, a public duty.

The society who are now exercising their calisthenics in the court has much similarity to the Koshare, yet their main functions are distinct. They are called the Cuirana.

If, during the conversation in which Topanashka informed his daughter as to the origin of the Koshare and the ideas underlying their rôle in Indian society, Say Koitza had inquired of him about the Cuirana he might have given her very similar information.

With this marked distinction, however, that whereas the former consider themselves summer people, the latter are regarded as winter men. While the Koshare are specially charged with the duty of furthering the ripening of the fruit, the Cuirana assist the sprouting of the seed.

The main work of the Koshare is therefore to be done in the summer and autumn, that of the Cuirana in the spring; and, moreover, while on certain occasions the latter are masters of ceremonies also, they never act as clowns or official jesters. Their special dance is never obscene, like that of the Delight Makers.

During their performance, therefore, the public did not exhibit the unbounded hilarity which marked that of their predecessors. The audience looked on quietly, and even with stolidity. There was nothing to excite laughter, and since the figures were slavish repetitions, it became monotonous. Some of the spectators withdrew to their houses, and those who remained belonged to the cliffs, whence they had come to witness the rite, as a serious and even sacred duty.

While the dance of the Cuirana is in progress, two of the white painted clowns are standing outside of the big building, and at some distance from the new house of Yakka hanutsh, in earnest conversation. Heat and exercise have partially effaced the paint, so that the features of Tyope Tihua, and of Zashue, the husband of Say, can be easily recognized.