Two songs have a special place in the ceremony. They are sung by the men as they ride into camp with the willows for the hundred-willow sweathouse. They are sung again when the procession of pole raisers moves up to raise the sun pole. Formerly, they were sung by any considerable body of the tribe approaching the camp of strange Indians. Likewise, when they approached a post to open trade.[18]
Red-plume, a Piegan, has a smudge stick on which are notches said to represent the number of different songs used in the ceremonies of the medicine woman. There are 413 which is said to be the full number of songs. These, as has been stated in Volume 7, are in reality a part of the beaver bundle ritual.
The singing at the dancing ceremonies after the sun lodge has been erected is usually confined to the songs of various societies concerned. There are, however, a few with characteristic airs that are regarded as peculiarly appropriate to the occasion, regardless of who may be dancing.
The Sun Dance Camp.
In a previous paper, we called attention to the belief that the camp circle was formed expressly for the sun dance. Our informants say that formerly the circle was formed by the assemblage of the bands some time before the medicine woman began her fast. In winter, the tribes scattered out, usually two to five bands in a camp, often many miles apart. At the approach of summer, the husband of a woman having made a vow to give the sun dance sends a man to look up the camps and invite them to join his band. He carries tobacco and presents some to each head man with the invitation. As the head men receive the invitation, they order their bands to move, forming the circle at the medicine woman's camp. Once formed, the circle is not broken until after the sun dance, a period estimated at from two to four months. The whole body may move about and even make long journeys aside from the four ceremonial moves required while the medicine woman is fasting. After the sun dance, they split up into parties for the fall hunt and finally went into winter quarters. The import of our former statement is thus apparent. The suggestion is that the camp circle is intimately associated with the sun dance. At least, one point is clear, the camp circle is initiated by the woman who starts the sun dance and even so is one of the preparatory steps.
As previously stated in Volume 7 of this series, there is much uncertainty as to the order of bands in the circle. We doubt if it ever was absolutely fixed beyond change at the will of those in charge of the sun dance proceedings.
Mythological Notes.
The way that several distinct myths are used to account for different features of the sun dance might be taken as a suggestion that the ceremony grew up among the Blackfoot. We suspect, however, that we have here an example of pattern phenomena. Those familiar with the detailed study of rituals in Volume 7 will recall that tradition recognized the obvious fact that rituals were not produced all at once, but grew by accretions. This is so marked in the mythical accounts of ritual origin that we may suspect its appearance in the mythology of the sun dance. On page 241 we have enumerated the myths accounting for important features of the ceremony. Among these are not included the parts taken by societies or the cutting sacrifices, they, as we have stated, not being regarded as integral parts of the sun dance.
For the sake of completeness we offer some extracts from an unpublished version of the Scar-face myth:—
We will take up this narrative at the point where Scar Face has killed the cranes and reported with their scalps. We are told that had not Scar Face killed these birds, they would always have killed people, but that since he overpowered them they now fear people and have done so ever since.