The heart of this bullock was fat, so that good fortune abides with the tribe. A lean heart is always unlucky. Once Ba'tiste killed an animal that had hairs on its heart, and Holy Mother! Holy Mother! that winter he trapped a silver-fox.
The white men played a game of baseball which would have given cause for thought to those impersonal pawns known as professionals; it was so very original. But, after all, baseball is only cricket gone hysterical, and perhaps the game may be further evolved under the aurora. Some one must take the onus of initiative. Originally the game was very primitive and I have heard tell, or I may have read, that it was really a baseball club which Samson used to kill the Philistines.
The results of the horse races are not posted, a fact which tends to a democratic spirit. If you want to see the start or the finish you must bunch with the crowd at the post. This also enables you to learn how wonderfully an excited Cree can vociferate: there is no other place in the world where a more efficient instruction can be had. And when words fail him, Sir Hotspur says: "Uh-huh!" and makes other sounds in his teeth like a flame when it leaps through dry rushes.
The mysteries of straight, place, and show are not probed here and no Indian throws a race. The best horse always wins. The Cree jockey rides bareback and beats his horse from the start. This, they tell me, is necessary because there is no best strain in Indian ponies. They are as native and unimproved as the horses of Diomedes that roamed the hills of Arcadia.
The tents, booths, and dining-rooms skirt the track, and so the squaws can leave their cooking to engage in their own contests without any unnecessary loss of time. These include a tug-o'-war, a horse race and foot races. The men engage in canoe and tub races, boxing bouts, swimming and smoking contests, bucking-broncho exhibits and other physical tests for which they have a fondness and natural aptitude. Gambling is in full swing and no one thinks it necessary to apologize. Several men squat side by side on the ground and pass a jack-knife from one to the other under a blanket which covers their knees. The gambler has to guess in which hand the knife is to be found. It is the same game as "Button! Button! Who has the button?"
The drum-song, that rude rough song of the suitor, does not start till after nightfall. As a general thing, the man sings it in a tent lying on his back, his face flushed and his eyes suffused. "Hai! Hai!" he cries with a blurred staccato that is without response, "otato-otooto-oha-o."
After awhile, he seems to become hypnotized by the recurrence of this measured rhythm which is without melody and without gaiety. These drum-songs are indubitably the survivals of earlier days when the man-animal roamed through the land and made love-calls in the trees.
The drum-man has one pronounced characteristic; you can never mistake him for a Christian. On one of the drums, there was a sun-symbol marked in blue, but this may have been an accidental ornamentation. Or it may be the drum-suitor is a Christian who merely claims the masculine prerogative of changing his principles with his opportunities. You can never tell.
But on the whole, the discordancy of the drum is no worse than that of the fiddle which supplies the music for the dance. Why people say "fit as a fiddle" I can never surmise, for a fiddle is always becoming unfit.
One hears much complaint in our province over oak floors well waxed, but here is a dancing floor that is laid while you wait. Cross-beams are placed on the ground and over them are put planks of uneven thickness. When in use, the floor seems almost as active as the feet of the dancers.