After a formal introduction to all the chiefs and their approval given to my being accepted as Hotouta's brother and a fellow chief with him in the tribe of the Havasupais, the dance began. This is how it was conducted.
The "evangelist" sang over a strain of a new song. A dozen or so of the leaders took it up, and as soon as they were fairly familiar with it, the others joined in. Then the women took a hand, literally as well as figuratively, for they came in and separated the men, interlocking the fingers, midway between the first and second knuckle joints, standing shoulder to shoulder, and enlarging the group until a complete circle was formed. Then, with a side shuffling motion, moving one foot to the left and following it rapidly but rhythmically with the other, the while lustily and seriously singing the song they had just learned, the dance continued,—a dull, monotonous, sleep-producing ceremony, until the onlooker was awakened by manifestations he little expected to see at an Indian thanksgiving dance. Very often it occurs that women of the tribe are affected with a somewhat similar excitement to that which seizes the negro when he has "the power." With a shriek, the woman hysterically leaps within the circle made by the dancers, and howls and shouts and dances and jumps, and then, perhaps, throws herself in a heavy stupor upon the ground. Some will run to the centre post, and, hanging on with one or both hands, will swing rapidly around until they fall exhausted to the ground. When the male members tire of seeing these excitable females upon the ground, they unostentatiously step up to the prostrate figures, seize their long thick hair, swing it over the shoulder, and thus proceed to drag the now exhausted women to the fires, where friends of their own sex attend them until they "come to."
And what did all this ceremony mean?—for to the Havasupais it was a ceremony, performed with as much dignity as we perform our religious services in church or cathedral. While I was dancing Hotouta was giving an explanation to Mr. Bass. Each year this dance is performed as an act of highest devotion to gain the approbation of "Those Above." The Peach Dance is the "harvest thanksgiving" dance—when thanks are made for the gifts of the past and prayers are offered for the needs of the future.
The leader of the singing was a Chemehuevi Indian,—a tribe located west of the Wallapais and living mainly on the California side of the Colorado River.
He was a regular "evangelist" amongst the Indians,—a native Moody, and gifted enough, musically, to perform the part of Sankey or Excell. His harangue on this occasion was an unusually fervent oration, especially cutting to Hotouta, for he was one of the chief objects of the "evangelist's" vituperation and abuse. In fact had Hotouta been a white man he would have gone away saying the preacher was "horribly personal and disgracefully abusive" to the leading members of his congregation. He explained that the reason the tribe had lost so many of its members last year by the dread "grippe" was because of their levity. They had laughed too much, gone hunting and visiting white men's camps when they ought to have been dancing. They were allowing the white man to laugh them out of the traditions of their forefathers. Then he especially denounced all friendliness to the whites, and singled out Hotouta, Chickapanagie, Spotted Tail, and one or two others who had been the leaders in thus countenancing the whites, and administered to them severe rebukes. After this, referring to the offer of the whites to give them farming implements, food, etc., if they would send their children to the Indians' school at Mohave, he urged his hearers to listen to no such proposals. He said in effect: "Don't send your children to the school of the white man. If you do they will grow up with the heart of the white man, and the place of the Havasupai will know them no more. Your tribe will be broken up, and then the white man will come and take possession of your canyon home where the stream ever flows and sings to the waving of willows by their side. He will rob you of your corn-fields and of your peach orchards. No longer will the place where the bodies of your ancestors were burned be sacred to you; your hunting-grounds are now all occupied by him, the deer and the antelope have nearly disappeared before his rifle, and he is hungry to possess the few things you still have left. This offer is a secret plot against you. He thinks if he cannot drive you out he will seduce you out, and this school is the offer he makes to you, so that he can get your children into his hands. There he will teach them to make fun of you; to despise your method of living; your houses, your food, your dress, your customs, your dances will all be ridiculed by him, and so you will lose the favor of 'Those Above,' and you yourselves will soon die and your name and tribe be forgotten." In other words, he endeavored to make it perfectly clear to the assembled Havasupais that the school proposition was a white man's scheme—a dodge—to get their children away so that eventually they—the whites—might claim the Havasu Canyon for themselves.
Thus he exhorted time after time, and, after each sermon, sang out, line for line, a new song that he desired them to learn. At first he alone sang, then Navaho and a few of the older ones took up the strain, and soon all joined in. Then the dance began, and continued with unabated zeal and fervor until the "missioner" gave the signal for rest. Then, after another harangue, another song was learned, another dance performed, and so on, ad libitum.
The state of mental exaltation or frenzy, not unlike those peculiar manifestations of the negroes at revival meetings, the Shakers, "having the power" etc., is not uncommon among the Havasupais. At the Thapala Dance I have seen three women almost simultaneously suddenly dart from different parts of the dance circle, and hysterically shrieking, yelling, and singing, foaming at the mouth, tearing their hair, falling down with violence, and with appalling disregard to the injury to their own bodies dash against each other, or on the great central tree trunk, which stands like a flagpole in the centre of their dance corral, yield to this uncontrollable frenzy, and remain under its influence for an hour or more. During the whole time of their ecstasy, the dance continued uninterruptedly, except when one of the frenzied women dashed towards the dancers as if to escape the circle. Then the man nearest by rudely took her by the arms, body, or shoulders and thrust her, shrieking, back into the centre of the circle.
Yunosi gained her present name because of her occult powers and frenzied visions. After Hotouta's death she would occasionally wake up and cry out that she saw the spirit of her husband, "Tom, heap big Supai chief." And, strange to say, in these exalted moments she invariably spoke in the crude English her husband had taught her and of which she was very proud. Pointing into vacant space, with glaring eyes and excited voice, she would declare that she saw "Big chief Tom. He come back to see me. O Tom! Tom! I see you." Then turning to her friends and others around, she would shriekingly ask, "You no see? You no see?" And thus she gained her name, Yunosi.
Thinking that perhaps the Havasupais used some herb, drug, or intoxicant, similar to opium, hasheesh, or the stramonium (jimson-weed) which the Navahoes use to produce similar frenzies and visions, I took some of this, which they call smal-a-ga-to-a, and asked several if they ever used it. In every case the answer was a sharp "No! Han-a-to-op-o-gi," and one Havasu informed me it was "very bad. All same white man's whiskey." Indeed, such has been the excellent teaching they have received from their ancients, and the tenacity with which they, as a people, have adhered to it, it may be safely affirmed that the Havasupais use no noxious drug, or fermented or intoxicating liquor, and that they do not know any processes by which they can be made.
The ways of the Havasupai medicine-men are similar to those of fakirs in all lands and ages. I have seen Rock Jones, after examining a patient, jump up and excitedly exclaim: "I can see into your head and all through your brains; down your throat and into your stomach, through your kidneys, bladder, and intestines, and you are sick, very sick, very heap sick. But I am a good medicine-man. I can cure you sure, I can cure you quick. But you must promise to give me five dollars. Don't forget I must have five dollars."