Trails Through Western Woods

by Helen Fitzgerald Sanders

Then out into the open on the green stepped a girl-child scarcely three years of age, who threw herself into rhythmic motion, swaying her small body to the time of the music and bearing in her quavering treble the burden of the chant. The impressive faces of the spectators melted into smiles. She was the pet of the tribe, the orphan granddaughter of Joe La Mousse and his venerable wife. Loving hands had made for her a war dress which she wore with the grave complaisance of one favoured above her peers. She scorned the sedate dances of the squaws and chose the quicker action of the war dance, and she would not yield her possession of the field without a struggle which showed that the spirit of her fighting fathers still lived in her.

Suddenly a brave painted grotesquely, dressed in splendid colours with a curious contrivance fastened about his waist and standing out behind like a tail, bounded into the ring, his hurrying feet beating to the tintinnabulation of sleigh bells attached to his legs. Michel Kaiser and the young man who sat beside him at the tom-tom gave up their places to others, and after disappearing for a moment came forth freed from encumbering blankets, transformed with paint and ornament. A fourth dancer joined them and the awe-begetting war dance began. The movement was one of restrained force. With bent heads and bodies inclined forward, one arm hanging limp and the other resting easily at the back, they tripped along until a war-whoop like an electric shock, sent them springing into the air with faces turned upward and clenched fists uplifted toward the sky.

It was now that Michel stood revealed in all his physical beauty. In colour and form he was like a perfectly wrought bronze statue. He was tall and slender. His arms and legs, metal-hard, were fleet and strong and his every motion expressed agility and grace. He was clad in the full war-dress of the Selish, somewhat the same as that which his ancestors had worn before the coming of the white man. Upon his head was a bonnet of skunk tails that quivered with the slightest motion of his sinewy body. He wore, besides, a shirt, long, fringed buckskin leggins and beaded moccasins. He was decorated with broad anklets and little bells that tinkled as he moved. Of the four dancers Michel sprang highest, swung in most perfect rhythm, spent in that wild carnival most energy and force. Supple and lean as a panther he curvetted and darted; light as the wind his moccasined feet skimmed over the green, scarcely seeming to crush a spear of grass. As he went through that terrible pantomime practiced by his fathers before they set out to kill or die, the fire flashing in his lynx-eyes, his slim arm poised over his head, his whole willow-lithe body swaying to the impulse of the war-lust, it was easy to fancy how that play might become a reality and he who danced to perpetuate an ancient form might turn relentless demon if the intoxication of the war-path once kindled in his veins.

Abraham Isaac and Michel Kaiser

This war dance explained many things. It was a portrayal of the glorious deeds of the warriors, a recitation of victorious achievement, a picture of battle, of striking the body of the fallen enemy—one of the great tests of valor. The act of striking was considered a far more gallant feat than the taking of a scalp. After a foe was shot and had fallen, a brave seeking distinction, dashed forth from his own band into the open field and under the deadly rain of the enemy's arrows, struck with his hand the body of the dead or wounded warrior. In doing this he not only courted the desperate danger of that present moment, but brought upon his head the relentless vengeance of the family, the followers and the tribe of the fallen foe,—vengeance of a kind that can wait for years without growing cold. By such inspiring examples the young men were stirred to emulation. The dance showed, too, how in the past the storm-clouds of war gathered slowly until, with lightning flash and thunder-blast, the warriors lashed themselves to the white-heat of frenzy at which they mocked death. The whole thing seemed to be a marshalling of the passions, a blood-fire as irresistible and sweeping as those floods of flame which lay the forests low.

The warriors ceased their mad career. The sweat streamed from their brows and down their cheeks as they sat beneath the shade trees in repose. Still the tom-tom beat and the chant continued:

"Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!"

They needed no urging now. What did they care for vespers and sermons when the ghostly voices of warrior-ancestors, of forest dwellers and huntsmen came echoing from the lips of the past? Their spirit was aroused and the festival would last until the passion was quenched and their veins were cooled.

The next dance was started by a squaw. It was called the "choosing dance," from the fact that either a man or a woman chose a partner for the figure. The ceremony of invitation was simple. The one who desired to invite another, grasped the individual's arm and said briefly: