The dance of the braves is beautiful and exciting in the highest degree:—“At intervals the dancers stop, and one of them steps into the ring and vociferates as loudly as possible the feats of bravery which he has performed during his life.... He boasts of the scalps he has taken, and reproduces the motions and actions of the scenes in which his exploits were performed. When his boasting is concluded, all assent to the truth of his story, and express their approval by the guttural ‘waugh!’ Then the dance commences again. At the next interval another makes his boast, and so another and another, till all have given a narrative of their heroic deeds, and proved their right to be associated with the braves of the nation.”
The dog dance, though a favorite with the Sioux, is not an attractive one.
The hearts and livers of two or more slain dogs are placed entire and uncooked upon two crotches, about as high as a man’s head, and are cut into strips so as to hang down. The dance then commences, which consists in each one proclaiming his exploits in loud, almost deafening gutturals and yells. At the same time the dancers, two at a time, move up to the stake, and bite off a piece of the heart and swallow it. All this is done without losing step or interrupting the harmony of their voices. The significance of the dance is that none can share in it but the braves who can boast that they have killed their foe in battle and swallowed a piece of his heart.
Among the Sacs and Foxes there are several singular dances, besides some already mentioned, viz: the slave dance (a very curious one), dance to the Berdashe, which is an amusing scene, and dance to the medicine of the brave. There is a tender and beautiful lesson conveyed in this latter dance. In the [illustration] of it on page 1322, a party of Sac warriors are represented as returned victorious from battle, with the scalps they have taken as trophies. Having lost one of their party, they appear and dance in front of his wigwam fifteen days in succession, about an hour each day, the widow having hung his medicine bag on a green bush, which she erects before her door, and under which she sits and cries whilst the warriors dance and brandish the scalps they have taken. At the same time they recount the heroic exploits of their fallen comrade, to solace the grief of his widow, and they throw her presents as they dance before her, that she may be kept from poverty and suffering.
There is little in these dances that resembles the “light fantastic toe” and giddy maze of the dance among the civilized. The former consist very much of jumps and starts—oftentimes the most grotesque, and even violent exertions—united with songs and yells, sometimes deafening by their sound or fearful by the wildness and intense excitement that are manifested.
To a looker on not familiar with the peculiar significance of these displays, they seem only a series of uncouth and meaningless motions and distortions, accompanied with harsh sounds, all forming a strange, almost frightful medley. Yet Mr. Catlin says “every dance has its peculiar step and every step has its meaning. Every dance has also its peculiar song, which is so intricate and mysterious oftentimes, that not one in ten of the young men who are singing know the meaning of the songs. None but medicine men are allowed to understand them.” There are dances and songs, however, not so intricate, which are understood and participated in by all the tribe.
The beating of drums, the yells, stamping, and bellowing, the noisy demonstrations forming so great a part of Indian amusements, will remind the reader of similar manifestations among some of the African tribes, recorded in the first part of this work.
The game which is perhaps the most popular and widely spread is almost unintelligible to an uninstructed bystander. Its title is Tchung-chee, that being the name of the spear which will be presently described. It is played with a ring about three inches in diameter, made of bone or wood wrapped with cord, and a slight spear, on which are several little projections of leather. The players roll the ring along the ground, and as it is about to fall, project the spear so that, as the ring falls, it may receive within it one of the pieces of leather. If it does so, the player scores one or more points, according to the particular projection which is caught in the ring, and the mode in which it flies.
Another variation of this game, called Al-kol-lock, has the spear without the leathern projections, but in their stead six colored beads are fixed inside the ring. At each end of the smooth clay course, which is about fifty feet in length, a slight barrier is erected. The players bowl the ring from one end of the course, run after it, and as it falls after striking the barrier, throw their spears as described above, the points being reckoned according to the color of the bead which lies on them.
The absorption of the players in this game is beyond description. They will play at it all day, gamble away their horses, their tents, their clothes, and, when they have lost all their property, will stake themselves, the loser becoming the slave of the winner.