When I first read this, I thought of and began to compare the different types of Indian dances and ceremonies I had witnessed: the Butterfly, Basket, and Corn dances, the Snake and Flute Dances of the Hopi; the Medicine Sings, and squaw dances, and the Ye-be-chai of the Navajo; the colorful pageants of the Pueblos, after Catholic Mass is celebrated on the name-days of their patron saints, and the fiesta begins; the memorial ceremony of the Mohave, and their cremation of the dead. And those slam-bang, whirlwind dances of the Sioux.
Some of these were commemorative; some were fixed ceremonials; some were of little moment; some seemed nothing more serious than masquerades; some were filled with superstition and had just a touch of smoldering fanaticism under the veneer of paint and feathers. A few were social gatherings, a break in the monotony of existence, having in them “the joy of life.” And while all of the native dances should have thrown around them a thin [[276]]line of supervision and restraint, many of them should be by no means “lightly touched.”
The Snake Dance may be dangerous, and it is certainly revolting at first sight. And perhaps it should be prohibited. That is a point of view. I am not thoroughly convinced of its danger to Indians, since I never heard of a Hopi dying from snake-bite. I saw so many Snake Dances that the edge has been dulled from my original thrill. If tourists were denied the pleasure of seeing it, I believe the ceremony would soon languish, and pass away entirely with the going of the elders from the mesa stage. Certainly I sought to prevent its perpetuation through the initiation of children, but without result, for I was unsupported in this, and alone I feared my inability to stifle a pagan war.
But of those things that should be dealt with gently, the tiny shows that the vacationist seldom sees and the Bureau has never heard of, I recall the Dance of the Dolls.
One afternoon, at First Mesa, I came along a trail toward the witch’s camp, meaning to start for home once the team was harnessed. I met an Indian of the district walking with my interpreter, and was about to give direction concerning the horses when the latter said:—
“He wants you to stay and see the Dolls’ Dance.”
Now I had quite a collection of Hopi dolls, those quaint figurines carved with some skill from pieces of cottonwood, and dressed in the regalia of twig and feather and fur to represent the various katchinas of the clans. But I had never heard of a dance devoted to these little mannequins.
“What sort of dance is that?” I asked.
“It is called the Dolls-Grind-Corn dance,” he replied.
“When—to-morrow?” thinking of those monotonous [[277]]open-air drills, having various names but scarcely to be distinguished one from the other.