Hunter. Yes. The Mandans were strong in their village, but comparatively weak whenever they left it, for then they were soon in the neighbourhood of their powerful enemies. This being the case, when the buffaloes of the prairie wandered far away from them, they were at times half starved. The buffalo dance was to make buffaloes come back again to the prairies near them.
Brian. But how could they bring them back again?
Hunter. The buffalo dance was a kind of homage paid to the Great Spirit, that he might take pity on them, and send them supplies. The dancers assembled in the middle of the village, each wearing his mask, with its horns and long tail, and carrying in his hand a lance, or a bow and arrows. The dance began, by about a dozen of them thus attired, starting, hopping, jumping and creeping in all manner of strange, uncouth forms; singing, yelping, and making odd sounds of every description, while others were shaking rattles and beating drums with all their might; the drums, the rattles, the yelling, the frightful din, with the uncouth antics of the dancers, altogether presented such a scene, that, were you once to be present at a buffalo dance, you would talk of it long after, and would not forget it all the days of your lives.
Basil. And do they keep that up for a fortnight?
Hunter. Sometimes much longer, for they never give over dancing till the buffaloes come. Every dancer, when he is tired, (and this he makes known by crouching down quite low,) is shot with blunt arrows, and dragged away, when his place is supplied by another. While the dance is going on, scouts are sent out to look for buffaloes, and as soon as they are found, a shout of thanksgiving is raised to the Great Spirit, to the medicine man, and to the dancers, and preparation is made for a buffalo hunt. After this, a great feast takes place; all their sufferings from scarcity are forgotten, and they are as prodigal, and indeed wasteful, of their buffalo meat, as if they had never known the want of it.
Austin. Well, I should like to see the buffalo dance. Could not we manage one on the lawn, Brian?
Brian. But where are we to get the buffalo masks from? The buffalo hunt did very well, but I hardly think we could manage the dance Please to tell us of the bear dance.
Hunter. I think it will be better to tell you about that, and other dances, the next time you visit me; for I want to read to you a short account, which I have here, of a poor Indian woman of the Dog-ribbed tribe. I have not said much of Indian women, and I want you to feel kindly towards them. It was Hearne, who went with a party from Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean, many years ago, who fell in with the poor woman.
Basil. Oh, yes; let us hear all about her; and you can tell us of the dances when we come again.
Hunter. Now, then, I will begin. One day in January, when they were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snow-shoe, which they followed, and at a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. On examination, she proved to be one of the Dog-ribbed Indians, who had been taken prisoner by another tribe, in the summer of 1770; and, in the following summer, when the Indians that took her prisoner were near this place, she had escaped from them, intending to return to her own country. But the distance being so great, and having, after she was taken prisoner, been carried in a canoe the whole way, the turnings and windings of the rivers and lakes were so numerous that she forgot the track; so she built the hut in which she was found, to protect her from the weather during the winter, and here she had resided from the first setting-in of the fall.