[RITES OVER THE SUIT]
When the suit was put on for the first time by the bear doctor, the following elaborate ceremony was performed. The assistant took up his position in the center of the practice ground, having on one side of him four hundred counting sticks, each about the size of a lead pencil, nicely arranged in even rows. Directly in front of him was the entire bear doctor’s suit, except the beads and bead belts; that is, the basketry helmet, the bearskin garment, the two water baskets, the dagger of elk antler, and the obsidian knife. These were the articles which were strictly ceremonial, and which must never be handled by women or children for the reason that they were the property of the particular supernatural beings under whose patronage the bear doctor operated and whose powers were invoked for his success, especially by means of a long series of ritualistic songs sung by his assistant during the ceremony of donning the suit, now to be described.
While the assistant sang the ritualistic songs, the bear doctor who was to wear the suit danced up toward it four times each from each of the four cardinal points in the following order: north, west, south, and east. Each time the dancer advanced toward the suit, the singer raised above his head one counter from the one side and as the dancer receded placed it on his opposite side. Thus this portion of the ceremony took sixteen counters. Having thus approached the suit four times the sacred number four, the dancer picked up with his left hand the basketry helmet and danced with it four times around the practice ground, the singer keeping tally with the necessary four sticks. He then danced four times up toward and back from the place on the practice ground where he intended to temporarily place this object, so using another four counters. Thus there were used in all with this one object twenty-four counters.
He did precisely the same with each of the remaining five articles of the suit. Thus one hundred and forty-four counters were transferred from the original group to the singer’s opposite side.
He next took all six of these articles in both hands and performed the same cycle of twenty-four dance movements that was employed in handling each separately, so using one hundred and sixty-eight counters up to this point.
He then repeated this entire cycle of one hundred and sixty-eight dance movements in precisely the same order and manner as just described, but using the right hand instead of the left, thus using three hundred and thirty-six counters up to this point.
He next repeated all the foregoing movements exactly in reverse order in every respect; taking up the articles in reverse order and dancing toward the cardinal points in reverse order and using the hands in reverse order, thus using six hundred and seventy-two counters up to this point.
He finally took the entire suit in both hands and went around the practice ground four times in a clockwise direction and then four times in a contra-clockwise direction, thus using in all six hundred and eighty counters, indicative of that number of separate movements, or rather one hundred and seventy distinct types of movements each repeated four times.