THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 



743 



The Sioux have a " Sun-Dance," in which the dancers move their 

 bodies from side to side, forward and backward, so as to stretch 

 the gashes in their breasts and shoulders to the fullest extent. 

 "To see one undergoing this fearful torture called dancing," 

 writes Mr. Beckwith, "naked, painted black, hair streaming, 

 blood trickling from their gashes, is a dreadful sight indeed." * 



Let us next observe a remarkable feature of early dancing. 

 There are dances that women may not see, on pain of death. So, 

 too, the women have dances from which the men are rigorously ex- 

 cluded. The Aleuts, according to Mr. Dall, have mysteries sacred 

 to the males and others to the females. \ He says that " hundreds 



Fig. 3. Shaman's Shirt. (Back view.) 



of women, wearing masks, danced naked in the moonlight, men 

 being rigidly excluded, and liable to death if detected in intrud- 

 ing." Mrs. Erminnie Smith mentions a moonlight dance by 

 women of the Iroquois tribe. As to the exclusion of the women 

 from secret dances of the men, and the men from dances per- 

 formed in secret by women, a number of interesting instances 

 might be added. 



* Smithsonian Report, 1886, Part I, p. 250. In Harper's Weekly, December 13, 1890, 

 there is a full-page picture of a Blackfeet brave undergoing the torture in the sun-dance. 

 The spirited drawing was made by Mr. Frederic Remington on the spot. 



\ Third Ethnological Report, p. 139. 



