May, 1903. The Arapaho Sun Dance — Dorsey. 179 



"Turkey, take him home from here!" 

 "He is singing, but he is saucy!" 

 "You are a darkey, don't smile at me!" 

 "Sleep with him, for he is not married!" 

 "He smokes twice!" 

 "Leave your husband, he is ugly!" 



"That ugly person is trying to sing; he thinks he is a beauty!" 

 "The man with a dark complexion laughs at me!" 

 Formerly, there were a great many songs with serious words, but 

 gradually they have been forgotten. 



XllI.—TORTURE. 



No forms of torture have for many years been practiced in con- 

 nection with the Offerings-lodge. This is due, not so much to the 

 decree of the Indian Department forbidding it, as to the fact that the 

 reason for the torture no longer exists. The undergoing of the tor- 

 ture on the part of those who were to dance was strictly a rite and 

 was only undertaken with the idea of war in view, it being supposed 

 that by undergoing this torture they would escape all danger in battle. 



In former times, when torture was practiced, it came on the third 

 day of the ceremony, i. e. , on the day of the third paint, or on the day 

 following the completion of the lodge and its altar. Those who were 

 to undergo torture danced during the other days of the ceremony in 

 line with the other dancers. 



The Lodge-Maker never underwent torture. According to my 

 informant, there was only one form of torture among the Arapaho. 

 By this method the priest inserted two small wooden skewers in the 

 breast of the devotee, which were fastened to the ends of a lariat, the 

 other ends of which were made fast to the two slits, already 

 described, in the buffalo robe in the fork of the center-pole. No 

 special paint belonged with torture, the devotee on that day wearing 

 the paint which he would have worn otherwise as one of the dancers. 



PIERCING THE EARS. 



In connection with torture should be mentioned a custom formerly 

 much in vogue, and which to-day is practiced in a ceremonial manner. 

 Reference is made to piercing the ears of children by the Sun Dance 

 priests. According to the former custom, all children born since the 

 erection of the last lodge, or who for any cause whatsoever had not 

 before been treated, were brought by the mothers and fathers on the 



