The Shoshoiii-Goship Indians. 231 



through a number of circuits. If large, it is repeated only 

 through one circuit, measured by the return of the leaders to 

 the starting point. Each song is started in the same manner, 

 first in an undertone while the singers stand still in their 

 places, and then with the full voice as they begin to circle 

 around. When once begun, the dance lasts throughout the 

 remainder of the night. It leads toward the hypnotic, and is 

 vigorously performed. 



THE. BEAR DANCE OF THE GOSHIP INDIANS 



The Indians planned to have a bear dance. They had a 

 common steel washtub inverted in the center of the proposed 

 dancing area, and the musicians began to sing and draw 

 notched sticks over the edge of this inverted tub, thus mak- 

 ing a rumbling, horrible (to me), but rhythmic noise to the 

 time of the song sung. For some reason the dance was aban- 

 doned. 



However, I learned that it was a choosing-partner dance of 

 the wagon-spoke type, the performers being arranged like the 

 spokes of a wheel. The hub of the dance-wheel is the group of 

 drummers and chanters. Around this hub there is a circular 

 dancing area of a radius of, say, thirty feet. In this area the 

 dancers dance. The squaws choose their male partners, usu- 

 ally one but sometimes two or more, by going up to the mu- 

 sician group and simply tapping her choice with her hand. 

 Sometimes she gets the "glove" and has to dance alone. When 

 ready, the actors dance a straight forward and backward 

 dance on a radius, or spoke-line, of the wheel. The squaw 

 faces the hub ; her partner faces in the opposite direction. 

 When she dances forward her partner (or partners) retro- 

 grade backwards, and when the hub is reached she retrogrades 

 and they dance forward to the rim of the circle, the backward 

 and forward sweep being a radius of the circle. The dancers 

 often lock arms and dance side by side, but sometimes they 

 face each other's right shoulder. A set lasts with the song 

 ^ung, and at the beginning of each new song a new set is 

 foiTned. This dance is picturesque. 



HEALTH CONDITIONS. 



These are the healthiest Indians I have met in seventeen 

 years in the Indian service ; yet an examination by Dr. Ferdi- 

 nand Shoemaker, assistant medical supervisor in the United 



