144 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural gistory. [Vol. XXI, 



(Fig. 9) was an oblong space of cleared ground two and one-half by five 

 feet. Each of the longer sides was bounded by a row of willow arches, 

 and outside of each row there lay a parallel log of equal length. Within 

 the cleared space there were four rows of juniper sprigs. A sacred oblong 

 of this general type is used by various Plains tribes in their ceremonials, 

 perhaps most frequently in the Sun dance (Arapaho, Cheyenne, Dakota). 



According to Gray-bull the altar forms part of the original vision 

 of the Tobacco dance. Plenty-hawk explained that it represents the 

 Tobacco garden, the arches standing for its enclosure. Three cow chips 

 on the altar serve for fuel when the Pipe-bearer lights his pipe and burns 

 incense. Sometimes the entire oblong is strewn with juniper, but in 1911 

 the half farther from the medicines and willow sticks was bare. The 

 juniper represents the Tobacco when green; it is not removed after the 

 adoption, indeed the entire altar remains intact. Thus, the logs are 

 held sacred and must not be used for firewood. Pretty-enemy said the 

 oblong represented the Tobacco garden and the juniper the material 

 anciently burned on it before planting. 



Bear-gets-up stated that the altar was generally in the exact center 

 of the lodge and the medicine bags were laid on the short west side of the 

 oblong. He added, however, that the details in the arrangement depend 

 on the Owner's dreams. 



At 10 a.m. I found the adopting Weasel chapter already gathered in 

 one of the tipis, which I will call the preparatory tipi. The drummers 

 occupied one side, the women and spectators the remainder of the 

 space. In the center two slender willow branches were stuck into 

 the ground at some distance from each other. An elderly woman seated 

 near the middle was painting the members. Some of the women had 

 already been painted. There seemed to be two groups of women, 

 distinguished by their paint, and later these groups danced at different 

 times. One group had red paint on the entire lower part of the face 

 including the upper lip. On each cheek was traced a blue design con- 

 sisting of a stem with two pairs of branches symmetrically arranged, 

 forming the beginning of a herringbone pattern. The second group were 

 not painted in uniform fashion, in fact some lacked all such decoration. 

 The rest had the lower half of the face painted red like the first group, 

 but on each cheek some had slanting red lines suggesting fingerprints, 

 while in one case two short vertical lines were observed. In the course 

 of the hot summer day the paint was naturally obliterated by perspira- 

 tion. 



