THE MEDICINE DANCE. 279 



The number of guards is about equal to that ot the 

 dancers. The announcement of the names of dancers and 

 guards, and of the hour when the dance is to commence, 

 is made in a loud voice from the door of the medicine 

 lodge. Each and all named are warned that disgrace and 

 death will be the portion of any warrior who fails to appear 

 at the time appointed. 



A few moments before the specified time, the guard, 

 fully armed and under its appointed captain, files into the 

 lodge and takes its place just outside the ropes of the 

 inner circle. At the appointed instant the dancers are 

 escorted by the medicine chief to the inner circle. Each 

 is stripped to the breech clout (sometimes entirely naked), 

 and holds in his mouth a small whistle of wood or bone, 

 in the lower end of which is fastened a single tail-feather 

 of the medicine bird. 1 



The medicine chief arranges the dancers in a circle 

 facing to the centre, whilst he himself, having got out of 

 the way, gives the signal to commence. At once every 

 dancer fixes his eye on the suspended image, blows shrilly 

 and continuously on his whistle, and begins the mono- 

 tonous and graceless Indian dance, the whole line of 

 dancers moving slowly round the circle. Some of the 

 young ones, carried away by religious enthusiasm, bound 

 vigorously into the air; but the older and more experienced 

 expend only a bare sufficiency of force, for this is a dance 

 of endurance. The will of the gods is to be known by 

 the effect of the dance on the dancers, and, until the high 

 priest shall announce himself satisfied, the dancers must 

 continue their weary round, without sleep, food, drink, 

 or obedience to any call of nature. 



For the first eight or ten hours the dance is uninter- 



1 The Road Bunner, or Chapparal Cock. This bird is believed by all the 

 plains Indians to be wonderfully ' good medicine/ The skin, or even some 

 feathers, are as efficacious in keeping evil from the lodge as was the horse- 

 shoe to our ancestors. The poor bird pays dearly for this favourable opinion. 

 It is incessantly hunted by the Indians, and is now exceedingly rare on the 

 plains north of Texas. 



