KuRATH] IROQUOIS MUSIC AND DANCE 53 



(6) Men forward, women sideward, facing center. False Face 



Round. 

 (c, d) Men forward or gyrating, women sideward, facing center, 

 Feather and Drum Dance. 

 Feather Dance as paradigm for cimiulative pattern of communal 

 rounds (fig. 16): 



Dance 1: Male leaders forging ahead, around bench, inside two 



stoves. 

 Dance 3: Male followers lined up behind leaders, progressing 



ahead. 

 Dance 7: Boys, the women in the wake, stretching to a long line, 

 around both stoves and winding within itself. Entrance of 

 groups successive, increasing in number till end of cycle. 

 Stick figures for male postures. 

 Fish Dance type (fig. 17): 



{a) Men only coupled in typical Fish type pattern, first dance of 

 Fish, Sharpen-a-stick, second dance of Raccoon (song 3). 

 (6) Beginning of all Fish type dances, men and women coupled 

 as shown, all straight ahead, during second statement of 

 A, to duple drum beat. 

 (c) Couples face to face, in place, fish-type step. 

 {d) Couples change places, recapitulation, part A, to half-beat 

 of drum. 

 All of these dances are open rounds, follow-the-leader style. The 

 leader never contacts the tail end of the line to close the circle. Thus 

 anyone can join, either by entering in the middle of the line to join his 

 or her own sex or to produce the desired pattern of alternation or 

 pairing, or else by stretching out the end of the line. When the 

 capacity of the longhouse has reached its limits, the circle has to 

 spiral within itself to accommodate additional dancers, sometimes 

 in Feather Dance to three concentric spirals. This is, however, not 

 a true spiral. The separate dancers contmue to trace circles on the 

 ground, or rather elipses. 



Deviations from the eliptical progression may occur in improvisatory 

 section B of ga'daSo't and Garters, when animated members may 

 stagger into the center and out in a weaving pattern, or may clown in 

 the center in clusters of two, three, or four. In Corn Dance, Albert 

 Jones may guide the entire line in serpentines and figure 8's, occa- 

 sionally reversing the direction momentarily to sunwise progression. 

 In the Cherokee dance he concludes the song series with a spiral into 

 a tight human knot in the center of the room. 



Focus. — Most of the time these rounds focus on one of the furnish- 

 ings. When there is a singers' bench stationed in the center, the cir- 

 cling commences near the bench or benches and continues as long as 



