Kdrath] IROQUOIS MUSIC AND DANCE 67 



grumpy growl, and his playfulness especially when young. The 

 Iroquois pair up and kick like dancing bears. But, also, they make 

 a communion offering when they "strip the bushes" and partake of 

 nuts and berry juice. They often see live bears, and can thus better 

 imitate them; on Allegany Seneca Reservation and in the nearby 

 State Park, bruins visit camps and dumps as nightly scavengers, and 

 occasionally raid Indian pigpens. Though protected by law, they 

 are man-shy. However, the rite addresses the Great Spirit Bear, 

 who brings on and can cure Ulness. 



BIRDS 



Dances for creatures of the air are even more stylized. Only the 

 eagle mime prescribes imitative postm-e of body and arms. 



Eagle: 



Eagles (Aquila) live in seemingly permanent pairs in high places, 

 nesting in cliffs and circling high above the clouds. They are power- 

 ful birds, 30 to 40 inches long, with a wing span 6 to 8 feet. When 

 their sharp eyes see a reptile, fish, chicken, rabbit, or fawn below on 

 the ground, these screaming robbers descend like thunderbolts. At the 

 last moment they check their speed by spreading the broad wings and 

 white, fan-shaped tail (Burgess, 1928 b, pp. 147-150). They com- 

 monly snatch their prey in a crouching position, grasping it with 

 hooked claws. When feeding on the ground, they hop on both feet 

 and peck with their hooked, yellow beak. 



Seneca eagle dancers hover in two pairs, face-to-face, patterned 

 by moiety (Fenton and Kurath, 1953, pp. 139-144). They utter a 

 shriU cry before each song, lunge with extended arms, and hop with 

 deeply flexed knees. They vie with each other in picking up coins 

 or feathers with their teeth, or in nibbling at a cooked chicken placed 

 on the floor as a symbolic offering. The performance of these four 

 youths is distinctive, quite different from the collective rounds. 



When the Seneca used to trap eagles for their feathers, they caught 

 the Bald Eagle. It is doubtful that they ever saw the great Condor 

 of California with its 10-foot wing span, though the Onondaga speak 

 of their Condor Dance. The dance and its mythological allusions, 

 however, are addressed to the supernatural eagles, the Iroquois Dew 

 Eagle, corresponding to the Plains and West Coast Thunderbird. 

 The eagle's dizzy hovering and lightning descent, indeed, suggest 

 storm clouds, lightning, and thunder, and associate him with the Sun, 

 patron of war (Blair, 1911, p. 178). In contest with the evil serpent, 

 he is victorious. The Seneca Eagle rite, while it serves cure, is also 

 connected with the dances of Sun and War. As a descendant of the 

 Plains Calumet Dance, it is also symbolic of peace. 



