DOBSEY.] DANCING SOCIETIES. 429 



THE OTTER DAXCING SOCIETY. 



§86. The members of this order shot at one another with their otter- 

 skin bags, as has been tlie custom in the Wacieka dancing society of 

 the Omaha (Om. Soc, pp. 34:5, 3-iG). Some have said that they waved 

 their otter-skin bags around in order to infuse the spirit of the otter 

 into a bead in its mouth, and tliat it was by the spirit of the otter that 

 they knocked one another down. Each one who xn'acticed this dance 

 professed to keep some small round object in his breast to cough it up 

 before or during the dance, and to use it for shooting one of his com- 

 panions in the neck. He who was thus shot did in turn cough up the 

 mysterious object, and at the end of the dance each member swallowed 

 his own shell or pebble. 



THE RED iMEUICINE DANCING SOCIETY. 



§ 87. The Indians used'to obtain in the prairies, towards the Rocky 

 Mountains, an object about the size of a bean or small hazelnut and of 

 a red color. Mr. Hamilton was told that it grew on bushes, and that 

 it was considered to be alive, and they looked on it as a mysterious 

 animal. In the red medicine dance the person who makes the medi- 

 cine kills the animals by crushing the beans and boiling them in a large 

 kettle lilled with water. This drink is designed for or api)ropriated by 

 a few members, and they drink the licpiid when it is quite hot. The 

 more that they drink the more they desire, and they seem able to drink 

 almost any quantity. It produces a kind of intoxication, making them 

 full of life, as they say, and enabling them to dance a long time. (See 

 §62.) 



GREEN CORN l>ANCE. 



§ 88. This dance did not originate with the Iowa. It is said that the 

 Sac tribe obtained it ft-om the Shawnee. It is held after night. Men 

 and women dance together, and if any women or men wish to leave 

 their consorts they do it at this dance and mate anew, nothing being 

 lu'ged against it. 



BUFFALO DANCINc; SOCIETY. 



§ 89. The Iowa have the buffalo dance, and by a comparison of Mr. 

 Hamilton's description of it, and his account of the buffalo doctors, and of 

 the medicine or mystery bag of buffalo hide, with what has been learned 

 about the Omaha order of buffalo shamans (see § 43), it seems probable 

 that among the Iowa this dance was not participated in by any but those 

 who had had visions of the buffalo, and that there was also some con- 

 nection between all thi-ee — the dancing society, the buffalo doctors, and 

 the mysterious bag of buffalo hide. As among the Omaha, the buffalo 

 doctors of the Iowa are the only siu'geous. 



