DENSMORE] NORTHERN UTE MUSIC 81 
man danced all the time; yet there was never a time when some one 
was not dancing. Some men were able to dance as long as four hours 
at atime. The women did not dance, but sat with the men at the 
drum. Sometimes an old man arose and sang his personal song 
received in a dream. <A dancer who had received a song in a dream 
might request his friends to learn it and sing it while he was dancing. 
The dancers did not look at the sun, but at the willow brush on the 
pole. If aman became exhausted he was allowed to sleep for a time. 
At the end of the last day of the dance many gifts were bestowed 
in the lodge. Dancers often gave presents to spectators and expected 
no return. Occasionally a dancer received a horse or some equally 
valuable gift from another dancer, in return for which he ‘‘prayed 
to the sun” for the health of the donor. On this day a medicine man 
frequently took some of the dust that had been under the feet of the 
dancers and put it on the head of a sick person, waving an eagle 
feather over him, this treatment being considered of especial efficacy. 
Relating his personal experience, Pa’gitS said that he had taken 
part in the Sun dance six times. His reason for doing this was a 
belief that some one had “‘poisoned him with rattlesnake poison,” 
producing rheumatism. On the third day of dancing he ‘‘felt better.” 
The entire period of his dancing, however, was four days and nights. 
He stated that he did not experience discomfort from fasting, but that 
the lack of water was hard to endure. 
Words were sometimes used in Sun dance songs, but do not appear 
in the songs herewith presented. No. 23 was sung on the last day of 
the dancing, and No. 26, as already stated, is a song of the parade. 
The other songs were sung at any time during the Sun dance. 
CHARACTERISTICS OF SONGS 
Seventy-five per cent of the Sun dance songs are minor in tonality, 
yet only one song is on the second five-toned (minor pentatonic) 
scale. The melodic material is generous, one-third of the songs con- 
taining the entire octave and others lacking only one or two tones of 
the complete octave. In structure all these songs are either melodic 
or harmonic with melodic framework. A majority of the songs con- 
tain one or more rhythmic units. 
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