Bt-NZEL] RELIGIOUS LIFE 497 



taken out of the dance songs of the Corn dance and retaining the 

 characteristic ritard at the close which is found in all dance songs. 

 These songs are sung by men accompanied by drum. Women have 

 songs which they use during summer when drumming is taboo. 



Group dancing is regarded as a pleasurable activity, pleasing alil^e 

 to gods and man. Joy is pleasing to the gods and sadness is a sin 

 against them; therefore, for the common man dancing is the most 

 readily accessible and effective form of worship. Usually it is a 

 boy's first vohmtary participation in litual. He dances in mask 

 before he learns the simplest prayer — some people never learn 

 prayers — and long before he learns to make his own prayer sticks. 

 The dance, particularly the masked dance, is preeminently the prov- 

 ince of the young, although many men continue to dance in old age. 

 The origin myth of katcina dancing stresses its pleasurable side. It 

 relates that when the people first settled in villages and increased in 

 nimiber they did not know how to enjoy themselves.^ So their 

 priests made prayer sticks and sent them to their lost children who had 

 been transformed into katcinas, and the katcinas came and danced 

 for their people. But they were the dead, and so when they came 

 someone died. Therefore the people were instructed to copy their 

 masks and dance with them. "When you dance with them we shall 

 come and stand before you, " the katcinas promised, and also promised 

 that it would not fail to rain. Katcina folklore abounds in tales of 

 the devices used by katcinas to enable them to come to Itiwana to 

 dance. There is no myth to explain the origin of unmasked dancing, 

 but the same ideology" of summoning the supernaturals in this manner 

 is current. And dui'ing the winter solstice, when all the ritual groups 

 are holding their ceremonies, the heads of households take six perfect 

 ears of corn and hold them in a basket wliile they sing for them. 

 This is called "dancuig the corn, " and is performed that the com may 

 not feel neglected during the ceremonial season. 



The principal occasions for dancing are the series of summer and 

 winter katcinas, the culminating ceremonies of the Ca'lako, the re- 

 treats of the medicine societies during the solstices, initiations, and 

 the Scalp dance. Certain societies hold special ceremonies in which 

 dancing by members and outsiders figures prominently, the winter 

 ceremonies of the Wood Society and Big Fire Society; the Yaya, the 

 dance of the Shuma'akwe. The so-called Corn dance and the Santu 

 dance are other ceremonies in which dancing is conspicuous. In all 

 these cases dancing accompanies less spectacular rites, usually extend- 

 ing over a longer period than the dance itself. Frequently the dance 

 is subsidiary to these secret and potent rites. Usually it is the younger 

 and less responsible members of the group who dance, the priests 

 and leaders meanwhile remaining in retreat or sitting quietly behind 



•5 See origin tale, p. 605. 



