July 28, 1904] 



NATURE 



are carefully recorded. We can heartily congratulate 

 the author and the museum authorities on the publi- 

 cation of this authoritative memoir. More inform- 

 ation would, however, be welcome as to the precise 

 part taken by the several social groups of the Arapaho 

 in this national festival, as this is usually an important 

 element in social ritual. Apparently the ceremony may 

 take place at any time, but it is generally during the 

 winter. It is performed in compliance with a vow. 



Many ceremonies are performed in connection with 

 a Rabbit-tipi (or tent), which is erected on the first day, 

 and the men who perform the rites are known as 

 Rabbit-men ; the origin of the name is due to a myth. 

 On the second day a sweat-lodge is built, not only as 

 a means of bodilv purification, but because they want 

 to be cleansed from former sins, evil desires, and to 

 be protected from all kinds of plagues. Next, a bison 

 should be caught and killed; now thev have to content 



susceptible to the influence of the sun, and they are 

 exhorted to be of a reverent frame of mind. The 

 rising sun is greeted with a dance. During this most 

 ijiiportant day of the series new chiefs are in- 

 augurated and names changed. There is a consider- 

 able amount of evidence that in former times un- 

 bridled license prevailed throughout the camp on this 

 night, which was taken advantage of by all, as it was 

 considered one of the rites of the ceremony ; in more 

 recent years this has been entirely given up, but the 

 occasion is utilised for courting. The seventh day 

 commences and ends with sun dances, and then takes 

 place the ceremony with the symbolic sun-wheel. The 

 dancing is particularly fatiguing, and finally, in the 

 ceremony witnessed by Dr. Dorsey, a great shout was 

 sent up by all, for the ceremony had come to a happy 

 termination without anyone falling by the way and 

 without a mishap. This impressive exhibition of 

 endurance and faith is termed " gambling against the 

 .Sun." It expresses on the part of each dancer his 

 earnest prayer and effort to conquer, to survive, and 

 to complete his three days' fast without falling, in 

 spite of the opposition of the intense heat of the sun ; 

 to survive means to win benefit. Then follow the 

 bathing and purification of the dancers. 



On the last day of the sun dance ceremony there 

 takes place the final dancing out to meet the sun ; the 

 method of advancing by degrees outside the lodge 

 is a form of asking the Man-.Above and the Grand- 

 father to listen to their prayers ; it also typifies the 

 going after something which is good. A shaking of 

 blankets which takes place may be regarded as a purifi- 

 ration rite whereby sickness and sorrow are shaken 

 <iff. The smoking of the straight-pipe (Fig. i) at this 

 lime, on the part of all, which forms the final per- 

 formance in the ceremony, is to the effect that all 

 might follow a straight road, that all might be pre- 

 lected, and that the families of those who have fasted 

 ,ind taken part in the ceremony might be guarded from 

 harm, inasmuch as they have performed the ceremony 

 according to the orders of the Man-Above. 



Before dispersal, parents, often accompanied by their 

 rhildren, enter the Offerings '-lodge, and after pray- 

 ing, tie on to the centre-pole the clothes discarded 

 by their children during the year. One of these 

 |)ravers is as follows :— " White Man-.Above, my 

 I'fither, here are the clothes of my child. I am going 

 10 deposit them. They are no longer good for my 

 rhild. By doing this I ask you to watch over him 

 from day to day and keep him from temptation. May 

 he grow up to be a man, to understand your teach- 

 ings which we have just gone through! I hope you 

 will hear our prayer for my child." 



k. C. H ADDON. 



-Thi >traight-i^ipe being smoked by the Su 



themselves with any old buffalo robe that is available, 

 ;md this skin has to be painted. On the fourth day 

 the centre-pole for the Offerings'-lodge is cut down by 

 two women, and brought into the camp and erected in 

 its midst with great ceremony; as this new lodge is 

 being completed, final rites are held within the 

 Kabbit-tipi. In this very large lodge is the altar, and 

 here dancing takes place, which is at the present day 

 of a simple character. Near midnight of the second 

 and fourth davs a remarkable symbolic ceremony takes 

 place between the grandfather and wife of the Lodge- 

 Maker. The former personifies the sun and the latter 

 the moon, and the ceremony brings strength to the 

 people and increase to the tribe. The sixth day is 

 known as "Medicine Day"; the dancers have now 

 fasted for about forty hours, and it is supposed that 

 bv this time their minds are in a proper condition to be 



NO. 18 I 3, vol.. 70] 



THE UNGULATE MOLAR.' 



IN the course of his attempt to solve the puzzle of 

 the homologies of the cusps in the more compli- 

 cated types of ungulate molars, the author of this 

 bulky memoir takes the opportunity of directing atten- 

 tion to certain points with regard to mammalian 

 dentition in general, and also comments on the exceed- 

 ing intricacy and difficulty of several of the problems 

 presented thereby. The solution of one difficulty, he 

 observes, not unfrequently gives rise to a whole crop 

 of fresh problems, and, paradoxical as it may seem, 

 every increase in our knowledge serves only to reveal 

 the depth of our ignorance. 



With the enormous amount of variation displayed 



1 " Recherches de Morphologie phyloginitique sur les Molaires supe'ricures 

 ries Ongul^s." By F. Ameghino. An. Mus. Buenos Aires, ser. 2, vol. iii. 

 Pp. 541, figures. 



