January 25, 1906] 



NA TURE 



301 



the capture respectively of the bison (buffalo), elk, and 

 deer. The Coyote society derives its name from the 

 fact that its members imitate the coyote in their power 

 of endurance, cunning, and activity; they outstrip 

 their fellow-tribesmen in running long distances, play- 

 ing games, &c. The Dog-men were raiders. It 

 would therefore seem evident that, judging from the 

 analogies in Australia and Torres Straits, these are 



> 



detail in a separate memoir, and is copiously illus- 

 trated with 105 figures, nearly all of which are from 

 photographs, and some fifty plates, many of which 

 are in colours. In 1903 Dr. Dorsey published an 

 elaborate monograph on the Arapaho sun-dance (cf. 

 Nature, June 28, 1904), and now we have from his 

 pen a companion account of the same dance as per- 

 formed by another tribe of Plains Indians. The name 

 given by the Cheyenne to the sun-dance is the 

 New-Life-Lodge; according to the interpretation of 

 the priest, the name means not only the lodge of 

 new life, or lodge of new birth, but it is the new life 

 itself. The performance of the ceremony is supposed 

 to re-create, to re-form, to re-animate the earth, vege- 

 tation, and animal life; thus it is the ceremonj of 

 the re-birth. As one of the priests put it, " Formerly 

 this dance represented only the creation of the earth. 

 The Cheyenne grew careless and combined other 

 things with the ceremony. At the time of the Love- 

 tipi (or Sacred Lodge), though everything is .barren 

 (referring to the bare space made within the tipi), the 

 earth is beginning to grow. Now it has grown. Thus 

 they make the earth, buffalo wallow, grease, wool, 

 and sinew to make growth. By the time of the end 

 of the lodge things have grown, people have become 

 happy; the world has reached its full growth, and 

 people rejoice. When they use the bone whistle they 

 are happy like the eagle, which is typical of all birds 

 and of happiness." 



It would take too long to describe the ceremonies, 

 which are evidently very ancient and sacred. Thanks 

 to the labours of Dr. Dorsey and other American 

 in reality ancient totemic clans which were re-organised colleagues, the religious symbolism of the Plains 

 by the prophet and still retain their magical func- Indians is beginning to be understood, and researches 

 tions. The Inverted or Bow-string Warrior society such as these will afford valuable data to the students 

 is but little known throughout the tribe; it was of comparative religion. The rite of sacrifice by 

 founded by the prophet subsequently to the others; means of self-inflicted torture was common to many 

 there was no chief, each warrior being independent of of the Plains tribes, but, so far as is known, it was 

 the rest, though all dressed alike 

 and were always prepared for war. 

 I hi close observance of the regu- 

 lations of this society by its 

 members gives them a character 

 distinct from that of the other 

 societies, and they arc regarded as 

 pure. They rejoice in the beauty 

 of nature as the work of the Great 

 Medicine, who created the rivers, 

 hills, mountains, heavenly bodies, 

 and the clouds. They are the 

 philosophers among the people. 

 Since the advent of the white man 

 a sixth warrior society, the Owl- 

 man's Bow-string or Wolf 

 Warriors, has been founded; it 

 alone, of all the warrior societies, 

 dances with guns, and they shoot 

 blank cartridges. This paper is 

 illustrated by a number of plates, 

 most of which are facsimiles of 

 coloured drawings by Cheyenne 

 artists ; they illustrate the cere- 

 monial costumes and parapher- 

 nalia of the members of the socie- 

 ties, as well as sun-dance myths ; 

 the drawings are so much in advance of those usually practised by no tribe to a greater extent than by the 

 drawn by backward peoples as to suggest that the Cheyenne. The torture depended upon a vow taken 

 artists learnt from Europeans. It would have been an voluntarily; the form most intimately connected with 

 advantage if Dr. Dorsey had said a little more about the sun-dance was by attachment in one way or 



— Incident during 

 n) skulls 

 Indian's back 



the conditions unde 

 idea of illustratin 

 good one. 



The Cheyenne sun-dan 

 NO. l8qi , VOL. 



which they 

 memoir In- 



here executed ; 

 native talent 



the 



:e is described in considerable 

 73] 



another to the centre-pole; a drawing by a Cheyenne 

 (Fig. 1) illustrates this, and in addition the suspen- 

 sion of buffalo (bison) skulls to the skin. A 

 second form of torture was practised about the camp- 



