THE DANCE FOR THE DEAD. 385 
exercises were conducted with more energy and with fuller choruses than 
they would have been after the Indians had become exhausted. 
When Tueh, the Indian interpreter, and myself entered the camp it 
was already an hour after nightfall, but there were yet no indications of 
a beginning of the dark orgies that were to be enacted. We found about 
three hundred Indians assembled, in a place remote from any American 
habitations, and encamped in light, open booths of brushwood, running 
around three sides of a spacious quadrangle. This quadrangle had been 
swept and beaten smooth for a dancing-floor, and near one of the inside 
corners there was a small, circular embankment, like a circus-ring, with the 
sacred fire brightly burning in the center. Kolomusnim and his relatives, 
the chief mourners, occupied the corner-booths near this ring, and near by 
was Sloknich, the head-chief of the Chukchansi, by whose authority this 
assembly had been convened. Here and there a fire burned with a stag- 
gering, sleepy blaze just outside the quadrangle, faintly glimmering through 
the booths; at intervals an Indian moved stealthily across the half-illu- 
minated space within; while every few minutes the atmosphere was ren- 
dered discordant and hideous, as indeed the whole night was, during the 
most solemn passages, by the yelping, snarling, and fighting of the hordes 
of dogs. 
For fully half an hour we slowly sauntered and loitered about the 
quadrangle, conversing in undertones, but still nothing occurred to break 
the somber silence, save the ever-recurring scurries of yelps from the 
accursed dogs. Now and then an Indian slowly passed across and sat 
down on the circular embankment, while others in silence occasionally fed 
the sacred fire. But at last, from Kolomusnim’s quarter, there came up a 
long, wild, haunting wail, in a woman’s voice. After a few minutes it was 
repeated. Soon another joined in, then another, and another, slowly, very 
slowly, until the whole quarter was united in an eldritch, dirge-like, dismal 
chorus. After about half an hour it ceased, as slowly as it began; and 
again there was profound, death-like silence ; and again it was broken by 
the ever-renewed janglings of the dogs. 
Some time again elapsed before any further movement was made, and 
then Sloknich, a little, old man, but straight as an arrow, with a sharp face 
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