Dramatic Elements in American Indian Ceremonials 33 



O red-hot fire, hasten ! 



O haste, ye flames, to come. 



etc. 



Come hither, haste to help me !" 



The position and exact part played by the orchestra or chorus, 

 as the case may be, remain obscure. Yet, fragments enough have 

 been saved from the wreck of this drama-wrought religious ob- 

 servance to bear unmistakable marks of the great play of life 

 and death, in which the responsibility-burdened child represents 

 mankind. Each priest furnishes a dual dramatic character. At 

 one moment he is the god himself, at the next, only the delegated 

 representative of the god. He acts directly each role, speaking in 

 the capacity of each character. Taken in connection with the 

 sympathetic, if not wholly tmderstanding audience, these internal 

 features of mimetic action coupled with dialogue are sufficient to 

 establish dramatic elements in these particular rites. 



Introduction to Individual Life and to the Supernatural 

 Noii Zhin Zhon or " To-Stand-Sleeping " 



In the third stage of individual rites, the Omaha youth was in- 

 troduced " to the individual life and the supernatural." The con- 

 sciousness of self, awakened at puberty, the time at which the mind 

 of the child " becomes white," as the Omaha say, was closely as- 

 sociated with a consciousness of a highly spiritual, impersonal 

 sort. 



This rite also took place in -the spring. But it allowed of no 

 audience, that is no human audience ; it provided for little specific 

 impersonation. Strictly speaking, in itself, this ceremonial pre- 

 sents few dramatic features ; yet, in the inviolable vows made 

 during this rite, there are ingrained dramatic possibilities of pro- 

 found nature. The rite itself is purely and intensely religious. 



When he is "old enough to know sorrow," the Omaha youth 

 with his face covered with soft clay, a symbol of humility, perhaps, 

 sets out alone for the hills to enter upon a fasting vigil of four 

 days. As he is leaving home, the youth's father puts into his hands 



409 



