Dramatic Elements in American Indian Ceremonials 2i7 



of character is needed to give this tragic material its greatest 

 force. This need not, however, impair the all pervading spirit 

 of Greek acceptance of divine ruling. From the fateful Thunder 

 God's "What time I will ... a man lies dead," etc., to the in- 

 tensely religious calm of the desolate mother " thinking on her 

 vow," the ^schylean moral order prevails. 



* * * 



By no means does this limited survey exhaust the dramatic 

 possibilities of the pueblo, great plains, and eastern woodland 

 religious ceremonials. The latter alone, for all their early 

 contact with Christian peoples, retain not a few untainted re- 

 ligious practices of a dramatic nature. The various medicine 

 societies,^ perhaps the most widespread of all Indian institutions, 

 afford an almost endless source of investigation. And closely 

 allied to and compounded with the medicine cults, the far reach- 

 ing religious festival called the Sun Dance- oft'ers considerable 

 dramatic material. Fundamentally a religious observance, it was 

 also a social occasion for epic recitals of the glorious deeds of 

 dead warriors and realistic enactments of by-gone battles, in which 

 there was as patriotic assurance of race supremacy as the " Gor- 

 boduc" itself afforded. The dramatic enactment of battles was 

 an important feature of the Omaha Sacred Pole^ observance, at 

 the ordination of which the people said : 



" Let us appoint a time when we shall again paint him [the Sacred 

 Pole] and act before him the battles zve have fought." 



That the same dramatic institution was characteristic of the Paw- 

 nee has already been seen in connection with the Hako. Even 



1 See 7th A. R. B. E., Washington, 1892, " The Midewiwin of the 

 Ojibwa" and Jour. Am. Folk Lore, April-June, 1911, "The Ritual of the 

 Winnebago Medicine Dance." etc. 



2 IV Anthrop. Series Field Columbian Mus., 1903, "Arapaho Sun 

 Dance"; nth A. R. B. E., Washington, 1890, "A Study of Siouan Cults," 

 P- 450. 



3 See 27th A. R. B. E., Washington, 1906, p. 217, 



413 



