THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 151 



at a late hour in the night, and in all tribes the women take a conspicuous part in it, 

 by dancing in the circle with the men, holding up the scalps just brought from battle, 

 attached to the top of a pole, or the handle of a lance. 



A scalp, to be a genuine one, must have been taken from the head of an enemy, and 

 that enemy dead. The living are sometimes scalped, but whenever it occurs it is on 

 a field of battle, amongst the wounded, and supposed to be dead, who sometimes sur- 

 vive, but with the signal disgrace of having lost a patch of the skin and hair from 

 the top of their heads. 



Buffalo da:nxe. — This and all the other tribes living within the country abound- 

 ing in buffalos are in the habit of giving the buffalo dance preparatory to starting out 

 upon a buffalo hunt. For each animal that these people hunt they believe there is 

 some invisible spirit presiding over their peculiar destinies, and before they have any 

 faith in their hunt for them that spirit must needs be consulted in a song and enter- 

 tained with a dance. For this curious scene nearly every man in an Indian village 

 keeps hanging in his wigwam a mask of the buffalo's head and horns, which he places 

 on his head when he joins in this amusing masquerade, imagining himself looking 

 like a buffalo. 



Bear dance. — In preparing to hunt the black bear for its delicious food, or to con- 

 tend with the ferocious and dangerous grizzly bear, a similar appeal is made to the 

 Bear Spirit, and with similar results, i. e., all hands having strictly attended to this 

 necessary and important form, start off upon their hunt, quite certain of success, 

 which in any other event they could scarcely have counted on. 



In this grotesque and amusing mode, each dancer imitates with his hands, alter- 

 nately, the habits of the bear when running, and when silting up upon its feet, its 

 paws suspended from its breast. 



Ball-play dance.— Previous to commencing on the exciting and important game 

 of ball, as the goods of all playing are more or less at stake, each party must needs 

 invoke the aid of supernatural influence to their respective 6ides ; and for this pur- 

 pose they give a very pretty dance, in which, as in the Scalp-Dance, the women take 

 a part, giving neat and curious effect to the scene. In most of the tribes this dance 

 is given at intervals of every half-hour or so, during the night previous to the play, 

 preparing the minds and bodies of the players for this exciting scene, upon which 

 they enter in the morning with empty stomachs and decide before they leave the 

 ground to eat. 



Ball-play. — This is, undoubtedly, the favorite and most manly and exciting 

 game of the North American Indians, and often played by three or four hundred on a 

 side, who venture their horses, robes, weapons, and even the very clothes upon their 

 backs, upon the issue of the game. For this beautiful game two byes, or goals, are 

 established, at three or four hundred yards from each other, by erecting two poles 

 in the ground for each, four or five feet apart, between which it is the strife of either 

 party to force the ball (it having been thrown up at a point half-waj- between) by 

 catching it in a little hoop, or racket, at the end of a stick, three feet iu length, held 

 in both hands as they run, throwing the ball an immense distance when they get it 

 in the stick. This game is always played over an extensive prairie or meadow, and 

 the confusion and laughable scrambles for the ball when it is falling, and often sought 

 for by two or three hundred, gathered to a focus, are curious and amusing beyond 

 the reach of any description or painting. 



IXG-KEE-KO-KEE (GAME OF THE MOCCASIN). 



"Take care of yourself— shoot well, or you lose, 

 You warned me, but see ! I have defeated you! 

 I am one of the Great Spirit's children ! 

 AVa-honda I am ! I am Wa-konda ! " 



This song is sung in this curious and most exciting, as well as fascinating, game, 

 which is played by two, or four, or six — seated on the ground in a circle, with three or 

 four moccasins lying on the ground, when one lifts each moccasin in turn, and suddenly 



