Dancing. The chief instrument was a large drum, made by hollowing out a section of a tree trunk, and covering the ends with rawhide, which were tightly laced on with strips of the same material. The dull monotonous thump of the drum kept time, while dancers sang and rattled. Their songs are invocations to "Those Above" to continue their good gifts, and at the same time accept thanks for all that had been given. One dance was particularly beautiful. It was supposed to represent the movements of the planets in and out of the fixed stars. Two little girls, brightly and beautifully dressed, waving feather plumes in their hands, threaded their way in and out of the lines of the dancers, themselves moving with an easy graceful swing.

Origin of Dances. To seek to penetrate the origin of these dances is to find ourselves in the darkness of antiquity. Almost all Indian peoples have the firmly fixed notion that the gods can be propitiated only by these exhausting dances. Consequently they are not performed by a few professional dancers, or even by certain families; all the people must dance. The smallest child, as soon as he is able to understand, must take his place with the elders, and the women and girls enter into the dances with the same religious fervor and zeal that is displayed by the men. And there is none of that sex enjoyment injected into their sacred dances, as there is in the white man's pleasure dances. The Indian men dance together, and the Indian women together, or, where both sexes participate, men are in one row and women in another. So that Indian dances are not pleasure dances. Neither are they competitive. There is none of the negro cake-walk idea connected with them, nor the Italian peasant's carnival, where rivals dance to gain the applause of the village.