Show al I 1 A daughter of jane Rad jacket the real significance of a bear dance 0 is ie vague in the minds of a preat great many people some say it sig signifies niCles one thing and some isome another according to the best information it is 13 certainly a religious ceremony it would be no news to tell the readers of this paper that most all the people of all the world since god said let there be light have worshiped some kind of a supreme being and have believed in in a future existence the story of the indians happy hunting ground has often been told to the youngsters youn in school and around the fire side bide the savage indian of today has the same ideas of the future as did the savage indians indiana who greeted columbus more than years ago ile ho knows no more now than he knew then the season prior to the iho bear dance b corresponds to the lenten season observed by the church the celebration of the bear danco dance doubtless means the same thing to the ind ans as the celebration of easter means to the members of the christian churches who celebie celebi celeb ote te the occasion in c commemoration of christs resurrection the ancients anci enta had among their rna mu gods and goddesses a goddess of light and ernp arring in honor of whom a festival was waa celebrated celebia ted in april and as is month was called Easter monao he generally accepted significance of t bear dance is that it is the cale bration othe the breaking up of winter the coming of spring the resurrection of the sleeping vegetation the time when all the world is glad when the buds sprout forth when the buttercups butter cups and daisies peep up out of the earth and are kissed into freshness and beauty of life bythe by the warm lips of the affectionate sun when the birds begin to mate and build their nests in tree tops where S 1 W v ALI N on A the bear dance in progress the young are to be hatched the indian know s that when the bear comes out of his long wintry sleep and roams forth that there is 13 grass roon coon coming for his pony and that the antelope deer and elk are making ready to leave the bid lands where scrub cedars abound for the parks where the carpets of green spread out along the banks of tho watauga Wa which in the indian vernacular means beautiful river for thirty years the people of this valley have been attending these bear dances at whiterocks and they still deff light in the v weird eird odd festival near ly all last week vernal presented the appearance of a deserted village and the surrounding country was almost depopulate populated de so many were vere they who ho went to the bear dance and those who have witnessed it so many times seemed to enjoy it just as much as over ever watch the lance dance ten minutes and yu you have seen all there is to see but V N are other sights rights than the dance interesting the gaudy ap 0 L 1 A aki and aquas squaws the un 09 file bear 9 a 1 iam and ahe crazy uce ique e musical instruments and the that they do wear anything aiom a feather t ti a 1 mirror is used to decorate the loud clothing beads and shells till further orders one indian was dressed up tip in such ft a stylo style es aa to tn resemble an all eagle wings tail and all to appreciate tho the costumes these peo pec plo wear you must retake a take a look at them for yourself the dance takes place on a small patch of ground enclosed by a brush fence there are two lines of dancers in one lire the squads squaws and in the other line the bucks facing one another nearby stands a big buck whip in hand to keep them in proper positions now everything is 13 ready for the dance to begin but wait till we tell you about those musicians and that music if you care to call it music and you will not of after ter you have headd it the orchestra is 13 composed of about fifteen or twenty of the most talented men of the tribe A large piece of tin or zinc is so placed as to sound as much like a busted drum as ai possible in one hand the musician holds the end of a stick on which is carved a series of notches the other end rests ott on the tin or zinc across this stick the artist draws a shin bone of some animal and the noise that issues from those instruments would make nig lit hideous but it is ia music to the ears of those reds of the forest and all the time that the sound goes forth it blends itself with a weird chant that tle te musicians sing as they draw the shin bones across the sticks that have notches carved on them the dance consists of two stepa forward and three steps back the man with the whip is there in reaching distance and it is woe to the laggard a sting for the man behind this celebration ele bration continues for ore week usually during the tha morning hours until the last day and then it is day all day in the day time and here acre is no night for the utes the festival winds up with the big feed and the bill of fare includes everything from roast beef to dog but it is mostly dog some say do the whites take part in the dance of course they do they would not consider the trip complete without that from the white men the squam equals s collect a toll in any amount from a nickel up on the last day just before the big feast the bear cones conea co nes nea out nut to tell them that the winter is i over and that the spring has come A big indian covered over with a bear skirl skin is 13 the bear thought it was A Na naano ajo when the news reached vernal a few months ago that henry jim one of tile leading ute indians of the whiterocks agency had dropped dead at the sight of a monkey no one believed bt it but a thorough ra investigation has pro en abat it was true the people of vernal will remember that george adams brought happy an ugly brute home with him from salt lake last fall after a little while mr adams sold happy to billy who in gave tile the missing hav link to mr green of the government service at ft duchesne Duc besne one day henry jim was out hunting and one of the things that ho he saw N was I 1 happy the first monkey he had ever laid his hia eyes on naturally he was w a 3 frightened half out of his wits he thought it was a navajo who had committed some crime and whom the gods goda had turned into a thing like that to punish it ile he took s e era I 1 shots at the littke beast one of which pierced the shoulder happy let a yell out of him film which sounded half human and half demon and dodged behind boulders boulden boul deis a and sige baush all tho the time winking sinking and blinking those restless and terrible ees s another shot ard tha little fellow ilow jumped high into a tree henry jim took to his heels ard fa fly flew from tho the presence of such a monster next day an inquiry was sent out to the Nava joes in southern utah to ascertain ifancy of their tribe was missing woid soon came back that they ere all at home then henr jim persuaded an indian friend of his hh to accompany him to the place where he had the encounter with what he still insisted was the navajo ellch had been converted into a demon by tile tho bodle god happy siw the two of them before they saw liim him and made a long leap for a tree the monkey made a motion aith vi ith his hia right hand band at the same time screaming out to henry jim the other day you tried to get me now I 1 am going to get 5 ou and lie he lumped jumped en cn title the indians shoulder henry jim dropped dead in rocks on the former uintah gindlin reservation there i h i i an indian who has not slept in a house nor on a bed for more than alinn forty years captain pardon dodds who wai indian agent at whiterocks in and who is now living at vernal will vouch for the truthfulness of this statement peter dillman the man who took part park in the rescue of the wife and daughter of the massacred meeker at meeker colo when they were in captivity of the ute indians will also declare that nat the story is a true one there are many other men in this ashley valley and else where in in utah who will give the same testimony if called upon for more than forty years this indian whose name is 13 inelegant has not only slept in the open with the earth for a bed the sky for a covering and the gray rocks and scrubby cedars for companions pan ions lut he has woin wain no clothes ila ho must be about sixty deais old as captain dodds says lie he appeared appealed to be twenty when he began his hie strange li ii f fo c within a stones throw of the agency ile ho was one of the most agile and hand some bucks of all the uto ute tribe at that time the sparkle of his eyo eye la is still school children at whiterocks agency his tracks there is 13 still another version as to how flow the indian met his death which sounds more mysterious than the above J II 11 coltharp says that the indian interpreted certain movements of the monkey to mean navajo signs the monkey rubbed his hand across his forehead which in navaho means 1 I 1 am pretty mad then he placed his land hand over his feirt that sign in navajo means I 1 you hurt me hire mr coltharp says sacs the ili monkey was wai sitting on a hay stack and not in a tree N lien hen he made t the lie sign to henry J m the medicine man the indians still pr practice lie ice the medi medicine cine a act ct on their sick pick TI mhd is practice is as old as the indians are their medicine man says rayc all kinds of weird N eird m ards ads in it a strange tongue and lays on handa will i ab fearful violence the pe performance firmance al ways takes place at night tinie time ard often of ten lasts until awry away in the moi coming ning all the relatives of the patient and many others gather around th they 5 chant and po wow and go through curious motions the te actor d ictor resorts to various tricks which he cills making medicine lie he picks up a htone and mi swallows allows it af after ter aab awhile ile he belches it up then lie he hurls it with all his might tov towards ards a star if lie he hits the star all right if he misses the star all right many other maneuvers hagoes through with the doctor charges all the way from a few cente to ah indian pony for his services last one of the ouray indian pupils at tile the school at whiterocks im was imas as sick with willi pneumonia the parent cl a medicine man and a band cf the ouray indiana Indi ansA went ent up to whiterocks and demanded the pupil the school in order to do the mid md icino stunt over him and cure him C capt fript C G hall hafl the indian agent re fused to allow the child taken from the school and tile the indians declared dic lared they would take him by foice the they had not more than reached the school house when a troop or of cavalry from foit foi t duchesne aniced in sight in response to a hurry up call from captain hall the auras decided that the child would h get well w without iti out the aid of the medicine man the crazy indian over at tho the indian agency at white bright and his long hair is 13 yet coal black though his body is weak and wasting av away ay and his face carries on it the stamp of death at least as much of it abone as one can see as itis it 13 covered witt with a long growth of grizzly beard un kempt and dirty his skin exposed to nearly half a century of all kinds of weather resembles that of an elephant more than anything a else for miles and miles around he is called the crazy indian and people travel from far and near to pet get it at look at him tourists go out of their way for a glimpse of him and then cin hard ly believe their ea bejes ejes es when thc jhc azize vi nl the awful thing the statement iliac he is ingano has been doubted tilt th tales that have hava been to toll I 1 as aa to I 1 0 wh ha lie he sits there from one bear dance to sin an other and from one sun dance to gocr fi other winter and summer in daliglig dali glit and darkness in winter hovering os over er a few shouldering ing embers not enough to keep one hand warm have been many one thike is ci cirtain certain he is 10 doing penance for some crime ile eie is abiding by the indian law which provides that the criminal must be banished into the land where the coyote and wild cat roam and where human foot seldom brods except as in this case out of mere curio ity one story has it that he killed his mother in a fit of pasion more than forty years ago go but that story is stoutly denied by his I 1 rather provo dick who lives near whiterocks heap big lie too asserts provo dick J 4 4 crazy indian no killum mother she died a natural death dick decla declare and he helped heap the blankets and sticks over the handful of dirt that hide ier I er from the sun the sto story ry that provo dick tells is perhaps the true one inelegant his hia brother would never associate with the young squaws squads of his hh tribe nor of other tribes though they were lithe isome and good to look at and nany tried in vain to get a pleasant look or a kind word from him because ho he wits was tall athletic handsome hand somo and brave ile he was a leader in all the v wars ars with whites and had bad more scalps to his hh belt than most other young bucks of his hia band he wanted no squaw ile he was ed with the white girls end and vowed that he would have one for a wife one day he and his band captured a family of whites en route from new england to california the father and mother bere arc killed the two brothers escaped and the beautiful daughter was and carried to 0 o the mountains miles ard miles from human I 1 agitation all tation the tto brothers returned to tn the scene and found the dead bodies of their pari patents ants but bill the sister dead nor alive mas aa to be found they started out on what seemed se arned to be a ho hopeless soon to I 1 heir great joy they wera on the trail and for days das they follo followed wod it ib here and there was an indian sign and once onca in a great while they discovered a piece of their sisters stera Bi shaw and they knew she expected them to rescue her As the run fun was sinking behind the hills they saw in the distance an indian and a waite girt girl it was inelegant and their slater sister the indian realized that he was as about to be caught rather than let the tha ahito men have the he woman ho he wanted to marry ho he murdered her and took tier ber scalp before their verb ver cats s ht II 11 fl il in tho the aa gathering dusk find and v as am ls ni fi aiom am lua hia home for many weeks the dead girl was buried by ti tho 13 side tf of ahe ih anol h nl trail when tf sin rl it e began nt at the ani arna in t unum i inno imo the handsome bucl buck r gioga il inapt nance whilo while othi oth i utis VIK tte anji ir bin around i und tho the pile looking alth ky chanting ch inting ho aho weird st strange ranze onh af 4 ile he was as an ay off lit tile the foot of tile he uintah mountains alone with ht bis sin and ij hii punishment in tile cars gone by lie ho had won the titles of the medicine Line mat man for his hia long endurance dancing around the pole having defeated the many strong bucks who aho were vere stretched out exhausted in the bv sweltering el bering sun now bimo bomo other would carry off the bonns hono hon ns g then they began to call him the ho crazy indian then they began to t wonder what awful crime he had committed ile he told the story to his hia brothers all tile the utes soon knew v hat vies the matter ile he was shunned by evera ever body as if he was waa a leper for das he had nothing to eat cat and then when the darkness fell upon the earth hn on fourth page 4 4 school boys dand band at agency |