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Show STRANGE INDIAN DANCES Always Chief Feature of Red Man's Celebration. (Kansas City Star.) Most devout of all American peoples are the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. They alone have solved the problem of serving two masters. They have performed the impossible in reconciling the two hostile and divergent diver-gent religious systems of paganism and Christianity. They worship the numberless num-berless gods of their forefathers with i unfailing fidelity, pay clue deference to Hie hereditary aboriginal priesthood, decorate every butte and point of rocks with feather-tufted prayer sticKS, and estufas from generation to generation, keep the sacred fires burning in their even as their ancestors did for a thousand thou-sand years and more before the white man evr set foot upon this hemisphere. hemis-phere. At the same time, they are loyal and devout Catholics. They attend mass and confession with exemplary ! punctiliousness, leant their catechism, say their prayer3 and fail not in reverence rever-ence to the priests of the church. They are baptized, married and buried in accordance ac-cordance with the rite? of Catholicism.; but each ceremony is followed by an- j other, conducted by the native pagan I priests, in which the immemorial customs cus-toms of the aborigines are sacredly followed. fol-lowed. In thus paying reverence to the "jealous God' of the white men. and at the same time remaining faithful faith-ful to the numberless deities of their i ancestors, they appear to be conscious of nothing incongruous or inconsistent. From their point of view, if one religion is a good thing, two must be all the better. There Is always room for another an-other god or two in the Pueblo pantheon: pan-theon: and the more deities they can worship tho stronger is their assurance assur-ance that they are on the right path. Thus they are sincere Catholics and faithful pagans at one and the same time. This doubling up of religious duties and obligations necessarily makes serious se-rious inroads upon the time of our cop-1 cop-1 per-colored fellow citizens of the southwest south-west (for the Pueblos are not "wards of the government," but citizens of the United States, under the terms of the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo). Their native feast days and fast days are numerous enough, in all conscience. But to these have been added all the saints' days and holy days in the Catholic Cath-olic calendar, as well as the holidays customarily observed by all patriotic Americans. All special occasions, whether feast days, fast days, days of mourning or days of jubilation, are celebrated cel-ebrated by tribal dances. Hence it happens that among the Pueblo Indians In-dians the dance is one of the main affairs af-fairs of lile. in the dunce, the loves, hates, joys, sorrows. hopes. fears, prayers and aspirations of the people rind their fullest and freest expression. Most of the Pueblos' time, therefore, is spent getting ready for the dance, dancing or recovering from the effects of the dance. Each Pueblo town has its own particular par-ticular and characteristic festival, which is not duplicated or imitated by any of the others. Most famous of! these are the Acequi dance of Isleta. the Snak-; dance of Walpai and Oraibe. j the Deer and Bear dance of Tesque, the harvest dances of Acoma and Laguna. the feast of San Geronimo at Taos and the Corn dance of Santo Domingo. The Corn dance of Santo Domingo is really the first of the season's harvest dances, of which each community has one. It always occurs on August 4 (which this year falls on Sunday). Every few days thereafter a harvest festival and dance are held at some other community until un-til each one of the thirty has shown its devotion in this way to the ancestral Pueblo gods o? the harvest. In sotno communities the dance and festival are in the nature of a prayer for a bountiful harvest. In others, it is a thank-offering for the crops that have been gathered. In Santo Domingo the annual Corn dance partakes of both features. The corn crop is then regarded re-garded as measurably safe, and thanks are offered to the tribal gods for promising prom-ising condiiions, but at the same time supplications are offered up that no untoward event may destroy the maturing ma-turing grain. Santo Domingo is really nothing but a handful of squalid adobe dwellings huddled on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, a few miles below Lamy Junction. The tribe land grant comprises com-prises 74.743 acres of "land, which is ox-ceeded ox-ceeded only by the holdings of Acoma. Isleta, Laguna and Zuni among tho; Pueblo towns. It boasts of a fairly well preserved mission and two es tufas, tu-fas, so that it may be counted somewhat some-what above the level of tha average Pueblo, although ranking far below Isleta. Is-leta. Acoma, Laguna and Zuni. The estufa, or kiva. it may be well to explain, ex-plain, is the most characteristic feature fea-ture of the Pueblo community. It is an underground ceremonial chamber, which no white man and no stranger of other tribes is ever permitted to enter. It' is the Pueblo's holy of the holies, consecrated to religious tiid ceremonial uses. In it the sacred fires are kept burning from generations to generation throughout the ages. In times past it has been necessary for many of the communities to migrate from one place to another, either to secure better pasturage or to escape the pressure of hostile nomadic tribes. In such cases the sacred fir is taken along, and is kept burning until installed in-stalled In a kiva in a new home of the people. Should the sacred fire become extinguished it is believed, to presage some dire calamity, such as this instruction in-struction of the whole ? immunity. From the e3tufas emerge tho "Delight Makers" the clowns that furnish amusement to the crowd on the occtt-sion occtt-sion of the corn dance. For three days prior to the festival the n-ttive pagan priests remain secluded in the estu-fas, estu-fas, performing the secret rU.. of the oldtime faith. In what thesi rites consist con-sist no man but the membors of the native priesthood knows. When the morning of the 1th of August Au-gust arrives every trail and road that leads to Santo Domingo is dotted with horsemen and wagons, an-1 now and then a pedestrian, bound for the village. vil-lage. They come from all tho Pueblos within traveling distance Sa;i Fclipl. Santa Ana. Iemez, Zemez. Zia, Isleta and Tesuque. A few white tourists are also In evidence. All josno together to-gether in the narrow streets until t lie village is crowded to suffocation, with the exception of the plaza. That is kept clear, for it is there thai thu grand march begins and that tne dance takes place. The signal for the beginning: of tiie day's ceremonies is given by the boom of a big tom-tom. The fiesta is ope nod by ceremonies In the church, conducted conduct-ed by the priest. Then the weddings occur for the day ojf the Corn dance is selected by most of he youths and maidens of the Santo Domingo community com-munity as '.he most appropriate mating season. The grand march is an event of no mean spectacular Interest, accompanied accom-panied as it is by the firing o" nunf and a dirgelike song that seams like a wail for the dead. These son;c3 recur re-cur frequently throughout the day and are ind- s; ribably weird, the vines j pitched in a minor key, and Ide.idir.j in such perfect unison through -v-rv i cadence that but for the volllli-e . j sound the listener would think he heard but the voice of a single linger. ; ; Just as in the circus, so in ih-- Am , dance the clowns are far more i men Ing than the regular performers. TIny f are nakod. exceoring for a brevclii.-lni!:. I and ap painted from he-i to foi-t wi:li ,! red and white adobe c!i, Some arr ! painted solid while, sunn.' red. and sr.m 1 are made still more -rr-Heyiuii.' in peavance by having ..ne sid :ainte.l white and the other red. Twisted into ' their long black hi;-.-, which is fastened fast-ened in a knot on top of the head, ai hunches of dried gross, and tho uhcl-t is thickly plastered with white cl.iy. Bands of evergreens are fastened about ; the wrists, ankles and waist, anl srsnkelii-e desiens are traced iif bla .c over their bodies, adding to the fantastic fantas-tic appenrance of their make-up. The contortions, gesticulations and irrational irra-tional actions are irresistibly fun-y. P.ut apparently their Jokes and ejacu- f lations are more so. although most nf I these are couched in th native Indian I dialect and th" rest in bad rfpai.ish. J so that the white auditors miss the j point of their sallies of wit. In niarkd contrast with the antic I of the clowns is the sedate and dig- nified demeanor of the dancers. Not i one of them is ever seen to smile while ' the performance- Is going on; anil the more hilarious the crowd becomes the more austere and funeral becomes th- behavior of the dancers. One might 1 think that the fate of the universe depended de-pended upon their performing every evolution ev-olution of the dance with clockwork regularity and mathematical precision. They resemble wooden automatons more than flesh and blood crfatures and all appear to be worked by th same wires drawn1 by the same hand, so regular and so nearly identical are their movements. The Illusion is lightened light-ened by the fact that all are dressed sxactly alike. Their long hair falls ov-r their shoulders. Their bodies are ' nude to the waist, painted yellow. Strands of beads, turquoise, silver, shell and other materials encircle th?ir necks. Bands of evergreen and strings of rattles made of hollo ed sheep-hoofs sheep-hoofs are fastened around the arms, waist and ankles. A kind of apron is worn, to the back of which Is fastened fast-ened the skin of a silver fox, with head attached to the belt and the long, bushy tail sweeping the ground. In front of the line goes the stand -and bearer, or master of ceremonies, carrying a long Dole, to which is fastened fast-ened a brilliantly colored tassel, and a long streamer of colored cloth, ornamented orna-mented with gaudy feathers. To the motions of this wand the dancers respond re-spond as if to the command of a captain. cap-tain. Every motion is a signal, perfectly per-fectly understood and implicity obeyed by the performers. After the first set of performers has held the plaza or open square for about an hour another emerges from the estufa. es-tufa. These are so exactly like the first that if one did not see them come upon the scene and watch the others withdraw he would hardly believe thft there had been any change. Thus from morning until the sun sinks behind the western horizon the two sets of cancers alternate, with tireless energy and a power of endurance that makes spectators spec-tators of the "superior" white race wonder wherein lies the secret of the physical strength of the Pueblos. As the shades of night begin to darken the dancers are called to a feast of meat, chili and tortillas. Then the alien whites mu?t steal away, for the Pueblos resent too boll intrusion into their privacy, and hold the curious nryr ine:. kodak-snapping palefaces in aa j profound contempt a they ho'd the '. ( dogs gathered around to snatch the j crumbs that escape the lips of tha s revelers. - ;$ " i ; i ; S .'...... . f ' |