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Show THE PASSING OF AN INDIAN BELIEF. That the famous siui dance of the Ute Indians will in a few years be a thing of the past is the opinion advanced by a writer who saw the recent big dance on tho Ute reservation, which continued for three days and nights. The writer's description of the dance follows: Tho annual thred-day sun dance of the Ute Indians of the Uintah ' and Uncompahgro valleys, which tradition has said will cut disease and in which three hundred braves took part this year, ended on the night of June 28 at White Koclc, in the heart of tho desert Ute reservation. reser-vation. For three days and nights the Indian braves danced back aud forth and around the sacred trees at White Rock without a bite to eat except such nourishment as could be sucked from a willow switch, and at the end of tho weird exercise only tho strongest men nC !, ,'!, ,. 1: i il at .(in. i. , i vi. mi; uiuu ivtiu AC't-jnug U) lO U1C HIUC OL UIO OUCKSKlll lOm lOllTa which the medicine man beat. For years it has been the custom of these Indians lo hold this three-day festival. They have been taught since before the memorj of the oldest Indian now living that this dance must be held if the tribe would keep ahead of sickness and death. Formerly it was regarded re-garded as the balm for all illness, but in late years, with the rapid advont of consumption among the tribesmen, it has been regarded as a knockout blow to tho great white plague, and all Indian consumptives consump-tives in western Colorado and Utah flocked to their legendary Sea of Galilee at White Roek this year to rid themselves of the malady - Those of the afflicted who were able to dance took part in the exercises until they dropped, and those who wore too weak to join in lay on the ground and allowed their more able brothers to do penance pen-ance for them. i The dance up until late years has bceu jealously guarded b the Utes. but soldiers from Fort Duchesne and cowboys have beeu permitted to witness the event for the last five or six times at the rate of a dollar each. The degeneration of the Utes has not been so complete, and the idea of commercialism so uppermost in the minds of the older tribesmen that they will allow pictures of the fete, and although numerous attempts have been made to get photos the Indians In-dians have compelled a camera owner to divest .himself of the kodak hpfnro rmtcrinrr ii-itliin iUn L-iw.r-.iI nl,n - .--.. ... . . . v.. . . . v.... oV iUM (111. 111. It is likely that the dance will die out within a few years. The older men arc weakening in body and influence and the younger generation of braves arc too lazy to keep up the time-honored custom, cus-tom, for it entails three days of starvation and an endless prancing around the sacred trees for seventy-two hours or until one drops from sheer exhaustion. |
