siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

222 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
two disguising themselves tlius, while five or six others take masks of different
animals which the alligator commonly eats, and then they make a thousand
grotesque antics. [Others are] the dance of the bustard, of the small corn, the
war dance, and the dance of the young people, which is danced no longer, the
French having made them conceive too great horror for it. When they have
these dances, they begin about two hours after midday. They are painted;
they put on their finest clothing, and make a belt of about forty pot-metal bells
as big as the fist. Others put on little bells, and if they have big bells, and
are able to carry them, they take them to these dances, loving the noise extr:i-
ordinarily. They carry a rattle (chichiquoiia) in the hand, or a war club, or
a pistol. They dance around a drummer who has in his hand only one drumstick,
with which he strikes a deerskin stretched over an earthen pot or over
a kettle. They accompany this sort of noise with a song of five or six words
which they repeat continually. These dances last until day, or until they go
to sleep.^*
Folsom remarks
They had various kinds of dances as well as other people, many of which were,
however, insignificant and do not deserve a notice here ; but there were others
which were considered important and national, such as the ball-play dance, the
war-dance, eagle-dance, and scalp-dance, all of which seem to have been the
result of rude and savage ideas."
Catlin was very much struck by the eagle dance, of which he made
a sketch (pi. 6) and has also left us a description. It was, he says,
... a very pretty scene, which was got up by their young men, in honour of
that bird, for which they seem to have a religious regard. This picturesque
dance was given by twelve or sixteen men, whose bodies were chiefly naked
and painted white, with white clay, and each one holding in his hand the
tail of the eagle, while his head was also decorated with an eagle's quill.
Spears were stuck in the ground, around which the dance was performed by
four men at a time, who had simultaneously, at the beat of the drum, jumped
up from the ground where they had all sat in rows of four, one row immedi-
ately behind the other, and ready to take the place of the first four when they
left the ground fatigued, which they did by hopping or jumping around behind
the rest, and taking their seats, ready to come up again in their turn, after
each of the other sets had been through the same forms.
In this dance, the steps or rather jumps, were different from anything I had
ever witnessed before, as the dancers were squat down, with their bodies almost
to the ground, in a severe and most diflScult posture, as will have been seen in
the drawing.^
The longest account of the Choctaw dances is that given by Bush-
nell in his studj'^ of the Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb. He says that
this band had " one dance ceremony, which is in reality a series of
seven distinct dances, performed in rotation, and always in the same
order." These were, in the ritual order, the Man Dance, Tick
Dance, Drunken-man Dance, Going-against-each-other Dance, Duck
Dance, Dance Go-and-come, and Snake Dance. For descriptions of
these the reader is referred to Mr. Bushnell's paper." He adds:
^ Appendix, pp. 254-225 ; Mem. Am. Anthrop. Assn., vol. v, No. 2, pp. 68-09.
-' Cushman, Hist. Inds., p. 368.
^ Catlin, N. Am. Inds., pp. 144-145.
2^ Bull. 48, Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 20-22.