Morning journal and courier., 1883-08-02
The Woo1ng of Montezuma.


 The Indian dance is not merely pleasant pastime for the light hearted and frivolous to engage in. It is a religious rite-a prose poem. It perpetuates the history as well as the religion of the Indian. It is drama a lyrical representation of important events in the history of rude and uncultivated people that have no better means of perpetuating their deeds than through traditionary recital and common folk lore.
 Zuni Cushing tells me the cochita dance has 125 different representations. The move ment is grand, and it requires days of prepa- ration. Not. .50-perhaps not dozen-white men have ever seen it danced. The Indians will not repeat it except at stated intervals for the reason that it is part, and the most commemorative part of important religious ceremonies Cushing himself, though he is a war chief, and recently admitted to the sacred order of the Bow, could not induce the Zunis to repeat this dance in public at the Tertio- Millennial anniversary. Through the officers of the association he offered the h. dians 100 silver dollars if they would dance the cochita, but they consistently refused. There are many dances common to all the tribes but most tribes have dances peculiar to themselves, and some are more valuable in the perpetuation of the history, the reiig ion, the ceremonies, the daily life of the peo- pie than all other agencies combined. So much for the Indian dance in general.
 Here I have witnessed new revelation in the history of this strange people. l have seen dances different from any that I have seen during the last 25 years The one that imprsses me quite as much as any other is the Wooing of Mcntezuma. The characters are Quella- cotle, Monarka, Montezuma, his lovely bride, Malinche, (erreneously and far less poeticaily printed on the bills Kaegna) the court jester, Tongno; Taurus, (the bull, courtiers, atten- dants and officers. Montezuma, as every intelligent reader knows, is the Saviour, the Socrates, the Confucius of the Mexicans. His birth runs back into the mystic records of myth and traditions-the great Montezu- ma, mean. But Montezuma, like all good men and great gods, loved more fortunately than many others-he loved both wisely and well. He wooed and won, and experienced quite as many difficulties in the job as the rest of us. Twas ever thus; woman "coy and hard to please" So found the monarch lover in his persistent and delicate wooing ot the reluctant but lovely Malinche. The drama dance commemorates and represents the valor patience and sublime herolsm or the great lover the attempts of the ugly and clownish Taurus to captivate the fair mai den; the struggles of the courtiers, each for himself, with wooing and winsome manners to captivate the charming and beautiful h. dian girl In a trial of most expert and most skillfuI dancing Montezuma vsnquishes all ] his courtiers. The blushing and beautiful Mslinche yields, and Montezuma is prouder, happier than when he had conquered all surrounding tribes and founded the great city of Mexico, with it's magnificent gardens, it's wonderful plazas, it's great market place, its royal buildings, it's fountains and aque- ducts it's splendid roads, and all these lonely years before the arrival, of the, bloodthirsty and gold-crazed Spaniard, and before the hen had laid the egg that Columbus made to stand in the presence of the princes. |, It is, of course, a national dance, and. dates its