Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-28

hide IN the hrgt convenient canyon,
wait awhile ana come back for
more ratious. Two Bears was brave
man, and he had proved 1t, but his spurs
had been won in warfare against the
Crows and Aricksrees, and he had no
stomach for battle with his own ma
ton, the Sioux.
On one occasion, near Rice, Dakota, I
witnessed an
INDIAN FUNERAL DANCE.
The brave, man of influence In the
tribe, and who carried on his left hand
the scar of fearful wound, said to have
been received at Fort Phil Kearney, was
laid out stiff and stark in the tepes in
which he died. The women, just as
Christian women do, washed the corpse,
and then they dressed him in all bis or
naments. A red blanket was arapped
about him, aud bow aRd culver full of
arrows was added to the equipment of
death. Then the body was carried on
his favorits pony, led by q woman, to
the place Of rest. It cannot be called
place of burial, for the Indian was not
buried. On four poles with orotches,
freshly driven into the ground. plat
form Of sticks was laid, at a height of
about ten feet. On this platform the
body reposed. as If the warrior was
asleep in his blanket, with his
bow and culver beside him. Then the
living braves circled above the scaffold
with a slow, sorrowful motion, utteriug
a song or plant, that was really
touching in the simplicity of its
grief. They made three or four rounds;
then silently mounting their ponies, they
returned to camp, leaving their dead
comrade TO the company of the birds of
heaven. This method of exposing the
dead would never do in the humid
climate of the East, where it would re-
suit in a pestilence; but in the dry air of
Dakota, the body becomes rapidly desi-
Gated, and one can be in the neighbour
b cd of scores of these burial scafolds
without noticing anything offensive. 1t
is also
A SINGULAR FACT
that the carrion birds seldom look for
food among the bodies thus exposed.
The motive for disposing of remains in
this way probably is to save them from
the wolves, which would scratch up
grave, unless deeper than Indians might
care to make it. Bodies are sometimes
hidden high up in the branches Of trees,
and it used to be no unusual thing in the
river bottoms of the Missouri to come
across a departed warrior thus disposed
of.
The Indian witch, or medicine dance,
is very different from thhe performances
before described. 1t is really weird
affair, and almost as difficult to witness
as the celebrations that Yankee witches
were said to indulge IN the olden time.
1t must have some religious meaning,
although the writer was never able to
get exactly at what the meaning was.
The medicine men of the Sioux do not
seek publicity In their nominations, and
it was ent rely by chance that l came
across three Indians going through some
peculiar operations, at point remote
from their camp. A stick about three
feet in height, was stuck in the ground,
and from it hung out in the brseze a
scalp. The hair was dark,
and looking on from a short distance /
could not tell whether the scalp was that
of q white woman or of an Indian. It
might have been either. The three In
dians were
LEAPING AND GEsTURING,
and at intervals mumblinR something,
not song apparently, but disconnected
Occasionally they would point
toward the scalp. Then they would
humble again. and jump about. They
: ferent from that of the ordinary
yes. They noticed me, and while |
thov made no demonstration of hostility, |
their expression meant plainly, that they |
would rather be left alone. The shades |
Of evening were falling on the prairie, |
aud hill, and river. The Missouri |
stretched like mighty serpent below,
its yellow waters tinctured with ruddy |
stain by the f1nal CLEAN of the setting
sun, and here on this hill, away from
the painted tents, and the silent cotton
wood tree, these children of nature were
euacting their strange enchantment to
move in some way that supernatural
power which seemed to have deserted
The Indian race. With eerie feeling l
leaving them to their super
'tition, and conscious that perhaps its
parallel might be found among more
nations.
LAWRENCE L. HoMMEDIEN.