The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-24
INDIAN DANCES.
The Voluntary Torture in the Hoch
 E-A-Yum.


 Most of the Indian wars and threatened uprising of Indians of which we hear are brought about by the pre- vention of the performance of their ceremonies by the Indians. Of such a nature are the ghost dances and oth- CTS. Although usually orderly and nev- CT ndulged in with the avowed pur- pose of war, they have often awakened the dormant warlike spirit of the red skins, and on this account the Indian agents and officers at the army posts do all that they can to prevent them. Hence the dances erows less numerous each year, and those that were once indulged in are no longer seen.
 The most noted among the Indians for their dances were the Cheyenne. Arapahoe and Sioux Indians. The Chippewas of Minnesota and Dakota indulged in these ceremonies to a less extent that did most of their neigh bors. The three tribes first mentioned, however, were noted far and wide for the variety and number of their dances. While now the dances are of rare oc- currence and done in perfunctory manner, it was far different in the old days before the Indian reached his present semi-civilized condition.
 Indian dances are of three kinds-re- ligious ceremonial, secular ceremonial and social. The hoch -e-a-yum, or med icine dance, of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes is identical with the ia nous sun dance of the Sioux, and all the wild tribes had a dance which pre- sented the same idea. In the more war like nations the dance was followed by horrible tortures. The endurance of these tortures with stoicism was a great honor, for they were looked upon as test of endurance, and with the redmen as everybody knows, endurance was accounted the greatest of human virtues. They were not part of the
 
 supplemental ceremony
 A generation ago, when the Indian youth desired to put away childish things and become a man, he was obliged to go through an ordeal as brutal and bloody as it is possible to conceive. At the close of every med- cine dance there would be call for volunteers for torture. Those who offered themselves were usually young men, but now and then, as an act of penance to expiate some wrong, an old buck would offer himself for the tor ture. Those who volunteered for the torture did not join in the dance, but spent the few days preceding in fast ing and solution.
 When the old medicine men decided that the proper time had arrived they would send for the volunteers one by one. First they were stripped and then l carefully examined to note if it were likely that they could undergo the tor | ture without fatal injury. After the ex- animation had been passed by all elig- | ible there were simple religious cere- | monies, and then the chief medicine | man approached wpith a sharp knife l On some men he would make sharp in- | cisions, two vertical incisions on each | breast, about two inches apart, pass l ing the knife through the pectora | muscles. The parts between the in | cisions would be lifted up and the ends | of a horsehair rope passed through and | fastened to a piece of wood. The free 1 ends of the rOOe were then fastened tc the top of the lodge pole. Sometimes | the incisions would be made through | the muscles of the back and the rope | stretched to blocks of wood of buffalo skulls. Others were dragged up into the air and left to hang until theil weight and struggles tore out the | flesh and released them.
 Each tribe usually had one purely i religious dance each year. If a tribe were in good circumstances it would | sometimes have two or more. Of al | the ceremonial dances the medicine | dance took precedence, and the scalr | dance came next in importance. Thi: l always took place on the day follow ing the return of successful war par ty, and was only participated in by l the members of that party. Before tht dance a ceremony was performed bI ] the warriors who took the scalps, nc one elese being permitted to be pres i ent or to see what was done. Those who took part in this would form { circle, when the skin of the scalp' would be cured and all fieshy matter