The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-07-06


 the bodies of these sixty shall be free from ailment. and the great buffalo has told them that in October their ponies shall groan under the weight of deer hides which they will carry from the hunting grounds in Colorado.
 From Price to White Rocks. the Headquarters of the Uintah Indian agency, the distance is one hundred and ten miles. The means of convey ance is by stage or blackboard. Tour ists, who are not numerous, and travel ing men who make Vernal have been known to declare on their first trip that the road was more than three hundred miles in length. They were mistaken. They had simply crossed portion or the great American desert little of the worst portion, and their Judgment had been warped. When the wheels of ones rig plough through mile after mile of alkali dust and sand, and when every revolution hurls enough of the same to obscure the horses from view and which same dust burns and blinds the eyes, parches the lips and throat, and sifts through eve " stitch, 1t has tendency to lengthen ulSldHC6S anu pal llCulGIl lH diC Ni"''i'SN' deceiving if the greater portion of the scenery Is made up of barren, arid, san dy waste. Here and there an occasion- al patch of salt sage and ever the sharp, quick bark of that desert sentl- nel, the prairie dog. Not enough ike to make death terrible. Partly in such surroundings, but be it also understood, amidst some of the finest land in Utah, has the government placed "Lo, ana here on their reservation they yearly meet on the 10th of June, and for three days and nights the sun dancers go through their weird movements and 1n- cantations
 A description of the dance may not be amiss. Off to the west and south Of White Rocksi and about two and one half miles from the agency, stretches level mesa, carpeted with buffalo grass and dotted with sagebrush. Here are to be seen number of circular inclo- sures, built of poles and partly tumbled down. These are reminisces to the ln- dian mind. and recall where former sun dances were held.
 Prior to the dance many days have been spent by the bucks who are to take part in the ceremonies in selecting and preparing the timber that is to be used in the building of their worship pavilion.
 It is generally known that work don't strongly appeal to the Indian fancy, but it is also & part of his religious belief that no hand shall assist in the con- struction of his crude place of worship but the hands of those who are to take part in the dance. The timber selected and brought to the place that has been chosen near the scene of former dan ces, a circular lnclosure assumes shape by setting in the ground at regular in- tervals of few feet number of posts between which is interlaced thick hedge made from the branches of the willow and quaking asp In the center of the nclosure, which is about seventy feet in diameter, a tall pole is placed, from which Is suspended the image of a bpuffalo. This pole, painted with vel low ocher and vermillion, would make barber's sign look like cheap stick were they to be compared. From the top of this pole, which is forked, ex- tend d number of smaller ones, which
 
 wall.
 Within the inclosure and to the rear Eof the dancers is hung a curtain of white cloth, upon which is painted in crude hieroglyphics the animals which the Indians and his forefathers have beenwont to hunt and trap together v,:th representations of the sun, moon and stars, triangles, circles, etc
 The music, which constitutes nc small factor in this event is furnished by about doen bucks who are success ful in producing a mighty din on box covered with a bull hide, and these in turn are ably seconded by more Indians at work with notched sticks upon tin covered instruments.
 hTe choir is composed of squaws and numbers about ane hundred highly shrill voiceh, and their "Hi-Yi, Xiii Hi-Ki" becomes more impressive, fl such a term is permissible, when it Is augmented by the sound produced in the ewishing and waving of the green branches which they hold in their ands.
 Slowly the music commences the choir make ready and the dance be- gins With a slow movement the bucks naked from the waist up their bodies covered with yellow and red paint commence their shuffling movement toward the center of the circle, which is marked by the pole upon which IS suspended the buffalo image.
 Faster play the players upon their improvised fiddles and drum and louder chants the hundred voices of the suuaws; forward and back, with rap i'd movement in keeping with the mu- sic the dangers continue to and from the pole, and never once do their eyes shift from the image of the buffalo. Forward and back. forward and back, they go, and to the music furnished by those who are not dancing is added the shrll whistle produced by each dancer as he blows a bone fife that is hung by a cord around his neck.
 Three days and nights does this keep LID, the same repetition, the same cere- mony, with hardly an intermission, though not always the same dancers, for at no time did more than twenty dance at once. Physical endurance, even in an Indian, must come ta an end, and when in their exertion is add ed the fact that neither food nor water passes the lips of those who take part in this sun worship, then can it be un- derstood that during the last twelve bous Is to be Witnessed the most fren-