Evening star., 1936-08-22
Squaw Dances Impressive
ColorfM Navajo Thunder Season Ceremonies See
Rules of Propriety abandoned for
Gay Festival.

ceremony-to refuse her. And once
she has her partner on the floor"
keeping firm grip on his coattails, she
refuses to let go until WEAKNESS forces
him to pay her for his freedom. 1t is
the same with the Indian swains
They dance or they pay.
Pervading all is an atmosphere Of
jollity. The shutting rows of dancers
resound with laughter. Every now and
then withered ancient emerges from
one of the choruses and berates the
bystanders. 1t must be funny, for
all the Navajos are convulsed. He is
ridiculing the boys. they say. because
they are too stingy about paying the
girls to quit dancing. and he is
pointing his remarks with some sar-
castle personal references. His Ian
guage, the Navajos say, isn't exactly
fitted for the most proper sort OF
mixed company but a squaw dance is
place where, like a New England
auction. all rules of propriety are off,
All night the merry dance goes on
to the accompaniment Of the merrily
weird drum beating. Now and then
dancers fall out exhausted, but they
always come back again. Variations
are introduced in the dance steps.
Traditionally 1t should be just the
shuttle and trip as the dancers move
in line, two by two. the girl clutching
the boys clothes. But some of the
Navajo maids have been off to board
ing school and brought home new ideas
upon which the elders of the tribe
frown. But the squaw dance today
is no place for rigid conventions.
This is the thunder season. Blue
flashes of streak lightning and red
holocausts of sheet lightning against
the horizon add to the weird effects.
There are only momentary pauses in
the dance until. over the SUBMITS of
the sacred mountains of Navajoland
in the east comes the first glimmer
of sunrise. Then the whole company,
two by two, forms in line and dances
toward the rising orb as a sort of
salute. This brings an end to a festiv-
ity which Is unique among the Ameri-
can aboriginals and whose closest
approach may be some Of the village
dances of the Balkans. But these
haven't the same color Of attire nor
the combination of the ice-etched
Milky Way across the great vault of
Heaven and the blue lightning against
the horizon.
Merriment Only Superficial.
On the surface one of these squaw
dances seems merry occasion, but
it has a serious symbolic aspect. It
is medicine" Each dance is given
by somebody suffering from a serious
ailment as magical appeal for cure.
It is staged on the advice of the
invalid's favorite shaman and usually
costs him pretty penny-say s400.
He must provide the food for the
whole company and all the other
paraphernalia for the festivities. The
weird jollification of the evening is
preceded by secret rites during the
day. which are far from jolly.
Symbolically, the sqoaw dance, ex-
perts of Navajo lore explain, derives
from the days Of scalp-taking. The
very contact with anything foreign
was considered impure. The success
full warrior returning with his enemies
scalp was entitled to a wild party"
in celebration of his victory, but first
he must be purified of the contamina-
ton which resulted from so intimate
a contact with "foreigner"-red or
white. So when he returned to his
native hills he must be met by a
pure maiden. who took the guesome
trophy from his hands and, through
contact with her own purity, together
with certain secret rites, took out of
it the element of vileness.
And in the dancing tonight one
may have noticed girl tripping and
shuffling alone, holding in her hand
wand surmounted with plume.
She must keep going all the time.
She must never lay down that wand.
She is the virgin of the old ceremony.
That wand is the stick upon which,
a few generations ago, she would have
held up the scalp. And the plume
is a representation of the scalp itself.
The squaw dance still is essentially
a publication ceremony. A man has
something the matter with him. His
shaman tells him his malady is due
to having absorbed something "for-
eign." Perhaps he has been having
too many business or social dealings
with white men. Perhaps he has
been working for a white man.
The contamination must be gotten
rid of, and the squaw dance Is the
result. Why, then, are strangers
welcomed? And why do the girls
make such fuss over them? In the
first place, the publication part of the
ceremony Is over and foreign influ-
ences can be faced with impunity.
Secondly, everybody is out for q good
time and the more serious purposes
hardly are in the minds of the
dancers. And in the third place, the
moon and the Milk Way are con-
founders Of logic, white or red.
tcopyrisht. 1885. BY The Evening star