| With a shawl over her arm and a prayer feather in her hand the Indian woman is equipped for a social dance. The shawl will be a cushion to sit on when the day is warm, and the prayer feathers can be used as a fan to swirl away any hot air. When the day gets colder she may wrap the shawl around her shoulders and offer an evening prayer as she pointes the fan into the sky towards the heavens.
The depths of the Indians soul has never been explored, the barrier of reserve that they have erected to withstand the onslaught of the whites can be scaled only by years of intimate living, and even then the view beyond is hazy and obstructed. The fact still remains that we appreciate the worth of the other manifestations of their personality better than we do their dancing. In the excellence of their crafts, for example, they are accorded the full stature of an artist. The supremacy of their blanket weaving, basketry, pottery, their jewelry making, beading, to mention a few, and of their designs as it manifests itself in all of these, is well established. Similarly, their music has been credited with a unique quality of special interest. Again, their legendary lore is acclaimed both for its richness of quality and its amazing quantity. As compared to these, little effort has been made to assay their dancing.
And yet, it is in their dancing that is where the height of the Indian's artistic attainment is reached, the peak of the aesthetic expression of a truly aesthetic people. Here all of the elements of their other arts are combined in integral parts of an animated design in which the movement of the human body is the dominant means of expression. The voice of the drum is the controlling factor that brings order out of chaos, commanding as the Chief controls the warriors. It is the song that expresses verbally the human hopes and aspirations, and addresses them to the All One . It is the spectacle of painted bodies, of shimmering feathers, of urgent design and potent symbols, which expresses again in different form the same emotions. But all of these combined - drum rhythms, song, and ornamentation - do not define the dance form. It is the movement of rhythmic bodies that is the dance's central characteristic, its animated essence which combines into a dance-drama that is addressed to no idle purpose but to the worship of the One Great Spirit … so the Indian embodies in their dances the representation of all phases of their lives, their ideals and their values.
The songs have, indeed, been well recorded. So closely related are the song and dance that the Indian often uses the terms interchangeably, speaking of the dance as the song and the song as the dance.
One cannot watch a dancer pulsating and throbbing in every cell and corpuscle without realizing that here is more than mere movement of limbs, mere quiver of muscles – that here is a being who is dancing with their very soul. Here is Red Wine for the parched lips of those who travel the White Desert. |
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