Pyrrhic of the Greeks, may enable us to catch the spirit of the sacred dance in spite of the trivial associations of modern dancing. In the American Indian war-dance, the tribal leader, with his war-club in his hands smeared with vermilion to symbolise blood, raises the war-song, accompanied by drum, and rattle, and the voices of a few choristers. The song, brief and full of repetition, is repeated slowly and with measured cadence, to which the most exact time is kept, the singer every few minutes stepping out of his circular path to shout the war-cry. Clearly the words he sings are far from occupying the most prominent place in the aesthetic appreciation of the Indian; for him the graceful dance, the graphic symbolisation of battle and victory by vehement gestures, the familiar music of drum and rattle and the voices of the choristers carry a significance scarcely imaginable by bookish minds. Still, a specimen of the words may be here quoted from Dr. Schoolcraft's work on the Indian tribes as an aid in realising the nature of these song-dances.
"Hear my voice, ye warlike birds!
I prepare a feast for you to batten on;
I see you cross the enemy's lines;
Like you I shall go.
I wish the swiftness of your wings;
I wish the vengeance of your claws;
I muster my friends;
I follow your flight.
Ho! ye young men that are warriors,
Look with wrath on the battle-field!"[1]
In the same work Dr. Schoolcraft gives us a picture of the famous Arrow-Dance, as described by an eye-witness, Surgeon Ten Broeck, who served in the United States army in New Mexico, 1851–2. Part of this description may be here quoted as a very vivid illustration of the
- ↑ Hist. Ind. Tribes in U.S., pt. ii. p. 60.
