lighted. The
conflagration spreads rapidly and lights the whole landscape and the
sky. A storm of red, whirling sparks fly upward, like bright golden bees
from out a hive, to a height of a hundred feet. The descending ashes
fall in the corral like a light shower of snow. The heat soon grows so
intense that in the remotest parts of the enclosure it is necessary for
a person to screen his face when he looks towards the fire.

Suddenly a warning whistle is heard in the outer darkness, and a dozen
forms, lithe and lean, dressed only with the narrow white breech-clout
and mocassins, and daubed with white earth until they seem a group of
living marbles, come bounding through the entrance, yelping like wolves,
and slowly moving round the fire. As they advance, in single file, they
throw their bodies into diverse attitudes, some graceful, some strained,
some difficult, some menacing, and all grotesque. Now they face the
east, now the west, now the south, now the north, bearing aloft their
slender wands, tipped with eagle down, holding and waving them with
surprising effects. Their course around the fire is to the left, east,
west, south, north, a course invariably taken by all the dancers of the
night.

When they have circled the fire twice, they begin to thrust their wands
toward it. Their object is to try to burn off the tip of eagle down.
They dash up to the fire, crawl up to it on their faces, run up holding
their heads sidewise, dart up backward and approach it in all sorts of
attitudes. Suddenly, one approaching the flaming pile throws himself on
his back, with his head to the fire, and swiftly thrusts his wand into
the flames. Many are the unsuccessful attempts, but at length, one by
one, they all succeed in burning the downy balls from the end of their
wands. As each accomplishes his feat, it becomes necessary, as the next
duty, to restore the ball of down, which is done by refitting the ring
held in the hand with down upon it, and putting it on the head of the
aromatic sumac wand.

The dance customs and ideas differ with the tribes and localities.
Sometimes the dance is little more than an exhibition of powers of
endurance. Men or women, or both, go through fatiguing motions for hours
and even days in succession, astounding spectators by their disregard of
the traditions of their race, so far as idleness is concerned. Other
dances are grotesque and brutal. On special occasions weird ceremonies
are indulged in, and t