Page:Boots and Saddles.djvu/146

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A "STRONG HEART" DANCE
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they stood up straight as the savages bent over in the evolutions of the dance. One leg and arm would be painted bright vermilion or blue, and the other a vivid green, with cabalistic characters drawn on them in black. The faces were hideous, being painted in all colors. A few had necklaces of bears' claws, on which they set great value. These hung over the bronze shoulders, the claws pointing into the brown skin of their chests. One, evidently poorer than the rest, had a rudely cut shirt made out of an old ham-bag, on which the trade-mark and name of the manufacturing firm figured conspicuously as his sole decoration. Another, equally poor, wore only the covering over his hips, while suspended by a cord from his neck was a huge tin toy horse. From the scalp-lock of some there was a strip of cloth falling to the ground, on which silver disks made of coins were fastened at close intervals.

In the plait of hair falling to their waists we saw sticks crossed and running through the braid. The interpreter explained that these represented "coups." Our attention was arrested at once by a little four-year-old boy, who, from time to time during the evening, was brought to the circle by his mother, and left to make his little whirling gyrations around the ring of the dancers. It was explained to us that he had won his right to join in the festivities of the tribe when the fight took place the summer before, to settle which this treaty was planned. Of the four Sioux left on the battle-field that day, one, though mortally wounded, was not yet dead when the retreat took place. A Ree squaw, knowing that it would count her child "a coup" if he put an-