Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs

								

ago from certain native grasses. The Euchlaena luxurians found in
Guatemala is probably an ancestor of the maize. The word "maize" belongs to
the language of a people living by the Caribbean Sea and never was a
universal term for corn among the Indians of our country. The tribes to
which maize was known gave it a name derived from their own languages. So
very many centuries have passed since corn was a grass that there is no way
now of finding out when in the remote past the natives of this continent
began the task of developing from a grass a staple article of food like the
corn. The process required years of careful observation, manipulation and
culture. Not only did the Indians accomplish this task but they took the
plant from its tropical surroundings and acclimated it throughout the
region east of the Rocky Mountains up to the country of short summers in
the North; Cartier, in 1534, found it growing where the city of Montreal
now stands.
From this hasty glance at the long history of the maize we can discern the
natural sequence of its close relation to the thought and to the life of
the Indian, and to a degree understand the love and the reverence with
which the corn was held and regarded as a gift from God. Every stage of its
growth was ceremonially observed and mentioned in rituals and songs.
Among the Omaha tribe when the time came for planting, four kernels from a
red ear of corn were given to each family by the keeper of this sacred
rite. These four red kernels were mixed with the ordinary seed corn, that
it might be vivified by them and made to yield an ample harvest. Red is the
symbolic color of life. In this ceremony is preserved a trace of the
far-away time when all the precious seed corn was in the care of priestly
keepers. The ceremony of giving out the four red kernels served to turn the
thoughts of the people from a dependence solely on their own labor in
cultivating corn to the life-giving power of Wakon'da dwelling within the
maize.
In the Omaha Ritual Song of twenty-six stanzas which preceded the
distribution of the four red kernels, the Corn speaks. It tells of its
roots reaching in the four directions (where dwell the messengers that
bring life), of the growth of its jointed stalk, of the unfolding of its
leaves, of the changing color of the silk and of the tassel, of the
ripening of the fruit, of the bidding of the people to come, to pluck and
to eat.
The music of this Ritual Song is simple. It is here given with a very brief
paraphrase of the words of the Ritual Song.

DANCE I
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.--This ceremonial dance touches upon the mystery of the
giving of life that life may be maintained; an exchange that links together
the different forms of life and enhances the joy of living.
Properties.--Thin green mantles; yellow plumes like the corn tassel; bone
clips; as many of these articles as there are dancers.
Directions.--This dance belongs to both sexes and a number of each should