Scalp dance

“ The scalp dance may last an entire night, or until, worn down with fatigue, the actors are willing to forego their pleasure and seek rest. The Mexicans on the frontiers have fallen into this Indian custom, and they can go into the spirit of the scalp dance with a relish which fully equals that exhibited by their savage neighbors. ”

“ The medicine dance. 10. The scalp dance. The first seven are all danced in the same manner, the only difference is in the singing. This is usually sometimes loud, sometimes soft, now high, now low, always consisting of short, frequently repeated tones, and extremely monotonous, often interrupted by loud exclamations of "re, ri," or "hey, hey, hey," repeated three times, nearly the same among all the Missouri tribes, and interrupted by the war cry. The medicine dance of the women does not occur every year. It is a medicine feast for the latter, at which, however, some men likewise appear. ”

“ The Scalp-dance (plate 104) is given as a celebration of a victory; and amongst this tribe, as I learned whilst residing with them, danced in the night, by the light of their torches, and just before retiring to bed. When a war party returns from a war excursion, bringing home with them the scalps of their enemies, they generally “dance them” for fifteen nights in succession,246 vaunting forth the most extravagant boasts of their wonderful prowess in war, whilst they brandish their war weapons in their hands. ”

“ Thus in the buffalo and the bear dances, skins of buffalo, with the head, skin, and horns attached, or the skins of bears, were put on, to make the dancers look like these animals.
The meaning and uses of dances differ greatly. The war dance, in which the men are painted as if for war and have about them everything that can make them think of war, is intended to influence them for battle. The music, songs, movements, prayers, and offerings all relate to the coming conflict. The scalp dance is in celebration of victory. ”

“ This is received with a loud shout of approbation, the drums beat up, the song commences and another round or two is performed.
Then some other makes a speech of a like nature, either in praise of himself or of those who brought the scalps, and in this way it continues for several hours. Occasionally some old woman will take the scalp in her teeth and shake it like a dog, or throw it on the ground and trample on and abuse it as though it were a living enemy, concluding with a short speech in praise of the warriors, and the dance proceeds as before, the music going round with the dancers. ”

“ Finally the “green scalp,” after being dried and mounted, is consecrated by the solemn dance, and becomes then fit for public exhibition. Some tribes attach it to a long pole used as a standard, and others to their horses’ bridles, others to their targes, while others ornament with its fringes the outer seams of their leggins; in fact, its uses are many. The more scalps the more honor; the young man who can not boast of a single murder or show the coveted trophy is held in such scant esteem as the English gentleman who contents himself with being passing rich on a hundred pounds a year. ”

“ This is usually taken from the crown of the head, of a small circular size; sometimes however they take the whole integuments of the skull, with which they ornament their war jackets and leggins, or twist into a brush for the purpose of keeping off the mosquitoes. The scalp is their glory and triumph, and is often carried by women stretched upon a stick, and hung with various articles so as to make a jingle to men when they perform the war-dance. ”

“ The scalps are stretched on little hoops, or frames, and carried on the end of slender poles. These are brandished about in the course of the dance, with cries, shouts, and furious gestures. The women, who commence as spectators, becoming excited with the scene and the music which their own discordant notes help to make more deafening, rush in, seize the scalps from the hands of the owners, and toss them frantically about, with the screams and yells of demons. I have seen as many as forty or fifty scalps figuring in one dance. ”

“ They seem merely a succession of sounds and motions without any fixed system. Pounding on rude drums of hide accompanies the songs, which are sung without words, and in which some listeners have detected a certain savage melody. Scalp-dances are performed by women hideously painted, who execute their diabolical antics in the centre of a circle formed by the rest of the tribe who furnish music to the dancers. ”

“ The music swelling into a rapturous tumult preludes the choral climax, wherein the dancers, raising their delicate feet, and curving their arms and fingers in seemingly impossible flexures, sway like withes of willow, and agitate all the muscles of the body like the fluttering of leaves in a soft breeze. Their eyes glow as with an inner light; the soft brown complexion, the rosy lips half parted, the heaving bosom, and the waving arms, as they float round and round in wild eddies of dance, impart to them the aspect of fair young fiends. ”

“ Now appeared a woman, with glorious eyes looking out of a skull; now an armed figure on a skeleton horse; now one now another of the hideous burrowing phantasms. I could trace no order and little relation in the mingling and crossing currents and eddies. If I seemed to catch the shape and rhythm of a dance, it was but to see it break, and confusion prevail. With the shifting colours of the seemingly more solid shapes, mingled a multitude of shadows, independent apparently of originals, each moving after its own free shadow-will. ”

“ All superfluous clothing is discarded in a most alarming manner at various stages of this performance, and the arms are flapped vigorously against the naked body which is made to sound like a drum. The performance is not allowed to stop until the dancer is quite exhausted, when he simply collapses in the arms of one of his friends. The musical accompaniment to this dance verges on the diabolical, the rhythm of what melody there is being interspersed with abundant howls, yells and snapping of fingers from the enthusiastic crowd all round. ”

“ Never the twitch of a muscle, never an impulse of hurry, never the suspicion of hesitation—through bar after bar of music, the ethereal one makes that first step reverence-compelling in its incredible beauty of movement.
Analogous to the developpé in execution is the pas de cheval, the latter, however, serving to change the dancer’s place on the floor. It is proud, strong, triumphant; used in an advance of a corps de ballet toward the spectator, the motive of dominance is strongly felt. ”

“ The dance commences by the men springing forward towards the centre of the circle and back again, flashing their knives about over their heads, and singing in time to the music in a low tone, but gradually the music, singing, and dancing become louder and quicker, belts and turbans are thrown off to allow of greater freedom of movement, and the knives flash more rapidly, until at last the men seem in a very frenzy, and the dancing becomes a series of wild leaps in the air, knives are thrown up and caught again, and the singing changes to a chorus of wild yells. ”

“ In a little while, when they begin to warm up to the dance, they do a whole turn in the air during each spring forward, and, as this is continued, the dancers become more and more energetic, until their hair, which is worn long and cut straight round the shoulders, stands out like a mop being wrung out as they spin round. ”

“ In mid-advance they stop, face each other, chassée, retire, and again come further forward, stop, and the peculiar portion of the dance begins, which is not dancing at all, but a quivering, undulating motion given to the body, as the girl stands with feet planted wide apart. The feet are still, the head scarcely stirs, except with an almost imperceptible snakelike movement, but the muscles of the body to the hips quiver in time to the monotonous music, in muscular thrills, in waves running down, and at intervals extending below the waist. ”

“ It is dancing, too, that has made the vogue for the new garters, with their deep lace ruffles, and the little lace pantalets—all to hide those slender ankles that show in the dip. It is dancing that has made the vogue for the Tango slippers, with their ribbons and jeweled slides; and it is dancing that has made the small hat of tulle or lace fashionable for afternoons in place of wide picture-hats. "Big hats are unpleasant to dance in." ”

“ The coins begin to roll in as the gaping sightseers gather round, but his harvest is interrupted by the greater attractions of a dancing girl, who begins upon a strip of carpet laid with care upon the ground a posturing dance, to the accompaniment of strains from a hurdy-gurdy turned by her male companion. She likewise is not allowed to hold the field undisputed, for a rival—also attended by a portable organ—establishes herself hard by. ”

“ His dancing is distinguished by its reserve. It always leaves something to the imagination. His gestures in the “Arrow Dance” derive no little of their effectiveness from what they suggest, but leave unsaid. It is the warrior not at war but at play, and like the gambolling of young tigers affects us by the passion that it only hints at. His dancing has a constant tendency to forsake motion for repose. In his entrechats and pirouettes I seemed to note a certain reluctance, as though they were a concession demanded by popular taste, or a lingering tradition of the ballet technique. ”

“ The ballet became a spectacle. It was buried beneath a mass of unmeaning accessories. The stage was encumbered with gorgeous properties and with the crowd of those who did not dance but merely took their place in the pageant. The effect may have been magnificent, but it was not art. At the same time the ballet-dancers, whose business was to dance, were transformed into members of a chorus, whose chief function was to look pretty. They marched and counter-marched across the stage, performing a number of evolutions with a kind of military precision. ”

“ The arms and hands play a remarkable part in the dance. Every finger is made a means of expression, and the simultaneous fluttering and waving of the arms of an entire corps-de-ballet can be compared to nothing but the petals of a bed of flowers, sent hither and thither by a capricious wind. ”

“ Only amateurs have the courage to dance in shoes. Even that strict and stilted institution, the ballet, was forced generations ago to break through its time-honored traditions by abandoning heels as useless appendages. Had she been on the stage, she would have danced in her bare feet as she had done on the night of the fiesta when Captain Forest had seen her. ”

“ After this lengthy peripatetic inspection is concluded, they seat themselves in groups, and the Chosen Victim suddenly breaks into a dance—if dance can be called a series of agonised movements not less ugly and contorted than the immobile posture in which she has been for so long rigidly stationed. ”

“ Considering one after the other, one finds little crisp and spontaneous beauty in the steps and gestures of the ballerinas of the last part of the past century. The umbrella-like stiff dress of the classic ballet has only a momentary semi-sensuous appeal. In the long run it becomes unæsthetic and unpractical, since it hides the natural lines of the human body. ”

“ To me the stage is a canvas on which the composer paints his ideas, notes his music and displays scenery colored by appropriate costumes. A picture is an imitation of Nature; but a good ballet is Nature itself, ennobled by all the charms of art. The music is to dancing what the libretto is to the music.’ According to his theory the action of the dancer should be an instrument for the rendering of the written idea. Before Noverre laid the foundation to his ballet d’action, dancing had existed as an auxiliary form to opera and was lacking in any signs of life. ”

“ There was a time when she wished to initiate a reform of human life in its least details of costume, of hygiene, of morals. But gradually she came to concentrate her interest upon the dance. For her the dance is not merely the art which permits the spirit to express itself in movement; it is the base of a whole conception of life, a life flexible, harmonious, natural. In the development of the dance she found herself confronted by the dilemma which has just been alluded to. On the one hand was the limited technique of the ballet, on the other the unnatural contortions of the eccentric school. ”

“ The main tendency of the nineteenth century ballet is to get rid of the mechanical contrivances, the monstrous etiquette and majestic solemnity and, like music, give it more coherence and better harmony with the plot. Between 1820 and 1850 it became an inseparable accompaniment to the opera to such an extent that the occupants of the gilded boxes preferred the thrill of the dancing to the music. ”

“ Not the staccato propulsion of the "Doll Dance" which, as she observed the swaying pairs, seemed a classroom exercise taught by Miss Klemper, an old maid. She wanted to dance the long free step and whirl of the one-step.
Ballroom dancing is more fun than ballet, she thought. Maybe I ought to be a ballroom dancer like Irene Castle. It's easier too. These women are terrible dancers. What fat behinds. I wonder if it's all right to smile at one of the men so he will ask me to dance? ”

“ And when we consider the ballet from the only possible point of view, from the point of view of the crystallised dance, how offensive will appear to us “gymnastics that transform themselves into fantastics.” ”

“ Some one then, outside the door, beats the drum, and the camel, not on account of the music, but of the fire by which his feet are hurt, lifts first one leg then another, after the manner of a dancer, and after having been thus trained for ten or twelve months, he is led into public, when, on hearing the drum, and remembering the burning of his feet, he immediately begins to jump, and thinking himself to be on the same floor, he raises himself on his hind legs, and appears to dance ”