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Show 70 The Southern Utes set for the tea dance. It was performed, like other social dances, at any time when the people were in an encampment. Most likely it was held chiefly near the agencies on "issuing day" when the Indians came to draw their rations from the government. When the Utes traveled on hunting or raiding parties, they sang songs and danced along the way. Sometimes a warrior would imitate a dog following a horse along the trail, and from this came the Dog Trot Dance. The Utes danced before going on a raiding party and when they returned. They had a victory song for when they won and a mourning song for when they lost. But of all the Ute dances, the Bear Dance is probably the oldest and shows the characteristics of all the dances. The Bear Dance was a spring festival that preceded the separation of the families in search of food and game. Before the coming of the white man, small groups of Utes, probably numbering fifty to one hundred, took up winter camps in skin or brush tipis in the coniferous forests of the foothills along the southern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Early in the spring, probably about February, the winter camps joined together with others from their band and the dance was held. Doing "the bear's dance" secured its kindness toward human beings. The Ute story of the origin of the Bear Dance tells of a man going to sleep and having a dream. This man dreamed that if he went to a certain place in the mountains he would see a bear. It was in the spring of the year when the snow was melting and the bears were just awakening from their winter hibernation. The Ute went to the spot he dreamed about and there he discovered a bear shuffling forward and backward in a dance. The bear taught the Indian how to do this dance and how to sing it. Then he told the Ute to return to his people and teach them to do the Bear Dance. So every spring, when the bears start emerging from their winter sleep, each of the seven bands of Utes dance the Bear Dance. The dance was held in a large circular space enclosed by a barrier of upright poles, between which the branches of trees were woven horizontally. The walls were about nine feet high and the enclosure about 200 feet in diameter. The door faced east and on the west was an excavation about five feet long, two feet wide and two feet deep. Sheets of zinc were placed over this during the dances, and the singers sat around it, resting their moraches, long, curved, notched sticks, on |