OCR Text |
Show -5- The dance this year which closed today, has been continued for not more than one-third the usual period, and was closed at a very much earlier date. This was done in order to get"i the dance through between the first watering of the alfalfa and the cutting of the first crop. It has been so arranged that most of the Indians will r. not be away from their homes to exceed four or five .;'•'• days. IJ:lhi3 is quite a considerable gain over the month-, and more so spent last year, and I believe that there • is little doubt but that with a goad dance at the fair this fallirrwhich all the Indians become interested, they may be induced next year to unite the two dances at the fair. Whatever the nature of the dance'- held at tea fair might at first be, £$ it can be held in connection with an agricultural fair, it can be supervised and later modified into what the Indians will appreciate as only /are a relic of the past. Ju3t now, I believe, there/more-than half of these Indians who attribute a religious significance to the Sun-dance and its results. Because the Indians divest themselves largely of clothing while engag9d in the Sun-dance, and because of the custom of . building the enclosure by means of brush with the green leaves, and for the further reason that the custom has been established many years, it is no easy matter to in- |