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Show DBNSMORE] NORTHERN TJTE MUSIC 81 man danced all the time; yet there was never a time when some one was hot dancing. Some men were able to dance as long as four hours at a time. The women did not dance, but sat with the men at the drum. Sometimes an old man arose and sang his personal song received in a dream. A dancer who had received a song in a dream might request his friends to learn it and sing it while he was dancing. The dancers did not look at the sun, but at the willow brush on the pole. If a man became exhausted he was allowed to sleep for a time. At the end of the last day of the dance many gifts were bestoweid in the lodge. Dancers often gave presents to spectators and expected no return. Occasionally a dancer received a horse or some equally valuable gift from another dancer, in return for which he " prayed to the sun" for the health of the donor. On this day a medicine man frequently took some of the dust that had been under the feet of the dancers and put it on the head of a sick person, waving an eagle feather over him, this treatment being considered of especial efficacy. Relating his personal experience, Pa'gitS said that he had taken part in the Sun dance six times. His reason for doing this was a belief that some one had " poisoned him with rattlesnake poison,'' producing rheumatism. On the third day of dancing he " felt better." The entire period of his dancing, however, was four days and nights. He stated that he did not experience discomfort from fasting, but that the lack of water was hard to endure. Words were sometimes used in Sun dance songs, but do not appear in the songs herewith presented. No. 23 was sung on the last day of the dancing, and No. 26, as already stated, is a song of the parade. The other songs were sung at any time during the Sun dance. CHARACTERISTICS OF SONGS Seventy- five per cent of the Sun dance songs are minor in tonality, yet only one song is on the second five- toned ( minor pentatonic) scale. The melodic material is generous, one- third of the songs containing the entire octave and others lacking only one or two tones of the complete octave. In structure all these songs are either melodic or harmonic with melodic framework. A majority of the songs contain one or more rhythmic units. 25043°- 22 6 |