Ceremonies of the Pomo IndiansBarrett, S. A. (Samuel Alfred)
Religion
Ceremonies of the Pomo Indians
Barrett, S. A. (Samuel Alfred)
Pomo Indians -- Social life and customs; Pomo dance
The women painted the upper part of the body in the same way as the
men and wore a feather tuft and the regular woman's forehead-band with
bangles. They wore no feather skirt, but otherwise attired themselves
as did the men.
The men were divided into two groups at A, A (fig. 8) on both sides of
the rear of the dance-house, the women dancers being likewise divided
into two groups at F, F on each side of the drum.
When all was ready for the dance, the head singer started an air
and sang alone for several minutes. Then, at a given signal, the
burden-singers joined in with the chorus, all accompanying their
singing with split-stick rattles. This was the signal for the beginning
of the first or preliminary division of the dance. The men went to a
position about midway between the center pole and the drum, where they
formed a line BC, the women forming a group in the position G, directly
behind the line BC. Here was held the preliminary division of the
dance, called tehe´sbax (E), in which the participants danced in place
for a few minutes.
The men next moved to the position DE, passing on each side of the
center pole, the women following them to the position HI. They thus
formed two lines, facing the center pole. Here the principal part of
the dance was held. The chief singer again started the air, being
joined at the proper time by the burden-singers. Simultaneously with
the latter, the master of ceremonies gave the signal for the dancers to
begin. During the dancing he repeated the proper dance formula[24] four
times, finally saying, "ī, ī´ ..." and the dance stopped. At the
beginning of the dance, upon the signal from the master of ceremonies,
the dancers, both men and women, whirled around and faced the fire, and
as the dance stopped at the above signal they whirled back again so as
to face the center pole. The dancers moved sidewise back and forth four
times in all, along the lines DE and HI. Standing in their original
positions, they then performed for the second time the movement first
described, thus ending the dance.
This entire dance might be repeated as many times as desired, no
definite number being prescribed; but when each set of three divisions,
as above stated, was finished, the dancers returned to A, A and F, F,
retracing as nearly as possible the courses which they had traversed in
coming from these two positions. After the last set of this dance, they
removed their dance costumes near the drum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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