The Indian War Dance
After a very tiring day, I was standing to-night at the door of our log-house, looking out upon the tranquil stars, and admiring the peace and tranquillity which reigned all around. Within the house Mrs. MacMurray was hearing a young Chippewa read the Gospel, and the light of a lamp above fell upon her beautiful face—very beautiful it was at that moment—and on the dusky features of the Indian boy, akin to her own, and yet how different! and on his silver armlets and feathered head-dress. It was about nine o’clock, and though a few of the camp fires were yet burning, it seemed that almost all had gone to rest. At this moment old Solomon, the interpreter, came up, and told me that the warriors had arranged to give me an exhibition of their war-dance, and were then painting and preparing. In a few minutes more, the drum, and the shriek, and the long tremulous whoop, were heard. A large crowd had gathered silently in front of the house, leaving an open space in the midst; many of them carried great blazing torches, made of the bark of the pine rolled up into a cylinder. The innermost circle of the spectators sat down, and the rest stood around; some on the stumps of the felled trees, which were still at hand. I remember that a large piece of a flaming torch fell on the naked shoulder of a savage, and he jumped up with a yell which made me start; but they all laughed, and so did he, and sat himself down again quietly.
Meantime the drumming and yelling drew nearer, and all at once a man leaped like a panther into the very middle of the circle, and, flinging off his blanket, began to caper and to flourish his war-club; then another, and another, till there were about forty; then they stamped round and round, and gesticulated a sort of fiercely grotesque pantomime, and sent forth their hideous yells, while the glare of the torches fell on their painted and naked figures, producing an effect altogether quite indescribable. Then a man suddenly stopped before me, and began a speech at the very top of his voice, so that it sounded like a reiteration of loud cries; it was, in fact, a string of exclamations, which a gentleman standing behind me translated as he went on. They were to this purport:—“I am a Red-skin! I am a warrior! look on me! I am a warrior! I am brave! I have fought! I have killed! I have killed my enemies! I have eaten the tops of the hearts of my enemies! I have drunk their blood! I have struck down seven Long-knives! I have taken their scalps!”
This last vaunt he repeated several times with exultation, thinking, perhaps, it must be particularly agreeable to a daughter of the Red-coats; nothing was ever less so! and the human being who was thus boasting stood within half a yard of me, his grim painted face and gleaming eyes looking into mine!
A-propos to scalps; I have seen many of the warriors here, who had one or more of these suspended as decorations to their dress; and they seemed to me so much a part and parcel of the sauvagerie around me, that I looked on them generally without emotion or pain. But there was one thing I never could see without a start, and a thrill of horror,—the scalp of long fair hair.