The Chippeway herald. [volume], January 01, 1902, Image 1

About The Chippeway herald. [volume] (White Earth, Minn.) 1902-19??

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
VOL. 1.
ARROW HEADS.
Pluck says “I’ll Try,” Grit says
“I’ll TRY AGAIN. ”
Better be an honest savage than a
dishonest civilized man.
The teacher who says “Do Not as I
d > but do as I Say do, ” is inconsistent.
'ne boy who says I Can has confi-
Ueiice, but he who says I Will has de
termination—both are essential to suc
cess.
All work and no play may make Jack
a dull boy, but all play and no work
wil surely make him a very miserable
man.
THE BEAR. DANCE.
0
How the Ute Indinns on tKe Res
ervation Celebra_te the Ad
vent of Spring.
Away out on the desert plains of
eastern Utah, far away from the cul
ture and refinements of civilization,
live the confederated bands of the Ute
trib. of Indians known as the Uintah,
the White River and the Uncompahgre
Utes. These are perhaps the most un
ruly and non-progressive of the Gov
ernment s red-skinned wards, holding
out in stubborn resistance to all ef
forts on the part of the white man to
lift him out of his degraded state into
the noble and fuller life of a Christian
civilization.
Clinging with bnll-dog tenacity and
savage relentlessness to the old su
perstitions and traditions of his fore
fathers, he confines the practice of
customs long since abandoned by the
more progressive of his race and per
petuates in pristine purity the rites and
practices of a heathenism generally
thought to be extinct.
One of their most imposing cere
monies, to the casual observer, and
one to which the Ute attaches very
great importance, is the bear dance,
a kind of spring festival in honor of
the passing away of the ice and snow
of winter and tire coming of the birds
“Edvicaetion, Civiliz<Ntion acrid Citizenship.’*
WHITE EARTH, MINN., .JANUARY 1902.
and blossoms and grass and leaves of
summer,
Early in the spring, when the earth
has laid aside her white mantle of
snow and bared her brown bosom to
the gentle rays of the Sun and when
the very first faint sign of life is visi
ble in the sprouting grass and the bud
ding leaf and blossom, and when the
robbin and the field-lark have returned
from their long winter migration to the
more congenial climes of the sunny
south and warble with merry notes
from sagebush and cottonwood, hyms
of praise to their maker, then it is that
the chief of the bear dance assumes an
authoritative air and begins prepara
tions for the great feast and rejoicing,
a neglect of which would mean a dire
famine throughout the land, accompa
nied with disease and contagion and the
everlasting enmity of the Great Spirit.
His first duty is to post a guard far
up in some deep ravine or canyon of
the mountains to watch for the bear
to make his first appearance from his
hibernation, and to hasten to him with
all possible dispatch and to him alone
convey the glad tidings that bruin has
abandoned his winter home, which is
accepted as an infallible sign that win
ter is over an that spring has surely
come.
Immediately upon the receipt of
this message the chief of the dance
summons the headmen of the tribe in
secret council and informs them that
on tne following Sunday the celecra
tion will begin. They all grunt their
assent and on the next issue day,
which is tne Saturday proceeding the
opening of the dance, the chief, fol
lowed by his chosen aids, mounted on
gay steeds, parades through the
agency andformally announces in aloud
commanding tone that on the follow
ing day the bear dance will begin and
all are expected to be present and ap
pear in full dress, that the Great
Spirit may be pleased and bless them
with good crops and that health and
plenty, peace and good will may be
found abroad hi the land.
4 u < MINNESOTA HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
In the meantime, while waiting for
the formal and official announcement
that bruin has come forth to meet the
sun once more, and that they will ac
cordingly assemble at the designated
time and place to do honor to the oc
casion, preparations are going on
among the rank and file of the tribe
under the directions of the chief and
head-men to celebrate the event with
all the pomp and splendor of savage
pride and ostentation. Squaws are
busily engaged at every camp in mak
ing their own costumes and in orna
menting the paraphernalia of their
soverign lords. The making of their
own regalia requires comparatively lit
tle time and less skill, but to properly
decorate a fastidious buck and “make
him up” to his own “sweet taste,” re-
quires an artistic and inventive ge
inius and a patient, untiring disposi
tion. He is a connoisseur in matters
of dress and knows better than any
one else the requisites of his own
savage hideousness. In these matters
he is the court of last resort, from
whose decree there is no appeal. If
he decides that he wants a circle of
of deep green around one eye and one
of deep yellow around the other, it is
pretty safe to assume that this gives
him a more fiendish expression than
any other combination. Probably no
two self-respecting bucks will paint
and dress exactly alike. The styles are
not uniform by any means. Their ideal
is devilish hideousness, and that com
bmation mid arrangement that most
effectually conduces to this result is
the relization of his ideal of a good
Ute. He is the center of attraction on
these occasions, and noth’;. must be
left wanting that would a< .o his
prestige or enhance his royal uignity.
While the female portion of the tribe
are busily engaged plying the needle
and sinew, the men are at work clear
ing off the ground and building the
corral for the dance. This corral is
much like an ordinary stock corral,
being a circular brush fence about 100
Continued on page six.
NO.I.