Native American Legends
The Buffalo Dance
A Mandan Legend
The most exciting event of the year's festival was the Buffalo
Dance. Eight men participated, wearing buffalo skins on their backs
and painting themselves black, red, and white. Dancers endeavored
to imitate the buffalo on the prairie.
Each dancer held a rattle in his right hand, and in his left a
six-foot rod. On his head, he wore a bunch of green willow boughs.
The season for the return of the buffalo coincided with the willow
trees in full leaf.
Another dance required only four tribesmen, representing the four
main directions of the compass from which the buffalo might come.
With a canoe in the center, two dancers, dressed as grizzly bears
who might attack the hunters, took their places on each side. They
growled and threatened to spring upon anyone who might interfere
with the ceremony.
Onlookers tried to appease the grizzlies by tossing food to them.
The two dancers would pounce upon the food, carrying it away to
the prairie as possible lures for the coming of the buffaloes.
During the ceremony, the old men of the tribe beat upon drums and
chanted prayers for successful buffalo hunting.
By the end of the fourth day of the Buffalo Dance, a man entered
the camp disguised as the evil spirit of famine. Immediately he
was driven away by shouts and stone-throwing from the younger Mandans,
who waited excitedly to participate in the ceremony.
When the demon of famine was successfully driven away, the entire
tribe joined in the bountiful thanksgiving feast, symbolic of the
early return of buffalo to the Mandan hunting-grounds.
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