Putting on an Indian Pageant with Boy Scouts

PUTTING ON AN INDIAN PAGEANT WITH BOY SCOUTS By Frank R. Arnold Mr. Ralph Hubbard, son of Elbert Hubbard, has put on his Indian pageant with boy scouts in twelve large cities of the United States all the way from Bangor, Maine, to San Francisco, and he took his best Indian dancers from among the scouts to London, in the summer of 1920, in order to show European scouts the beauty of aboriginal American life and the super-scout qualities of American boys. Last winter Mr. Hubbard put on his pageant in Logan, Utah, and found the task easier than ever because that town, it is said, has more Eagle scouts and more scouts enrolled according to the population than any town in the United States. This is due partly to the fact that Logan is the seat of the State Agri- cultural College and that its students and faculty furnish unusually good material for scout leadership. When Mr. Hubbard came to Logan, January, 1923, he first met about 185 scouts in the high school gymnasium, Karl Young, a Logan boy scout and although he knew that he was going Indian, in all his regalia for the Mystery Dance first had to win his boys. to give the boys an opportunity dear to scout hearts yet, like a true teacher, he He did it by convincing them first that the Indian subject was one worthy of them, that they alone could give it the appropriate dignity and reverence, and then he had to allure them with beautiful, genuine costumes, and thrill them with the wonder and majesty of Indian dancing. Thus at the first rehearsal he had the boys all sit down on the gymnasium bleachers and told them the Indian story of Wovaka, the Indian chief, whose medicine man told him he must be friendly with the Whites; how he went up into the mountains to meditate and on his return danced the dance of peace and good will, the beauty of which, danced in his pure white costume, and the spirit of which, were so effective that the report soon spread throughout all the land to both Indians and Whites alike. Thus the boys at the outset came to look on the Indian as a creature almost

314 IMPROVEMENT ERA from another world, the embodiment of friendliness, a spirit to be loved and reverenced, a new idea for scouts nurtured on Cooper's vindictive savages and on Mark Twain's wide spread formula that the only good Indian is a dead one. This is a lesson for every scout to learn and no man in America can put it over like Mr. Hubbard. The listening scouts were touched, but their first real thrill came when he showed them the head dresses, put on a war bonnet with two trailing tails made of white eagle feathers with black tips and told of the pony war dance in which ten picked riders wearing similar bon- nets took part. When he showed how the tails of the bonnets had whizzed through the air lashing the flanks of the ponies and were still stained with sweat, then he had the boys hypnotized. From the moment he extended his arms, holding out both tails of feathers and said, "These have touched the pony flanks," the scouts were his, body and soul, ready to work on the pageant with every inch of scout energy in their bodies. Standing before them in his Indian costume, with his plastic responsive body, his eloquent shoulders and his vibrant Nasenfluegel he seemed to them the incarnation of an Indian chief come to lead their clan on to beautiful sports and happy hunting grounds. No boy could resist the appeal. Next he squatted down, cross-legged, before a big drum set on four crooked sticks each tipped with an antler prong and started beat- ing the tom-tom, beating it with a stick all bound around with buck- skin and tipped with feathers, first in quick time and then gradually slowing down and followed by the prayer uttered before the war dance. It was as impressive as a church service, or the homecoming of men from war. It was both for the boys — a service filled with awe and respect, and a home-coming to the primitive feelings of religious mys- tery that are the basic elements of the race. Then real work began. One of the boys beat the drum in the same measure and Mr. Hubbard started the boys in a circle and showed them the three steps of the war dance, all heel and toe movements. According to him all Indian dancing is individual and the Indians say a man is not a good dancer unless he can attract attention alone in the midst of a ten acre field. The main principles are a slight bending of the knees with the stomach pulled in; gaunt outlines; the body free to writhe with swinging arms; the arms wheeling at moments like a bird in the air; all the time casting fearsome glances for shadows at the heels, because an Indian must keep looking for his shadow; each man, a solo dancer, must forget his associates, and at moments in the war dance must grab a handful of sand that he gradually and gracefully raises aloft letting it sift through his fingers as an offering to Wakonah. During the rehearsals Mr. Hubbard never used a whistle but increased the Indian atmosphere by giving the short, sharp barks of a wolf howl whenever he wished to attract attention and as the boys went home from the first rehearsal you could hear these wolverine calls all over town. Each wolf bark resounding through the town meant

316 IMPROVEMENT ERA that the scout was full of enthusiasm for the Indian subject, that he was resolved to be one of the leading dancers so that some time he might be invited to go to England or France and show European scouts how well American scouts can execute interpretive Indian dancing. And all that started with one rehearsal; the scouts were fascinated with Indian life, lore, and dancing and were throbbing with ambition. After that first rehearsal the pageant marched steadily to per- fection. The war dance was mastered with its slow rythmical first step; its second step with its stealthy wheeling evolutions of the body, symbolical of hunting movements; then the ever increasing excitement of this hunting step, followed by the high step with its climax of shouting, after which the dance works back as it has worked up and ends with the smaller boys sitting down, then the braves, and lastly the chiefs, all sinking gradually to the ground with crossed legs and heads, sunk in an attitude of complete exhaustion. The high step with the body bent, the hips parallel to the ground, and the knees raised high was hard for many to get well, but new incentives were constantly added as costumes were given out, with head dresses of eagle and turkey plumes, as twenty chiefs were chosen and the ghost dancer was selected. The last was a scout leader, tall and lean, a good dancer and one who had much prestige with the boys, and by this time the poor dancers had dropped out, and 125 large and small scouts were left to put the pageant through in the best possible scout style. Next came the Elk Mystery dance. A line of 40 chiefs and warriors representing the elks came on the stage with swinging step and heads swaying from side to side as they pretend to labor through the deep snow. On their head with one hand each held a forked stick, to represent antlers, while the other hand was tucked in the small of the back. The elk stop and sniff when they hear the wolves howl. They try to locate them and steal up on them. Then the wolves, represented by small scouts in wolf skins, howl again and the elk charge, but the wolves steal around behind and the elk wheel and charge them again in broken formation and drive them away. Again they resume their swinging step but soon get scent of the hunters crouching near with their bows and as the scent gets stronger the elk run, the hunters charge and the dance ends. The whole shows what the elk has to contend with in the struggle for existence, snow, wild animals, and human beings. As all Indian dances show religious or combative emotions so this pictures dramatically the tribal feeling of gratitude to the elk, just as the Greek dances before Dionysius were originally the outpourings of hearts thankful for the great gift of the grape. This elk dance has many difficult features. It is hard to keep your balance on one foot as your body sways with head to one side when you lift your leg and try to represent the slow dragging of the limbs from the deep snow. Then again the long swinging step with

PUTTING ON AN INDIAN PAGEANT 317 the toe pointed down is hard to get. The whole line of dancers must move in unison and the scouts, when tall and graceful, give an impressive picture of a line of Nijinskys. A third dance learned was the Ojibway scalp dance. In this several boastful young warriors came into the midst of a seated circle of men, women, and children. They advance with the hunting step. alert and angular, holding handfuls of scalps aloft, parading them boastfully and beating their breasts to torn torn music. Soon the atti- tude changes from boldness and assurance to one of stealthy, expectant attention as if suddenly scenting a foe. The dancer moves about with a low crouching step like a cougar. All of a sudden the rhythmic tom-tom beating is interrupted by a crashing stroke. The dancer drops to the ground in a crouching posture the left leg extended to- ward the foe. Another vivid sudden beat. The dancer edges toward the enemy with a low crouching hop. Three or four times these sudden beats and movements are repeated, the dancer getting more and more tense, more and more in readiness for the final stroke. The tom-tom strokes roll into a crash. The Indian rises, gathers himself together for the thrust, and with a fierce whoop brings the war clubs with the force of both hands down on the head of the enemy. Then immediately he falls into the high step and resumes his exultant man- ner. Here again is need of boy scout qualities. The dancer must interpret the feelings of an exultant, boastful warrior. He must brandish the scalps, must crouch stealthily, must pounce on the foe with quick sliding movements. The boy scout bodies responded quickly to the dance instructions because they had formed the habit of answering instantly the leader's whistle and so the pageant leader got immediate co-operation with his orders. The climax of the pageant was the buffalo ghost dance. It starts with a most effective setting. In front of the teepees squat the Indian villagers. Perpendicularly to them forming the opposite sides of a square sit two lines of chiefs, facing out, their heads bent to the ground. In the square between these two lines and in full view of the villagers are scattered buffalo skins, two buffalo skulls and an incense bowl made from a wicker basket or a rawhide shield. At the first stroke of the tom-tom the lines of chiefs rise and do the grape vine step, wheeling around the skulls as a pivot. When they line up again two leaders in turn leave their places, pick up the incense bowl and scatter incense through the lines. Again the lines break up, each dances an individual step and finally falls flat on his stomach in a trance. The lights go out, the spot light falls on the entrance to the medicine teepee. Out of this comes the ghost of the Buffalo. He stands a moment shrouded in mystery. He is all white splendor in a costume of pure white buckskin with a head dress consisting of two long tails of white feathers. He dances and tries to call back the vanished splendor of the buffalo. He winds his way in dancing, over and around the prostrate bodies, picks up the incense bowl and wafts

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PUTTING ON AN INDIAN PAGEANT 319 smoke over them. Next he picks up a buffalo skull, dances with it, and finally retreats reluctantly, drawn by invisible powers into the teepee. The keynote of the dance is mystery. Why was this great gift of the buffalo given us and why withdrawn? The dancer re- calls all the shadows of the past. He shows pain and sorrow in his face. He creates the dance himself using any steps except the exultant. In Logan the dance was created by a cow boy scout leader from Southern Utah, a boy student of 19, built like Nijinsky, brought up on Indian traditions and "crazy" over all forms of Indian life and scout work. Any boy who does well in this Indian pageant should have a merit badge for Indian legends, life, and dancing. He has spent two weeks rehearsing with an Indian scholar and expert. He has burrowed deep into a congenial historical subject. He has learned to love, re- spect, and understand the Indian. He has mastered through new danc- ing movements control over all the muscles of the body and lastly he has obtained an insight into interpretive dancing. Boy scout work is weak on the artistic side, but boy scout work exists essentially to prove that, La Fontaine to the contrary, boy scouts are not savages and Mr. Hubbard's work shows that they may be artists. As he himself con- stantly remarked, in order to keep up the spirit of noblesse oblige in the boys, he would never think of putting on the pageant with anyone except boy scouts. The value of boy scout co-operation was well shown in connection with the costumes. Each boy had his costume given to him four days before the pageant. Each had a sack to put his things in and checked it when leaving. Only to boy scouts could so many valuable, easily filchable articles be entrusted. When the costumes were finally returned not a bead was lost nor a feather missing. One of the smallest of the scouts had even got his mother to wash and iron his gee string and leggins, the first time, according to Mr. Hubbard, that such a worthy scout action had ever occurred in the history of his pageant. Logan, Utah Vocation Thoughts If your son has a leaning toward business, give him a business educa- tion, and advise him to get out into the business world. If he has a taste for a profession, help him get into a professional environment. If he is artistically inclined, by all means let him place himself in an artistic atmos- phere. Avoid making him undertake a life work for which he has no liking. Every person born has talents and desires along certain lines and only by perfecting themselves according to their desires will they be successful. Find out what your boy is adapted to, and help him into that line. He will succeed. Mechanical-brained boys have done as much for the world as the boys with professional brains. Don't discourage your boy because he likes the grime of the factory. — D. C. Retsloff.