1909 - More articles about banning Indian dances

Most of the time, non-Native Americans had a love-hate relationship with Indian dances. They were both appalled by the "barbaric" and "superstitious" practice, all the while wanting to see the dances for themselves, and often copying them. So the US government would prohibit the dances, then allow them for exhibition purposes, then prohibit them, then allow them, and so forth. 

• 1883 - The wild Sun Dance was held.
• 1886, Aug 4 - The wild Sun Dance "will never again be repeated."
• 1909, Dec 17 -  Uncle Sam Puts Indian Dance Under the Ban.
• 1911, Aug 20 - Indian Dances to Become Thing of Past. Education by Government of Red Men Takes Interest From Former Customs
• 1911, Nov 11 - Fearful that the Indian agent at Segar will carry out his threat to abolish the "willow" and "gift" dances of the Cheyenne and Kiowa tribes, a delegation of braves has requested the Governor of Oklahoma to use his influence at Washington to prevent it.
• 1911, Nov 16  - Resentment of a proposed order which would prohibit Cheyenne and Kiowa Indians from holding their ancient willow dance and gift dance led a party of braves from those tribes to take the trail to the capital to ask Governor Cruce to use his influence with the Indian commission at Washington to stop the interference with the old tribal customs. The Cheyennes were headed by Cloud Chief, while Chief Washee was spokesman for the Kiowas. .... The Indians explained that they do not want to give up their two dances which are about to be put under the ban, as they are tribal affairs dating from time immemorial, when the Indians roamed the plains and were their own masters... 
• 1911, Dec 9  - Red Men [white guys] Held Big Peace Dance - Under the shadow of the Hunting Moon.... [Order of Red Men] held their annual pow-wow... About 150 braves and palefaces mingled on this joyous occasion.... Thirty-two war dances were on the program... 

1886, Aug 4 The North Carolinian - The wild Indian Sun Dance, which was held for the last time during June, 1883, with its barbarous and cruel infliction's, is one of the historical features of savage superstition that will never again be repeated.

1886, Aug 4  The North Carolinian 

1909, Dec 17 - Uncle Sam Puts Indian Dance Under the Ban. -- Fiercest of all the wild orgies of the aborigines of North America is the fiesta which cluminates in the fire dance of the Saboba Indians, a small tribe living close to the Sierra Madre range of mountains, which walls off the seacoast of California from the desert. 

Up to the last years, when the Indian Bureau of the United States government finally forbade the holding of these fiestas, the Sabobas had gathered every year at the base of old Mount San Jacinto to sing, dance and gamble, and finally to throw themselves into a pit of fiery coals, roll over and over on the burning bed, and then dance with bare feet on the red hot floor of the pit.

With the passing of the Saboba fiesta has gone out what was, perhaps the strangest and weirdest gathering white men have ever seen. Even the potlatches of the Chilkat Indians of Alaska are tame affairs compared to the fire dances of the Sabobas. There is a Saboba Indian reservation at the base of the historic mountain named above. From it there went forth to their homes in the desert, at the end of the last fiesta, bands of Yumas, Cocopahs, Northern Yaquis and Moapas -- mere remnants of the tribes which once densely populated all the region now known to the white men of the West as "the desert. -- From "the Last Dance of the Sabobas," in the December Wide World Magazine. 

1909, Dec 17   New Castle Herald 

1910, Feb 27 Chicago Daily Tribune  

1911, Feb 25  St Tammany Farmer 

                  MANY BECAME INDIANS                                                                             The Scouts of Cheyenne Tribe Bring
                                              to Their Chiefs 27 Scalps of Palefaces
                                                    1911, March 23 Reading Times
--- When Cheyenne Tribe of Red Men [white men] was instituted December 10, last, Great Sachem W H Long in his address said: "Let Cheyenne Tribe be the tribe to do things." Since then candidates have been admitted each week until now the number is nearly 100 members.... With the presentation of 27 scalps last evening the local chiefs expressed themselves as well pleased. The 27 men were taught how to shoot with bow and arrow, paddle a canoe and scalp palefaces by the superb degree team of Wyanet Tribe of Red Men under Prof. Hayden McQuait, who has directed the transformation of many of those adopted expressed themselves as well pleased with the initiatory work.  

1911, March 23  Reading Times 

INDIAN DANCES TO BECOME THING OF PAST

Education by Government of Red Men Takes Interest From Former Customs

                                                                1911, Aug 20  The Wichita Daily Eagle 

     Watonga, Okla, Aug 19 -- Will Indian dances soon become a matter of history only? Present indications are that they will. The Indians are fast assuming the ways of the white man, becoming educated and industrious, and Indian agency attaches everywhere are striving to encourage the discontinuance of the pastime.

     Little Chief, a Cheyenne, advertised a dance to be held at his place, near Calumet a short time ago and made great preparation for the event. The invited guests were slow in arriving and many did not arrive at all. When it was finally decided to start the dance on Sunday there were strong objection on the part of those Indians who believe in the observance of the Sabbath and the dance was caled off, and many returned to their homes, while many others sought the next dance, which was to be held at Cantonment.

     De Forest Antelope, one of the best educated and most industrious farmers of this section, and himself an Indian, says regarding these gatherings:

     "One drawback to the success of the Indian as an agricultural citizen is the big powwow or visiting between the different tribes. For instance, some other tribe comes to visit the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. They stay for a week or so. They will be entertained. The home tribe must feed them, give them presents, and when they leave the surplus of the home Indian is exhausted. This is not all. These big meetings revive memories and traditions of the Indians and tend to discourage them in their efforts toward the simple life on the farm." 

1911, Aug 20  The Wichita Daily Eagle 

1911, Nov 9  The Tennessean 

Why This Discrimination?

                                                                               1911, Nov 11 The Inter Ocean 
     Fearful that the Indian agent at Segar will carry out his threat to abolish the "willow" and "gift" dances of the Cheyenne and Kiowa tribes, a delegation of braves has requested the Governor of Oklahoma to use his influence at Washington to prevent it. So says a dispatch from Oklahoma City.

     Now, we know little of the "willow" and "gift" dances that appear to be in such imminent danger on account of the hostility of a censorious Indian agent. But we will say that it looks rather unfair for a government that has winked at so many other dances to permit its agents to interfere with the Indian diversions in that line.

     It does seem as if an administration that has remained inactive during several seasons of Mary Garden in Salome and Thale is in rather poor position to rise up in its wrath and tell the Cheyennes and the Kiowas that their salutatory exhibitions are shocking and ought not to be given in public.

     By the same token, it would seem as if an administration that has kept a steadily sawing wood while Gertrude Hoffman and Isadora Duncan and Ruth St Denis and several distinguished and scantily attired Russian dancers exhibited their arts to shocked and admiring audiences ought to be able to stand the Indian exhibitions without a strong revulsion of feeling.

     Think of the sense of burning injustice that would rankle, and rightly rankle, in the aboriginal bosoms when they learned, as they no doubt would learn, what sorts of dances the Great White Father at Washington was "standing for" among the palefaces, while taking exception to their comparatively modest and cherished "willow" and "gift" dances! 

     If they could only call themselves Russian dancers and have press agent notices telling about how sad the Czar was to see them leave the empire and how strictly he had enjoyed them to be back within a certain time or prepare to be banished to Siberia, they could do almost anything they wanted to in the dancing line.

     But just because they happen to be native Americans - in fact, the most native Americans we have - with no hint of the foreign in their dances, they have to submit to the indignity of having an Indian agent threatening to interfere with their performance, and are compelled to resort to the expedient of humbly suing the Great White Father at Washington to let the box office open for business!

     We feel assured that when President Taft or the Secretary of the Interior has fully considered the case he will decide that the Indian agent's apprehension of possible trouble as a result of these dances does not furnish sufficient grounds for a reversal of the government's tolerant attitude with respect to dancing in general -- still less for a positive discrimination against its own wards. 

1911, Nov 11 The Inter Ocean 

1911, Nov 16  Fort Gibson New Era - Resentment of a proposed order which would prohibit Cheyenne and Kiowa Indians from holding their ancient willow dance and gift dance led a party of braves from those tribes to take the trail to the capital to ask Governor Cruce to use his influence with the Indian commission at Washington to stop the interference with the old tribal customs.

     The Cheyennes were headed by Cloud Chief, while Chief Washee was spokesman for the Kiowas. .... The Indians explained that they do not want to give up their two dances which are about to be put under the ban, as they are tribal affairs dating from time immemorial, when the Indians roamed the plains and were their own masters...

1911, Nov 16  Fort Gibson New Era 

1911, Dec 9  The Courier News - Red Men [white guys] Held Big Peace Dance - Under the shadow of the Hunting Moon.... [Order of Red Men] held their annual pow-wow... About 150 braves and palefaces mingled on this joyous occasion.... Thirty-two war dances were on the program...

1911, Dec 9  The Courier News