1909 - the Order of the Red Men -- "One pale face was scalped and burned, and was witnessed by many interested spectators."
Indian Sun Dance
1909, Feb 13 The Catholic Advance
The American Indians have a solemn festival known as the Sun Dance. The celebration, as carried out from time immemorial, included such ferocious tests of courage and endurance, such mutilations and torture, self-inflicted by the devotees in their frenzy, as it gained control, forbade the observances.The order was interpreted to mean extinction and many beautiful and impressive features would have been hopelessly lost but for the discretion and wisdom of Major W R Logan, of Belknap, Montana, who is in charge of certain tribes.
Major Logan permits these tribes to carry out the dance in every particular save the mutilations and torture. Its ceremonies included petitions, the giving of presents, initiation into various societies, the conferring of names on children, speech-making, much feasting and a great number of dances, some joyous, others solemn, but all symbolic.
1909, Feb 13 The Catholic Advance |
Those who participate in this supreme act must fast from food and water for forty-right hours, and must dance as long as the drums and chanters keep up the music.
In the spring of 1907 three thousand Indians assembled at Belknap for this dance. They represented the Hidatua Assinacine, Piegan, Blackfeet, Arapaho, Dakotah (Sioux), and Crow or Absaroka tribes, and, also, the Crees, Bloods, and Assinaboine of Canada. At the present time the traditional observances and with a long ceremony of praise and prayer to the lord of the white man and the Indian whom the Arapaho calls "The Man Above."
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1909, May 4 Fort Wayne Daily News |
1909, June 10 Lawrence Daily World |
1909, June 18 The Western North Carolina |
1909 - Alliance, Ohio - at Mount Union college, "the upper classmen" smeared Foster Whitten, a freshman, "with tar, feathers, and leaves in the woods," near the college. The hazing included having all his hair cut off except for the scalp lock [ usually that's a piece near the crown], after breaking into his room, carrying him off in a blanket, and dancing an Indian war dance around him.
1909, Oct 16 Chicago Tribune |
INDIANS AS AN ATTRACTION - Oct 1909 - "A band of beaded and feathered Indians from the Seneca reservation capered over the greensward, refraining from taking any scalps, but kidnapping a worthy citizen. William B Riley, a member of the Park Board, was adopted into the Seneca tribe with fitting ceremonies and in a setting that would have warmed the heart of a good or bad Indian."
1909, Oct 17 Democrat and Chronicle |