Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs

Indian Games and Dances is arranged from American Indian ceremonials and sports by Alice C. Fletcher, and the book is dated 1915 and dedicated to the youth of America. The preface says the little book took its rise in an experience “many years ago when living with the Indians in their homes and pursuing my ethnological studies.”

Under the heading Song and Dance Among the Indians, the text says “With the Indian, words hold a secondary or an unimportant place in a song,” and that the music and accompanying action, ceremonial or otherwise, convey the meaning or purpose. The directions for one game say there are two players to one basket or bowl and the game is generally one hundred points. The directions say the two players sit opposite and have the basket or bowl between them, with the five plum stones lying in the bottom. A passage about a prayer says it was because a god received it, considered it, favored its plea and passed it on. A line about the gods says that each god in his place speaks out his thought, and grants or rejects Man's suppliant cry, asking for help.