Eagle Dance

Two men stand in the packed earth of a small plaza nine miles from Santa Fe, and they are no longer quite men. Each wears a cap of raw cotton that runs down over the nose into a long yellow beak. Their bodies are painted yellow and flecked with eagle down. From shoulder to fingertip each arm carries a row of real eagle quills, so that when the drum begins and the arms lift, the wings open with a dry rustle that carries across the square. They bend their knees and face one another. Then they rise and fall on their toes, side by side, the way a large bird rides warm air. The watchers have gone quiet.

That is the Eagle Dance as Erna Fergusson saw it at Tesuque Pueblo and described it in 1931. The men who danced it had fasted for four days. On the third night the sick had been treated in the ceremonial chamber before an altar, and only on the fourth day did the dance come out into the open where visitors could watch. The dancers themselves were given medicine water beforehand for strength, which they needed, because the steps demand long crouches and sudden swoops with the wingtips close to the ground. People at Tesuque gave a plain reason for the whole thing. Eagles are always strong, so they can cure anything.

It is not one dance. The name covers several rites held by different peoples for different ends, and they share little beyond the bird. What the Tewa of Tesuque do with two winged men, the Seneca do with four squatting dancers, a striped pole and a good deal of teasing.

Among the Seneca the dance belongs to the Eagle Society, one of the medicine societies. Arthur C. Parker, himself of Seneca descent, set down its rules in 1913. The society is dedicated to the Dew Eagle, a great bird that carries a pool of dew in the hollow of its back and is known as the reviver of wilting things. In the story of the Good Hunter, the Dew Eagle plucked a feather from its own breast and sprinkled the dead man’s dried scalp with that dew until it freshened. People joined the society because a dream told them to, or because its rite had been performed over them in sickness. Its ceremony was held to restore the old and those wasting away, and Parker ranked it among the most sacred rites of his people.

The Seneca form looks nothing like the Pueblo one. The members sit in two groups facing each other. Each side supplies two dancers and a singer. Every member paints a round red spot on each cheek. The dancers drop into a squat and keep to it, hopping and turning like birds on the ground, a feather fan in the left hand and a small gourd or bark rattle in the right. There are ten songs. The effort is punishing, and relief comes only when someone raps a pole wound with a spiral of red paint. At that knock the dancers go back to their benches and the one who struck the pole makes a speech, usually praising his own side and mocking the other, then apologizing and saying it was all in fun. He pays for the pause with a gift to the dancers. Afterward, in a private house, the company shares a pig’s head, which took the place of the bear’s or deer’s head of earlier days.

William N. Fenton, who studied the rite among the Seneca, the Onondaga and the people of the Six Nations Reserve in the 1930s, traced where it came from. His conclusion, published in 1953, was that the Iroquois dance grew out of the Calumet Dance of the peoples of the middle Mississippi, travelled east by way of the Great Lakes, and reached the Iroquois of New York around 1750. The feather fan in the dancer’s left hand is the old calumet, with the pipe gone and the feathers kept.

The Cherokee dance begins with a death. James Mooney recorded the procedure in 1900. Only a trained eagle killer could take the bird, and only in late fall or winter, after the corn was in and the snakes had gone to their dens. He went into the mountains alone, fasted and prayed, killed a deer and laid it out on a high bare cliff. Then he hid and sang softly until an eagle came down to the meat. When he had shot it he stood over the body in the cold and prayed that the eagles would take no revenge on his people, telling them that a Spaniard had done this, not a Cherokee. Back in the settlement he announced only that a snowbird had died.

Four days later hunters went up for the feathers, wrapped them in a fresh deerskin, and left the deer where it lay as an offering. The feathers were hung in a small round house beside the dance ground, with venison and corn set beneath them because they were thought to arrive hungry. The dance was held that same night. Only the greatest warriors, and those who knew the sacred rules, could carry the feathers in it.

In every form the power of the dance is the eagle’s own power, lent for an evening. At Tesuque it is strength passed to the sick. Among the Seneca it is the Dew Eagle’s gift of freshening what has withered. Among the Cherokee it is the honor of the feathers and the standing of the men allowed to hold them.

The limits are just as firm. The Cherokee songs could not be sung in summer, because they would anger the snakes, and an eagle killed out of season would bring frost down on the corn. A dream of eagles or their feathers left the dreamer no choice but to sponsor a dance at the first chance, or a relative would die. Mooney heard of one man who killed an eagle without the rites and was hunted in his sleep by swooping birds until a long course of treatment ended it. The Seneca dancers are bound by their own bodies, since no one can hold that squat for long, and by the rule that only members may take part even when the rite is performed in public. At Tesuque, by Fergusson’s day, the boys who once danced it no longer did, and older men had taken up the wings.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Eagle Dance?

The Eagle Dance is not a single ceremony but a family of Native American rites that share a name. At Tesuque Pueblo it is a two-man healing dance, among the Seneca it is the rite of the Eagle Society, and among the Cherokee it is the dance held when new eagle feathers are brought in. Each people performs it in its own way and for its own purpose.

What is the Eagle Dance for?

The purpose of the Eagle Dance depends on the people holding it. At Tesuque it is part of a healing ceremony, because eagles are held to be strong enough to cure anything. The Seneca Eagle Society dances to restore the old and those with wasting illness, and the Cherokee Eagle Dance honors newly taken feathers and the warriors allowed to carry them.

How is the Tesuque Eagle Dance performed?

At Tesuque two men dance as eagles to chanting and a drum. Each wears a cotton cap with a long yellow beak, yellow body paint dotted with eagle down, and real eagle quills along each arm from shoulder to fingertip. The public dance comes on the fourth day of a ceremony, after a four-day fast and a night in which the sick are treated.

What is the Seneca Eagle Society?

The Seneca Eagle Society is a medicine society dedicated to the Dew Eagle, the reviver of wilting things. Its rite has ten songs and four squatting dancers, two from each side, who carry feather fans and small rattles. Any member may stop the dance by striking a red-striped pole and making a joking speech, then giving the dancers a gift.

Why could the Cherokee Eagle Dance only be held in winter?

The Cherokee Eagle Dance followed the killing of an eagle, which was allowed only in late fall or winter after the harvest, when the snakes were in their dens. Singing the eagle songs in summer was said to anger the snakes, and killing an eagle then would bring frost on the corn. Only a trained eagle killer could take the bird, and he prayed afterward that the eagles would not take revenge.

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