Eagle Dance Presentation

Origins and
Documented
Accounts of
By: Christina Ratelle,
Healing Debra Crumb, Jesse
Brown, Lauren
Ceremonies Reurink & Pam Moore

Outline:

1. Legends
2. Origins ofEagle Dance Legends
3. Comparative Choreography
4. The Onondoga Condor Dance
5. Eagle Dance/Documentation
6. Conclusion
7. Questions

Legends
• The Legend of the Bloody Hand
• The Two Brothers Learn Songs from Birds
• Chipping Sparrow's Adventure among Eagles
• Boy Abducted by Dew Eagle

The Legend of the Bloody Hand

http://trishtarver.edu.glogster.com/early-texans/
http://resonanttruth.com/2011/08/blue-eagle-wavespell-march-14-26-2010/eagle-feather/

The Two Brothers Learn Songs from Birds

http://sunsite.utk.edu/pisl/photos/photos/00328000.jpg

Chipping Sparrow's Adventure Among
Eagles

http://neelamspoetry.blogspot.com/2010/10/things-that-havent-been-done-before.html

Origin Legend of the Eagle Dance
• There are many variants to the origin of the Eagle Dance

• parents told their children that they would be carried
away

• William Finley states that such cases are false

• nevertheless these stories appear in the public press

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-stretched-canvas-real/eagle-carrying-little-girl-karl-addison.jpg

A boy became lost in the woods
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/36/82036638_2e7723f42a.jpg

He was sleep and he crawled into a hollow log to sleep
http://www.thepracticalnapper.com/2010/11/jack-handey-on-napping-in-log.html

Dew Eagle picked
up the log and
carried it aloft to
the crags where it
nests.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kyPhEiYq2tM/Sbij9NOk0zI/AAAAAAAABkc/CH3p58b_XUs/s400/Animal+World+in+Color+1969+eagle+and+child+Svenhil

The boy awoke and peered out of the log and saw the
earth receding far below
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DPCSd1DIHig/TAgTnjw-RcI/AAAAAAAACs4/OFbTq77UhDA/s1600/View+from+Turtle+Mountain.jpg

Dew Eagle used the log for her nest
http://www.nicolasdory.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/2010_05_29_BaldEagle_6178.jpg

The boy would crawl out and play with the eaglets while
the great bird was out hunting.
http://us.acidcow.com/pics/20110408/cute_baby_eagles_06.jpg

The eaglets grew
up.

http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Baby_Bald_Eagle_Photos.htm

One grew big enough for him to mount on its back. It flew
out and returned. It was so strong that he had to have a
club to hit it on the head to weaken it. He had something for
the club. As the bird flew higher, he would strike it. It fell
towards the earth. As it recovered, it flew higher. Now and
again he whacked it. It would fall.

These birds were supposed to roam above the clouds and never
come down toward the earth.
http://blog.triggerlappy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/eagle.jpg

The boy returned to earth by beating the young eagle on the
head...

...and he related his adventure among the birds who dwell above
the clouds amid high crags in heaven, how among them he
learned the Eagle Dance. http://www.unhcr.org/thumb1/4e92ee2b6.jpg

Main Differences Among the Abductor Legends

• Version of Djidq'Gwas

• Version of Chauncey Warrior

• Version of the Snorer

• Tonawanda Variant

• Grand River Variant

• The Bad Boy and the Giant Crow

• Gahgago'na Abducts a Hunter

Discussion 1:
What do these stories have in common?

Discussion 1:
What do these stories have in common?
• Learning songs, dances or teachings from
an Eagle (or some species of bird)
• Main character is usually a hunter -
connection to nature
• Returns to village and teaches their own
people the songs and dances
• Some legends have an overarching lesson

Discussion 2:

What are the differences in the stories? Are
these differences important?

What are the differences in the stories?
Are these differences important?
• Traditions are passed down verbally so there are
always small details included or left out
• The dances and songs vary from group to group
• The lessons taught are different (ex. cured of
illness, remember to thank Creator)

• Differences are important because each individual
variation has a personal meaning
• Each group has different interpretations of the
stories

Discussion 3:
Does anyone know any other legends that is
the basis for tradition in their culture?

An Analysis of the Iroquois
Eagle Dance and Songs:

Comparative
Choreography

Onondaga Private Ritual
• Males play priest, gift custodian, patient, dancers,
conductor, singer, and more
• Women, children, and Whites watched or slept as they
lounged on the beds
• three generations participated from two families, the
Logans and the Skyes
• Logans dominated the ritual in three roles of
intercession with the supernatural, intermediary b/w
communicants and personification of the Eagle spirit,
no one in costume

Public ritual at Cayuga Sour Springs Longhouse
• only includes the body, part II
• typical moiety grouping

Interlonghouse comparisons
• Seneca uses moiety arrangements where Onondaga
uses grouping
• Tonawanda has two chants, allegany has three
• Logans: Robert utter the cry then two boys in response
(unlike all the dancers of six nations)
• Six nations speeches fulfill the Iroquois fondness for
jokes and clowning
• Seneca speakers interrupt song and pass the cane in
rotation, where the Seneca and Onondaga wait till the
end of the song and follow no fixed order
• Ground plan is always the same within tribes, no matter
the dancer

The Dance:
Three Tribal Variants



Postures of dancers.
1. lunge, arms out to side 2. lunge, arms out in back
3. lunge, arms forward 5. hop 6. hop (Onondaga
private ritual)

Postures of dancers
4. lunge, right arm forward 7. knee twist 8. eagle
dancer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnR1bKTF3jg&feature=rel

start at 1:15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v

Gestures and Steps
• Dance choreographies are considered paradigms
because even though dancers follow the same
format, it can never be perfectly replicated each time

Longhouse variations
The beat of the rattles are played at different tempos in
each tribe to accomodate the agility of the dancers or
other needs

Individual variations
• Small variations in hand or leg placement are
insignificant
• Other variations in the dance can affect the
expressiveness and beauty, i.e. vibrant vs droopy
wings (arms)

The Onondaga Reservation

http-//www.peacecouncil.net/NOON/images/maps/OnondagaTerritory&NYS

http-//www.iroquoismuseum.org/images/onondaga2

Handsome Lake (Peacemaker) Religion

http-//www.myhero.com/images/Peacemaker/Lake/g1_u5548_handsomelake

The Condor Dance

http-//www.indymedia.org.nz/sites/default/files/file
s/images/eagle.truth_love_justice_BELOVED_E
ARTH

http-//static.desktopnexus.com/thumbnails/271790-bigthumbnail

Equipment
1. Indian tobacco
2. 12 packages of chewing tobacco
3. Hulled white corn soup
4. Chicken
5. Feather fan
6. Cowhorn Rattle
7. Stick

http-//www.myhero.com/images/Peacemaker/Lake/g1_u5842_IROQUOISMONTAGE1

Membership
o Through sickness and cure by the ritual
o Through dreams
o A fortune teller had told them to join

Preparation
o Refer to page 70

Moeity Pattern

They of the Mudhouse They of the Longhouse

- Eel - Turtle

- Bear - Beaver

- Wolf
- Deer
- Snipe
- Hawk

Ritual Pattern

http-//www.thecircusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Hopi-Condor-Dance-1024x649

The Iroquois Eagle Dance as a
Cultural Phenomenon

 IroquoisEagle Dance permits free expression of
personality within set forms
 Community distribution coincides with the Handsome
Lake Religion
 Communities: Coldspring on the Allegheny River,
Newtown on Cataragus Reservation, Tonawanda
Reservation, Onondaga near Syracuse, Onondaga
and Caygua communities at Six Nations Reserve,
Ontario

Membership

 Includes both sexes
 Members have had a dream of a specific
type, or have been cured by the society
 The society calls itself ‘the strikers’ or ‘the
medicine company’

Ritual
 Perform a ritual which is addressed to a
species of eagles that wheel in flight high in
the heavens amid clouds, have the power to
restore life to wilting things
 Song leader with a water drum and his
helpers with horn rattles, accompany a
singular dance

Ritual
 Pairs of youths/men hold a rattle in the right
hand and feather fan in the left, crouch
swaying and advance to pick up objects in
their mouths, and retreat hopping,
 End of song, a speaker strikes a pole and
interrupts the ritual to praise his host and/or
dancers

Ritual
 Recites personal achievement, humorous
anecdote or ridicules himself or another, then
distributes presents to his victims
 Following the dance, the MC passes an
animal head or a chicken among the guests,
who cry like brows and bite at it

A Century of Ethnology
 L.H. Morgan, 1851, conducted 10 years of
field work among the descendants of the
tribes that formed the Iroquois Confederacy
 Devoted little space to the meetings of
medicine societies and referred to them only
as ‘concerts’ saying nothing of their imputed
medicinal power

Ethnology: L.H. Morgan
 Ga-na-un-da-doh: Scalp Dance or Shaking a
bird’s tail
 Shaking-a-fan is the Tonawanda name for
the Eagle or Bird Dance
 Calumet Dance
 Pipe Dance
 War Dance

Ethnology: L.H. Morgan
To hold a Medicine Lodge was to observe their
highest religious rites, and to practice their highest
religious mysteries. ( Morgan, 1877, p 97)

Particular dances are special property, belonging
either to a gens or to a society organized for its
maintenance into which new members were from
time to time initiated. (Morgan, 1877, p 118)

Ethnology: E.A. Smith
 Erminnie A. Smith, 1883 went among the
Seneca of western New York
 First to mention the Eagle Dance

Private dances are held by the medicine men, in
which are introduced Ka-nai-kaw-ai, or eagle
dance… On the death of a medicine man a
special meeting is held by his fraternity, and
during the giving of certain medicines, medicine
tunes are chanted. ( Smith, 1883, p. 116)

Private dances are not infrequently given
by individual members of the tribe who,
having conceived a great affection for
each other, publicly cement it by a
friendship dance. (Ibid. Cf. Stone, 1838, vol.
1, p. 28)

Ethnology: Rev. W.M.
Beauchamp
 Rev.
Wiliam M. Beauchamp, 1895, on the
Ondondaga at Syracuse

Ethnology: Rev. W.M.
Beauchamp
Eagle dance (striking stick dance). Two men dance
side by side in precisely the same way. Each holds
a stick, with feathers spread out on each side. They
bend down, bending on leg under the dance, and
stretching the other out on the side. A cent is
placed on the flood and picked up with the mouth.
Some strike on the floor with a stick, and this gives
it the name (Ha-na-gah-a). A dancer makes a
speech and presents tobacco. (Beauchamp, 1895
a, p. 212)

Ethnology: E. Parker
 Ely Parker, 1913, wrote the first consistent
account of Seneca Medicine Societies
 Served as a guide in gathering more
information

The ritual of the Eagle Society consists of ten
songs and a dance… Every member
participating in the ceremony pains on
each cheek a round red spot. No one but
members may engage in its ceremonies,
even though these be performed publicly.
The Eagle Society’s ceremony is regarded
the most sacred, is this respect next to the
Great Feather Dance (Parker, 1913 b, pp.
124-125)

It is believed that the society holds in its
songs the most potent charms known. It is
said that the dying, especially those
afflicted with wasting diseases, and old
people, have been completely restored by
its ceremonies. This is because the Dew
Eagle, to which the society is dedicated, is
the reviver of wilting things. (Parker, 1913 b,
p 124)

Conclusion

http-//newsfornatives.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/native_ceremonial_eagle_dancer

Eagle Dance Presentation

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