COMANCHE DANCE BY DOROTHY NEWKIRK STEWART FROM HANDBOOK OF INDIAN DANCES
Accompanying text reads:
COMANCHE DANCE
Pueblo history is comparatively peaceful. The feathered headdress of tribes believing in the virtue of warfare, as Dr. Hewett says, is as foreign to the Pueblo as a Tuxedo on a Hottentot. Raiding enemies of the Pueblos were Navajo, Apache, Ute and Comanche; frightening war paint in this dance is borrowed from the last–green and read or black face, body quartered in colors. The eagle -feather bonnet, typically Sioux, favored for its great effectiveness comes from Northern tribes.
In this dance pueblo men wear the fringed buckskin or beaded cloth leg-covering of the Plains Indians which are seatless and worn with long G string, –hips covered with bright shawl. The origin of proper Taos costume with sheet or blanket wrapped around, is from their Pawnee inheritance; Taos men formerly cut the seats form trousers bought as traders. Pueblo women vie with each other in making fine, beautiful color combinations in dress and floating silk cape with its border of a contrasting color. The two lines of dancers, alternate men and women, advancing toward each other are kaleidoscopic.
A ‘flag’ carried by each man in the dance has magnificent meaning in Plains Indian custom; a warrior proved his valor by planting his flag in the ground during battle, tied himself to it, and defended it to the death against all-comers. He was ceremoniously presented with a war bonnet after accomplishing this feat.