square island bear dance

from frank g. speck, myths and folk-lore of the timiskaming algonquin and timagami ojibwa, canada geological survey, memoir 71, ottawa, 1915.

the duck dance (ci'ci'pci'mo'o) is another performance of which the timagami are quite fond. it seems to have been influenced by european dances. the orchestra consists, generally, of a violin upon which some old reel or hornpipe or french jig is played. formerly, they used the drum. the dance begins with two files of partners, the men on one side and the women on the other, side by side. all facing the musician, they begin walking backward and forward together. after doing this three or four times, the men swerve to their right and the women to their left, circle around and meet again at the head of the line. then the partners hold hands, forming a bridge, and the couple behind passes under the bridge, takes position in front of the next couple, also holding hands, while the next couple then has to pass under two hand bridges and fall in place before the preceding ones. the whole company resumes its original position in this way by passing under the bridge and forming a new link in its lower end. this circling and bridging is done several times. the next figure changes altogether. from the parallel line formation side by side the first couple faces right about and starts to thread in, first to the right and then left of each of the other couples as they in turn come to the head of the line and follow the first couple toward the rear. the whole movement simply becomes a swerving chain figure in which each couple alternately passes to the right and to the left of the one coming toward it. sometimes a modern waltz turn or two is introduced between these movements. on the whole, this is said to come from the native duck dance in which the object was to represent the movements of a flock of drakes and ducks. at the end of the dance the performers all quack two or three times. this is purely a pleasure dance.