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is a palmetto spine circle, tied with two of 'em, with a beer
can on the end. The Indian sheriffs walk around, and I said,
"What do the Indian sheriffs do, Howard?" I hadn't gotten
into the dance yet.
And Howard said, "The Indian sheriffs make sure that
anybody that gets in the dance has to take a drink when the
dance stops, and cannot go to sleep."
K: Even the children?
R: Right. And so you passed out a ritual bottle of wine, beer,
or whiskey.
K: What do you mean, a ritual bottle? In other words, they don't
drink anything in particular, or..,?
R: They drink everything in particular. Everything. Alice
Osceola was dispensing beer. But you passed down a bottle.
Along towards dark at the Green Corn Dance everybody having
not been allowed to sleep, and not had anything to eat for
twenty-four hours, and having had these ritual drinks, is
pretty damn drunk! And it gets pretty out there, you know.
The light, light, lightness of dark--that pretty color, and
I'll always remember that pine tree. And then what comes is
a ritual, scraping.
K: What's that?
R: Well, Howard says, "Come over here and let Jane see what's
happening." It's a block of wood that's about the size of
matches, and through it is stuck about six needles--just
plain sewing needles--and they stick out about one-sixteenth
to one-eighth of an inch. And the medicine man goes around...
[scraping sound is made].
K: Let's tell what you're doing while you're....
R: Well, he scrapes 'em, and it sounds just like this! [scraping
sound]. He scrapes their arms, their chests, and their back.
It sounds pretty gruesome, since he scrapes 'em. Howard
said, "Oh, we use to have a mean ole medicine man that really
scraped us deep." But you know, it scrapes and they bleed;
then they go off into small tents where there are hot rocks
on which are thrown water, and,...
K: Tents?