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THE DANCERS FORM TEAMS WITH VIOLINISTS AND HARPISTS, AND THEIR DANCE INVOLVES STEP-DANCING AND ACROBATICS, DYNAMIC GYMNASTIC MOVEMENTS REQUIRING GREAT DEXTERITY AND PHYSICAL ABILITY. POWERFULLY ATHLETIC, THEY DANCE WITH EXPLOSIVE POWER EITHER STANDING OR ON THE GROUND WITH HANDS SUPPORTING THE DANCER AS MUCH AS THE FEET.


Quechua Danza de Tizeras (Scissor Dance) Manikin. Scissor dancers throughout Peru’s south-central highlands wear brightly colored outfi ts. Their baggy trousers and fi tted jackets are richly decorated with metallic embroidery, gold and silver fringe, and colored sequins and beads.


MAPUCHE MUTRUM PURUN I


n rural areas in central and southern Chile, the Mapuche Mutrum purun is performed to welcome a guest commu-


nity to a Ngillatun (Thanksgiving and plead- ing ceremony) held every two to four years. The Mutrum purun is led by a machi (reli- gious leader) who is the mediator between the Mapuche people and the land above, the Wenu mapu (the blue space above where good deities and ancestors live). As some men play a pifullka (ritual fl ute), the machi beats his or her kultrung (drum), one of the most ritually important objects among Ma- puche. The symbolic painting on a kultrung represents the Mapuche cosmos and desired equilibrium of the Mapuche world. The drum is always held facing the East because the benefi cial deities live in that space. As Maria Catrileo (Mapuche) explains,


the Mutrum purun is a lively dance involv- ing leaps and jumps. It takes place around an altar at a ceremonial ground with the host and guest groups facing each other. Dancing at fi rst in jumping steps, they mix together. Then the men and women of both groups dance separately, fi rst leaping and then moving in slow steps, hitting the ground twice with each foot as they turn towards the right and then towards the left. The visitors dance backwards and the hosts dance forward and then vice versa till they all reach the altar where they face each other behind ritual jugs full of muday (native bev- erage) placed at the altar. Rooted in respect for the Ngunechen


(a deity encompassing the spiritual fam- ily that governs and controls nature and life), the Mapuche Mutrum purun takes the dancers to a spiritual level and readies them for the Ngillatun.


HOPI BUTTERFLY DANCE


more young men and women, and boys and girls, dance in pairs in open village plazas on their reservation in northern Arizona, ac- companied by a chorus of singers comprised of their male relatives. Holding their upper bodies upright, the dancers appear in the plaza in two lines facing each other. The girls, with eyes cast down, hold juniper sprigs. The boys hold rattles. Both dance by lifting their knees in springing steps, occasionally turn-


T 36 AMERICAN INDIAN FALL 2012


his social ceremonial dance for young people takes place each year in the late summer. Up to a hundred or


PHOTOGRAPH BY ERNEST AMOROSO.


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