The Bear Dance

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Indian dance, with some wearing bear masks (Plate 18)."Next in importance to the buffalo hunts, and not less exciting and spirited in its character, is the mode of hunting the Bear. Several varieties and this bold and ferocious species are found joint occupants with Man, the buffalo, and other animals, through the various wild latitudes of America; and, like the others, their skins and their flesh contribute largely to man's comfort and subsistence. The bear, so different in its habits and haunts from the buffalo, is entrapped and hunted by the Indians in a greater variety of modes than the buffalo, though their hunting excursions for this animal are often on horseback; and when in pursuit of the Grizzly Bear, the most formidable and dangerous animal of the brute creation to be met in the prairies and forests of America, the hunters deem it most prudent to be mounted on their horses' back, instead of trusting to their own legs in contention with so awkward and dangerous an enemy."