aters, an island
naked and barren and desolate, covered only with brine-spattered stone,
swept with cold winds and the biting sea-spray. Here they live always,
breaking stone upon one another, with no food but the broken stones and
no drink but the salt sea water.
Song of the Ghost Dance
Pai Ute (Kern River, Cal.)
The snow lies there - ro-rani!
The snow lies there - ro-rani!
The snow lies there - ro-rani!
The snow lies there - ro-rani!
The Milky Way lies there.
The Milky Way lies there.
"This is one of the favorite songs of the Paiute Ghost dance. . . . It
must be remembered that the dance is held in the open air at night, with
the stars shining down on the wide-extending plain walled in by the
giant Sierras, fringed at the base with dark pines, and with their peaks
white with eternal snows. Under such circumstances this song of the snow
lying white upon the mountains, and the Milky Way stretching across the
clear sky, brings up to the Paiute the same patriotic home love that
comes from lyrics of singing birds and leafy trees and still waters to
the people of more favored regions. . . . The Milky Way is the road of
the dead to the spirit world."
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Myths and Legends of California
and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson
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