Dance in a Buffalo Skull
| Category: | Native American Legends |
|---|---|
| Notes: | Audience parts, teach these before you start: DRUM (pat your knees softly in a steady beat: Boom-boom, boom-boom!) WOLVES (point your nose at the sky and howl: Ow-ooooo!) It's a quiet, spooky little story, best told after dark when everyone can look out at the night beyond the fire. Keep the drum going softly under the whole middle of the story, and let the eyes come closer each time you mention them. |
| Source: | Retold from Zitkala-Sa, Dance in a Buffalo Skull, in Old Indian Legends (1901) (read the original) |
It was night on the prairie. The stars were out, twinkling red and yellow. The moon was just a thin silver thread, and soon it sank down below the edge of the world. And the land was black. Pitch black.
Now, there are night people on the prairie, who love the dark. They come out to play under the stars. And when their sharp ears hear a strange footstep, they scamper away into the shadows, where they think they're safe.
And that night, way off at the edge of the prairie, down by the river where the trees grow thick, two balls of fire came gliding out of the dark.
Two eyes. Glowing. And you couldn't see the body. Only the eyes, moving low, just over the tops of the grass.
And out in the middle of the prairie lay an old buffalo skull. Big and white, bleached by the sun. And inside it, there was a party.
The field mice were having a dance! Tiny little mice, singing and dancing in a circle, to the beat of a tiny, tiny drum. DRUM. They'd built a little fire inside the skull, and the light shone out through the eye holes and all the cracks, so the old skull glowed in the dark like a lantern.
DRUM. DRUM.
Now, a light out on the prairie in the middle of the night is a strange thing. The sleepy birds woke up and complained, 'King, king!' But the mice were having too much fun to hear them.
And a pack of wolves came, and stood a little way off, afraid to come near the fire. And they pointed their noses at the stars and howled. WOLVES! But the mice didn't hear them either. DRUM. DRUM.
And all the while, out of the dark, from down by the river, those two fiery eyes kept coming. Closer.
The mice nibbled on dried roots and bits of meat. The singers started a new song. The drummers kept the beat, nodding their little heads from side to side. DRUM. DRUM. And around the fire the mice went hopping, bouncing on their hind feet. Some carried their tails over their arms, and some let them trail along behind, proud as could be.
And the eyes came closer. Brighter. Fiercer. Low to the ground. Creeping. Creeping. Toward the buffalo skull.
DRUM... DRUM...
stop the drum; pause
'The spirit of the buffalo!' squeaked one mouse, and he jumped out a hole in the back of the skull.
'A cat! A cat!' cried the others. And they scrambled out of every hole, big and small.
softly
Character Cues
| Character | Action |
|---|---|
| DRUM | pat your knees softly in a steady beat: Boom-boom, boom-boom! |
| WOLVES | point your nose at the sky and howl: Ow-ooooo! |