Scalp Dance

Hi! Hi! Hi!

Jangle the gourds

And rumble on the drum!

Fresh from the death

Of an enemy I come,

Like a timber-wolf

Whose belly is filled

With the heart and haunch

Of an elk he has killed.

Sound on your war-drums

Lightning and thunder,

For dancing I come

With my sacred plunder:

The scalp of Whirling-Bird,

A coward in battle-

His yellow teeth chattered

Like the stones in my rattle.

Blood on my fingers,

Blood on my lips,

Rivers of blood

From his scalp that drips

Its red like the sun

In the sinking light,

That streams its hair

Like the trailing night.

Blood on my battle-ax,

Blood on my lance,

Blood in the music

Of my medicine-dance;

Blood in my throat

And blood in my cry

That splinters the moon

And the bloody sky.

Hi! Hi! Hi!

Structure

34 lines · 2 stanzas