Maso Yi’Iwa (The Deer Dance and Singing)
The Deer dance and singing is a ceremony performed by the Yoeme in order to appreciate the natural world and its abundance. Their oneness with the natural world is an essential part of the Yoeme everyday living. Though this ceremony is usually performed right before hunting, it is to ensure respect given to earth and its creatures. The Yoeme Indians number about forty thousand and they live in the Sonoran Desert in the state of Arizona and to them, the Deer Dance and Deer Dance songs represent what it is to be a Yoeme. The Deer Dance is a part of their identity and to keep that identity it means to pass it on to new generations. Their culture has some elements brought about by the conquest of the Spanish and their effort to Christianize the Americas. However, the belief that they are in a communion with nature goes back ten thousand years. Experiencing this sacred ceremony first hand was an amazingly sobering reminder of the need of rituals and its awakening affect.
On a nice sunny Thursday afternoon on May 5th, we were asked to attend a ceremonial dance of the Yoeme Indians called the Deer Dance. This event was taking place just outside the Gloria Kaufman building in an open space at the request of the Indian studies department of UCLA and professor Shorter, who has studied their culture for past ten years. When I arrived, the first thing I noticed was the smell of incense burning. This was apparently part of the ceremony, for there was a person who constantly fanned the incense with his hand and blowing it with his breath, in order to keep it going. I also noticed chairs placed in an almost fully circular position in the area where the performance was to take place. During this initial observation, I also noticed a young man walking around in his Indian outfit with many rattles and bells hung around his wrist, ankle, and waist. (Figure 1) He had a mask to the left side of his head, which I could not at first glance tell whether it was a dog or a wolf, or may be a miniature representation of a deer head! I later found out that it was in fact a mask depicting the head of a dog with distinct colors on it with certain spiritual meanings. I will go into more detail about the significance and meaning of the colors later in this writing. There were folded blankets that were used as cushions and set on the grass to make sitting more comfortable for the performers during the performance. Four of these were set next to each other in a straight line facing West and one single sitting space was set on their right facing south. Though I am not sure about the significance of the placement of the performers, it was soon apparent to me that North, South, East and West did indeed have significance, since all directions were solemnly observed before the performance was to begin
Figure 1.. 
As the performance was to begin, an introduction was given by the leader of the group Felipe Molina. In it, he praised the Trinity—a Christian symbol for God—and thanked everyone for being there and that he appreciated the opportunity to bring blessing and happiness to our city of the Angeles. He spoke in his native tongue first, followed by English. As he was speaking, the person in charge of the incense was hurriedly fanning it to get more smoke out of it while walking all around the performance area. The smell of the incense felt as if it is separating this area where the ceremony is taking place, from the rest of the world around us. In other words, the smell was creating a feeling of a specific time in a specific place that cannot be easily duplicated. Molina introduced the rest of the people as his brother, cousin and 2 nephews. As I mentioned before, he asked everyone to silently face North, then South, West and the East.
The performance begins by single hits on a half gourd drum laced inside a water bowl called the bueha’i. It had a very solid low vibrating pitch to it. After about 8 to 12 hits he accelerated the tempo and the 3 other performers sitting in the same row, including Molina, who were playing the Kirukiam—Brazilian wood raspers--joined in. The raspers function and sound very similar to Cajuns’ wash boards except that the width of the kirukiam is about three fingers. It is held by the left hand on one end with the other side resting on the ground, while a stick is scrubbed over its jagged surface. As I mentioned, there were three persons playing these raspers, and that made them the loudest and most noticeable sound. The performers were extremely harmonized in the timing of their hand movements and the speed and sound of the instruments felt as if it is depicting a fast physical movement like running. There was one microphone on a boom stand, placed to the right of Felipe Molina and slightly behind him. However, the microphone did pick up the sound of other performers and amplified everything rather evenly for all instruments and voice. As the tempo of the song accelerated and became excitingly faster, it suddenly stopped. There was a brief silence. This repeated one more time and when it got fast again, the vocalist joined in and sang. He was Felipe’s brother. Then the music stopped suddenly and silence pursued.
At this time the Deer Dancer came out into the middle of this almost circular sitting area and his demeanor, of course representing a deer, was as if he is checking out the performers. He had a white scarf on his head with his eyes seemingly covered fully. Apparently he could barely see through the opening from just under his eyes which were hardly open. He had a deer head on top of a white piece of cloth, which had almost fully covered his eyes. As if it is the deer that should see and not him! A demonstrative picture of the headdress is shown on the next page.
At first he began playing the gourd rattles he had in his hand conservatively and without any apparent timing. He also had rattles around his ankles and wrists just as the first dancer did. These rattles around his wrist and ankle were called tenevoim—made of caterpillar cocoons filled with rocks to resemble the sound a deer walking over leafs and branches in the wilderness. “He has many names and he is like a teacher and teaches us how to live on this earth,” said Molina about Maaso, the white tailed deer. Molina further explains that the dance is performed once before the killing of the deer, and again, when it is brought into the village. The Deer Dancer also had some bells around his waist, which were hanged right below his belly. These bells—rihhutiam—or deer-hoof rattles, as I was told later by Molina, came into their culture from the Catholic tradition. They are essentially the same bells Catholic priests carry on a stick during ritual walks and ceremonies. This I found out the next day when attending the symposium. Most interesting was that it sounded like new data to professor Shorter too.
The dancer with the Deer Head moved around very suddenly and at times would look at the performers, different ones at different times, and aim and play the shakers he was holding in his hands, louder and more aggressively as if he meant to communicate something to them.
Figure 2. (Deer Dance Headdress) 
The National Museum of the American Indian
Later, Francisco Baltazar explained that the louder sound is produced to represent the running of the deer and its fear.
A fifth musician, Michael Varela, who had not been playing until now, joined in with the Kuvahe— frame drums made of goat skin—Its sound produced by hitting a stick on the skin of the drum. There were two drums. The smaller drum was approximately the size of a tambourine and the other one about one and a half times larger diameter and a distinctively lower pitch. Michael played them interchangeably and never together. He was, however, holding a flute in his left hand, and while using his wrist to hold the small skin drum in place in order to hit it with the stick held in his right hand, played the flute simultaneously. I was told by him that the sound of these drums represent the heartbeat of the deer. The timbre of the melodic flute added a different texture to the up to now all percussive instruments. He played rapid hits on the smaller kuvahe, which seemed to have an irregular rhythmic pattern. It was very hard to determine the time signature. No matter how hard I tried, I still could not figure and keep a study count of the rhythmic patterns. They however, had no problem, since all played harmoniously together and never missing a beat. In the following chart I will attempt to demonstrate the rhythmic patterns I did pick up.
While the Deer Dancer was performing, a second dancer, who was actually the first one I described earlier, entered the dance area very quietly and added some nuances to the rhythm. This time he had the dog mask that is sacred on his face. The mask had long blond hair for eyebrows and the beard. This, I was told, represents wisdom of the old.
The colors on the mask were white, red and black. It also had a cross on its chin. The white was all around the mask encircling it, represented the sun, while the white under the eys represented rain. The black represented the earth. The red, I was told, represented the lightning. “When the butterfly come out, it is time to plant.” (Molina) This is a symbol of the Yoeme Indians’ true connection to the cosmos and the natural world in their everyday living.
The Deer Dance is an important ceremony in Yoeme culture. The ceremony is a serious one, which requires attention and appreciation by both the observer and the performer. I was told that there is no age that determines the readiness of a person to perform the Deer Dance. It can range from as early as 3 years of age and anyone can perform it at any age, even as high as 84. Though it is not mandatory, yet, many enthusiastically volunteer to join the process.
I asked the performers whether the belief in Christianity ever influences their own beliefs. I was told by Mr. Molina that the Deer Dance has to do more with a way of life, rather than a religious belief. It is as if the Yoeme exist for the sole purpose of passing this ancient ritual to future generations to come, in order to keep their identity alive. An identity that with its ups and downs has endured for ten thousand years.
