Being excellent mimies, they imitate in many of their dances the habits and movements of animals.

They also represent the mode of hunting, fighting, love-making, etc.

New figures and new songs are constantly introduced, and are as much applauded and encored, as more refined productions of a similar kind in civilized communities; being sometimes passed from tribe to tribe for a considerable distance.

I have often seen dances performed to songs with which I was acquainted, and which I knew to belong to distant parts of the country where a different dialect was spoken, and which consequently could not be understood where I heard them.

Many of the natives cannot even give an interpretation of the songs of their own districts [Note 65 at end of para.], and most of the explanations they do give are, I am inclined to think, generally very imperfect, as the measures or quantities of the syllables appear to be more attended to than the sense.
[Note 65: "Not one in ten of the young men who are dancing and singing it, know the meaning of the song they are chaunting over."-- Catlin, vol.1.