The Gaun Bagudzitash, or Dance of the Gods, is the one ceremony of the
Apache that bears any material resemblance to the many Yebichai dances or
"chants" of the Navaho, and even then the only feature common to the two
is that the men, typifying gods, wear elaborate masks. The Apache are not
unfamiliar with the making and employment of dry-paintings for the
treatment of the sick, as has been seen. Originally the dry-paintings and
the _gaun_, or gods, always appeared together, but in recent years the
Gaun dance has been conducted preliminary to and as a part of medicine,
puberty, and war ceremonies. Captain Bourke, in his "Medicine-men of the
Apache" (Ninth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1892), speaks of this as
the Spirit or Ghost dance. Though performed infrequently now, as compared
with other dances, on account of the expense and of disapproval by the
agents, the Gaun Bagudzitash is unquestionably the most popular ceremony
conducted by the Apache.
[Illustration: Apache _Gaun_]