Gift of the Waters Pageant Days marks 65th anniversary

“History is a symphony of echoes heard and unheard. It is a poem with events as verses.” Charles Angoff

For the first time in October, 1925 Marie Montabe’s play about the Gift of the Waters was presented to the public.

It was not seen again until 1950, however, this year marks the 65th anniversary of the production and will be presented at the Big Spring in Hot Springs State Park on Saturday and Sunday evening, Aug. 1 and 2 at 6 p.m.

In 1896, the Shoshone Nation entered into an agreement with the U.S. Government to sell a ten-mile square of land surrounding the Big Spring for cattle and food supplies totaling about $60,000.

A one-mile tract was then given to the State of Wyoming and became Hot Springs State Park.

Chief of the Shoshone, Chief Washakie, was the first to sign the treaty, followed by Sharp Nose, Chief of the Arapahoe Nation.

For decades, Montabe’s historical play has included dozens of singers and dancers from the Wind River Reservation, portraying their ancestors as they said good-bye to “Bah-gue-wana,” smoking water.

Included in the pageant were local young men who served as sentinels on the cliffs surrounding the Big Spring and local women, years ago in dark make-up, who sang the song of bah-gue-wana written by Montabe.

The play has remained true to Montabe’s script over the years.

It begins with a welcoming of the natives and the white man, “Tibo”, to the spring. You can see the Natives dance as they prepare for the giving of the waters and watch the Native princesses serving the warriors and the chief from the spring.

The Lord’s Prayer is presented in sign language by a Native princess and “Chief Washakie” blesses the waters before saying his good-byes.

Visitors are treated to traditional dances by both men and women, dressed in full regalia, feathers and beads fluttering in the evening breeze.

The Tribe’s medicine man blesses not only the Natives surrounding the spring but the white men in attendance before an archer sends his arrow toward the heavens, letting the Great Spirit know it is done.

One of the longest running historical reenactments in Wyoming, the Gift of the Waters Pageant has spanned several generations of local families, with mothers, daughters and even granddaughters and great-granddaughters having participated over the years.

Literally hundreds of thousands of visitors to Thermopolis and Hot Springs County have had a taste of what things were like “back then” and have danced alongside the Natives at the pageant, taking those memories home with them.