dance plaza. An area on the western side of the plaza is where non-dancing participants watch the tohé. A male dance leader performs the majority of the singing and leads the energetic dancing. Many men also sing primary verses and the chorus responses. Women are an important part of the dance, singing the choruses, joining in the dancing around the central pole, and perform specialized dance steps several times a night at most dances. Dance songs are partially formulaic but include significant amounts of improvisational singing. They are rhythmically and melodically complex compositions. Men accompany the dance with rattles, the only musical instrument used by the Pumé. Dances can involve healing events for particular individuals suffering from physical diseases and psychological distress (depression, grief, frustration). Dances can also lead to trance-states by the dance leader or other individuals. Trances involve possession by spirits or deceased Pumé individuals. The possessed individual speaks through those personages to the community as a whole or to particular individuals about events of current concern to the camp or person singled out for contact. No food is consumed during dances, but prodigious amounts of tobacco are smoked by men, women, and children. Men also take hallucinogenic snuff in group bouts during the dance (Anadenanthera peregrina) and sometimes chew a second hallucinogen (Banisteriopsis caapi). The Pumé consider the tohé dance to be one of the central institutions of their culture along with their indigenous language. The tohé dance has an important role in group solidarity and in reinforcing the cooperative structure of Pumé life (especially among Savanna Pumé) that appears to be a critical adaptation to life in this challenging and seasonally food-impoverished environment. Some formerly reported ceremonials are apparently no longer practiced. The names of these ceremonials are familiar to Savanna Pumé but their forms are no longer known. A specialized women's ceremony that is still common among both Savanna and River Pumé is the añikuí tohé (little sister tohé). Among Savanna Pumé this is an all-night singing bout performed by older women. An individual woman performs this singing on her own from her hammock over the same time period as the community wide tohé dance, from approximately sunset until sunrise. River Pumé women normally conduct the añikuí tohé during the daytime and it often is of shorter duration than the Savanna Pumé version. Savanna Pumé women only do the little sister tohé during the evening