The sacred dance

by W. O. E. Oesterley

III

Among the Arabs at the present day, and doubtless the rite in one form or another goes back to times of antiquity, the women and the young girls, when on their way to the place of mourning, make two circles by holding hands and dance what is called the Raḳṣa dance; while dancing they sing:

The Almighty, the Almighty, gives and takes;

The path to the place of mourning I desire not for myself...[355].

Although other instances among the Arabs exist, they are not numerous. But as to other Semitic peoples we have been unable to discover examples.

On the other hand, there is a considerable amount of evidence regarding its existence among the Egyptians, both ancient and modern. In respect of the former this occurs mainly on inscriptions, so that it is graphic as well as informing. On one of these there is a representation of the ceremony of mourning in the chamber of the dead; harp-players, singers, and dancers appear as taking part in the ceremonies[356].

“The sculptures and paintings of the xviii-xx dynasties,” says Flinders Petrie[357], “show many scenes of funeral dances; usually one woman held a tambourine aloft and beat out a rhythm on it, while others danced round. Exactly this dance may be seen now when parties of women go up to the cemeteries a fortnight or a month after a funeral; an old negress is often the drummer, and the party stop every few hundred yards along the road for a dance.”

At the “Feast of Eternity” dancing always took place in honour of the dead; dancing men headed the procession in which the statue of the departed was borne. The step was rhythmic and slow, the arms being raised over the head during the dancing and the inside of the hands being turned upwards. Another position was that of stretching the right arm slantingwise upwards while the left arm was placed on the back. Behind the men three or four women follow, singing[358].

In an inscription on a tomb at Benihassan there is a representation of dances at the funeral festival of the monarch Chnomhôtep, of the period of the twelfth dynasty; the dancing is performed by women very slightly clad. Funeral processions were always accompanied by women dancing and singing[359]. In a grave near the royal tombs of Abydos, belonging to the first dynasty (before 5000 B.C.) Flinders Petrie found a curved wand, ending in a ram’s horn, used for beating time in dancing[360]. There can be little doubt that this was used during the performance of the funeral dance.

As already pointed out, this rite is still to be seen among the modern Egyptians. Lane gives the following interesting description of it:

It is customary among the peasants of Upper Egypt for the female relations and friends of a person deceased to meet together by his house on each of the first three days after the funeral, and there to perform a lamentation and a strange kind of dance. They daub their faces and bosoms, and part of their dress, with mud; and tie a rope-girdle, generally made of the coarse grass called “halfa,” round the waist[361]. Each flourishes in her hand a palm-stick, or a nebboot (a long staff), or a spear, or a drawn sword, and dances with a slow movement, and in an irregular manner, generally pacing about, and raising and depressing the body. This dance is continued for an hour or more, and is performed twice or three times in the course of the day. After the third day the women visit the tomb, and place upon it their rope-girdles; and usually a lamb, or a goat, is slain there, as an expiatory sacrifice, and a feast is made on this occasion[362].

Whether the performers of this dance know the purpose and meaning of it or not now is not stated; but there can be little doubt, knowing what we do of the object of similar dances on similar occasions among other peoples, that it had originally a twofold purpose, though these have now been amalgamated in one rite. In the first place, it was performed as an act of honour to the departed; this would have been more appropriately done on the occasion of offering the sacrifice at the tomb; probably at one time this was the procedure. But it had the further object of combating the evil spirits which were usually supposed to gather in the vicinity of a corpse, hence the palm-stick, etc.; this would be done on behalf of the spirit of the departed as well as of the mourners; the daubing of mud on faces and bosoms was by way of protection against the evil spirits, for it acted as a disguise. There are cases on record in which it is the angry spirit of the deceased himself who is feared and against whom protective measures are taken; but in the example before us the fact that a lamentation is made rather points to the spirit of the deceased not being feared.

This custom among the modern Moslems of Egypt may be supplemented by one or two examples of something similar among some heathen inhabitants of another part of Egypt. In writing about the Lattuka tribe of negroes in the Egyptian Soudan Frobenius says that dances are performed in honour of the dead, and he gives Baker’s description of this mourning rite. The dancers are decorated in the most extraordinary manner, doubtless as a special mark of respect for the departed. About a dozen enormous ostrich feathers were stuck into the head-dress of each dancer; hanging down from the shoulder was either the skin of a leopard, or of a monkey; around the loins of every dancer was a broad piece of leather which concealed a large bell attached to the waist; these bells sounded during the dancing. Further, each dancer had the horn of an antelope hanging down from his neck, and whenever a high pitch of excitement was reached these horns were blown, whereby a sound was produced which might be described as a combination of the “hee-haw” of a donkey and the hooting of an owl. This was diversified every now and then by a circle-dance in which the women joined in with the men; this part of the performance was done by the whole company following a leader; it is described as a “Hell-gallop.” The women, who otherwise danced separated from the men, were led by one of their number who was exceedingly fat; but in spite of this physical handicap the brave old lady persevered in the dance right to the end. Children also took part in the rite[363].

The same custom, though differently carried out, is in vogue among the Makarakâ tribe who also belong to the Egyptian Soudan. Ceremonial dances are performed round their slain enemies by the Dinka tribe, inhabiting the same country.

In the case of the Lattuka tribe it is clear that the rite had again a dual purpose; they dressed themselves and danced in honour of the deceased, while the bell-ringing and horn-blowing would have effectively scared away the evil spirits; the more excited part of the dance may also well have been a means of frightening away unwelcome visitors from the spirit-world.

The dance of the Dinkas round their slain enemies may have one of two objects. Such dances are undoubtedly at times intended to be a coaxing of the slain not to be angry at having been killed; the dance is meant to soothe them because it is done in their honour, and therefore their spirits, it is thought, will not harm the slayers. On the other hand, an encircling dance of this kind round enemies may have the purpose of preventing the spirits of the slain from getting abroad; the magic circle keeps them in, and thus harm is averted.