I remember when quite a small child planting hemp seeds in a patch of garden ground, and being told by a maid-servant, an illiterate country girl, that the seeds would not grow well unless we danced, we joined hands and danced round and round in a circle, then stooped down and jumped about, saying, “Please, God, send it all up,” then again danced round. This may have been said only to amuse us, but it may also have been the remains of an old festival dance. I believe there were more words, but I cannot remember them. Hemp seed is associated with ceremonies of magical nature, being one of those used by maidens as a charm to enable them to see a future husband.
Representation in pantomime of the different actions used in the ceremonies of sowing the grain, its growth, and the consequent reaping, binding, and carrying the grain, are practised in different parts of the globe. This is brought down to later times by the custom noted on [p. 319, vol. i.], where from Long Ago and Best’s Rural Economy of Yorkshire (1641), instances are given of it being customary, at harvest-homes, to give representations of “hirings” of farm-servants. The hiring of a farm labourer, the work he had to do, his terms of service, and the food to be supplied him, were dramatically performed, showing clearly that it had been customary to go through this sort of thing, in earnest of what was expected—in fact, a sort of oral contract, in presence of witnesses.
I will conclude this part of my evidence by a summary of the conclusions arrived at by anthropological authorities.
Sir John Lubbock, in Origins of Civilisation (fifth ed., p. 257), says, “Dancing among savages is no mere amusement.” He quotes from Robertson’s America (iv. p. 133) as follows: “It is an important occupation, which mingles in every occurrence of public or private life. If any intercourse be necessary between two American tribes, the ambassadors of the one approach in a solemn dance, and present the calumets or emblem of peace; the sachems of the other receives it with the same ceremony. If war is denounced against an enemy, it is by a dance expressive of the resentment which they feel, and of the vengeance which they meditate. If the wrath of their gods is to be appeased, or their beneficence to be celebrated; if they rejoice at the birth of a child, or mourn the death of a friend—they have dances appropriate to each of these situations, and suited to the different sentiments with which they are animated. If a person is indisposed, a dance is prescribed as the most effectual means to restore him to health; and if he himself cannot endure the fatigue of such an exercise, the physician or conjurer performs it in his name, as if the virtue of his activity could be transferred to his patient.”
Sir J. Lubbock mentions some special dances practised among different peoples, and gives an illustration of a circle dance practised by the natives of Virginia round a circle of upright stones (p. 268).
Dr. Tylor (Anthropology, p. 296) says, “Savages and barbarians dance their joy and sorrow, love and rage, even their magic and religion. The forest Indians of Brazil, rattle in hand, stamp in one-two-three time round the great earthen pot of intoxicating kawi-liquor; or men or women dance a rude courting dance, advancing in lines with a kind of primitive polka step; or the ferocious war-dance is performed by armed warriors in paint. We have enough of the savage left in us to feel how Australians leaping and yelling at a corrobboree by firelight in the forest can work themselves up into frenzy for next day’s fight. But with our civilised notions it is not so easy to understand that barbarians’ dancing may mean still more than this; it seems to them so real, that they expect it to act on the world outside. Such an example as the buffalo dance (given ante, [p. 518]) shows how, in the lower level of culture, men dance to express their feeling and wishes. All this explains how in ancient religion dancing came to be one of the chief acts of worship. Religious processions went with song and dance to the Egyptian temples, and Plato said all dancing ought to be thus an act of religion. . . . Modern civilisation has mostly cast off the sacred dance. . . . To see this near its old state the traveller may visit the temples of India, or among the Lamas of Tibet watch the mummers in animal masks dancing the demons out or the new year in, to wild music of drums and shell-trumpets. Remnants of such ceremonies come down from the religion of England before Christian times are still sometimes to be seen in the dances of boys and girls round the midsummer bonfire or mummers of Yuletide.”
Dr. Tylor continues: “At low levels in civilisation it is clear that dancing and play-acting are one. The scenes of hunting and war furnish barbarians with subjects for dances, as when the Gold Coast negroes have gone out to war and their wives at home dance a fetish dance in imitation of battle to give their absent husbands strength and courage. . . . Historians trace from the sacred dances of ancient Greece the dramatic art of the civilised world. Thus from the festivals of the Dionysia arose tragedy and comedy. In the classic ages the players’ art divided into several branches. The pantomimes kept up the earliest form, where the dancers acted in dumb show such pieces as the labours of Herakles, or Kadmos sowing the dragons teeth, while the chorus below accompanied the play by singing the story. The modern pantomime ballets which keep up remains of these ancient performances show how grotesque the old stage gods and heroes must have looked in their painted masks. In Greek tragedy and comedy the business of the dancers and chorus were separated from that of the actors, who recited or chanted each his proper part in the dialogue.”
Grimm (Teutonic Mythology, i. p. 43), says, “Easter fires, May Day fires, Midsummer fires, with their numerous ceremonies, carry us back to heathen sacrifices, especially such customs as rubbing the sacred flame, running through glowing embers, throwing flowers into the fire, baking and distributing loaves or cakes, and the circular dance. Dances passed into plays and dramatic representations.”
It is then clear that dances accompanied with song and pantomimic action have been used by men and women from the earliest period of which we have record, at all times and upon all occasions. In times of joy and mirth, sorrow and loss, victory or defeat, weddings and funerals, plagues and pestilences, famine and plenty, civilised and savage alike dance, act, and sing their griefs and their joys. The gods of all nations have been worshipped by pantomimic dance and song, their altars and temples are encircled by their worshippers; and as the occasion was one of fear or joy, and the god entreated or terrified by his followers, so would the actions and voices of the dancers be in accord. When once certain actions were recognised as successful, fitting, or beautiful, they would tend to become repeated and stereotyped, and the same form would be used for other gods, other occasions, and other customs where the requirements were similar or the same. The circle dance, for instance, after being performed several times would necessarily become a part of the religious customs or ceremony, and form a part of the ordinary religious observance. It would become particularly associated with the place where it was first instituted, and might be used to inaugurate other festivals. We know that the early Christians when taking over to their use the temples and altars of their so-called heathen predecessors, or when erecting a church where a temple had previously stood, held their worship there and performed their dances to their God as the heathens had done to theirs. The custom of encircling a church on its festival day existed until lately in several parishes in England, and this could only be a descendant of the custom once held sacred by all the followers of one belief, demonstrating by their action in group form the fact that they all believed in the same thing and held together, by the clasp of hands and the dance round, their determination to hold to and keep to it.
If these customary dances obtained and have survived in religious ritual to the present day, is it not to be expected that we should find survivals in dance form of non-religious customs which also impressed themselves strongly on the minds of the people? Births, marriages, deaths, the sowing and gathering in of the crops; the protection of cattle from disease and animals of prey; the necessity for water and fire; the protection of the house and the village—have all helped to surround these events with ceremonials which have lasted, and been transmitted from generation to generation, altering to suit later ideas, it is true, but preserving through all some trace of the events which first called them into existence.