The Play of Man

by Karl Groos

Strieh, Strah, Stroh,

Der Sommerdag is do.”

This ancient mythological festival, which survives with wonderful vitality among children in the Palatinate and some other localities, threatened to become extinct in Heidelberg until some one seriously undertook its restoration. It is an inspiriting sight when the fine old streets are the scenes of the processions of numerous summer and winter pyramids, and thousands of children in holiday attire, carrying the gay wands and merrily singing the old song. It can not be questioned that feelings of fellowship and attachment to home are heightened and deepened by the practice of such customs.

Turning now to adults, whose festivals furnish the models for these childish ones, I can not better illustrate the importance of imitation on such occasions than by repeating the striking passage quoted from James in the Play of Animals. In concluding a passage on play he says: “There is another sort of human play, into which higher æsthetic feelings enter. I refer to the love of festivities, ceremonies, and ordeals, etc., which seems to be universal in our species. The lowest savages have their dances, more or less formally conducted. The various religions have their solemn rites and exercises, and civic and military powers symbolize their grandeur by processions and celebrations of divers sorts. We have our operas and parties and masquerades. An element common to all these ceremonial games, as they are called, is the excitement of concerted action, as one of an organized crowd. The same acts, performed with a crowd, seem to mean vastly more than when performed alone. A walk with the people on a holiday afternoon, an excursion to drink beer or coffee at a popular ‘resort,’ or an ordinary ballroom, are examples of this. Not only are we amused at seeing so many strangers, but there is a distinct stimulation at feeling our share in their collective life. The perception of them is the stimulus, and our reaction upon it is our tendency to join them and do what they are doing, and our unwillingness to be the first to leave off or go home alone.”[638]

As we can not possibly review the whole field of society, a few general remarks must suffice to supplement what has already been said. While there was at one time a tendency to relegate this, like so many other sociological problems, to a religious origin, such a proceeding is now regarded with some degree of skepticism. The Australians celebrate all important events by dances—the harvest, the opening of the fishing season, the coming of age of youths, a meeting with friendly tribes, setting out to battle or the chase, and success in these. “Among the pacific Bakaïri on the Rio Novo,” says von den Steinen, “the principal festival is in April. I, with my civilized ideas, clung to the supposition of a thanksgiving celebration, and wondered what friendly power was the recipient of all this praise and gratitude. I tried to get something definite out of Antonio, but he was unresponsive to my suggestion. ‘We have the feast at harvest time,’ he said, ‘because we have something to feast on then; in the dry season we have to scrimp, and in the wet season everything is afloat.’ Materialistic, if you will, but eminently practical.”[639]

It seems then that the origin at least of the festival is referable to general social needs whose important stimuli arouse a general excitation, and thus attain their most effective expression. The essentials to primitive festivals were the feast and the dance, both being conducted with the intemperance characteristic of mass suggestion. Here we find again that playful satisfaction of the sense of taste which claimed our attention in the beginning of this discussion, and this is its clearest manifestation, since here the play is a social one. As the child may be led to perform incredible feats in the consumption of cakes, candy, and other dainties at a party, so the adult, when not hampered by anxiety about his digestion or compunctions as to such impositions on hospitality (and these considerations are usually as far from the mind of a savage as that of a child), can accomplish quite as much on festive occasions. This effect is furthered by the free use of alcohol, which, in spite of its many bad qualities, is not to be despised as a promoter of sociability. We hear so much of the fights and brawls to which the unlicensed indulgence in spirituous drinks gives rise that we forget that mild intoxication puts the majority of men in a cheerful and friendly humour, and is calculated to promote the good fellowship of the company. Without the least intention of denying the danger incurred in the use of alcohol as a beverage, I still think it only fair to show the other side of the picture—namely, the damper it puts on anxiety and care, and its promotion of social sympathy, of the associative impulses and the capacity for enthusiasm in all directions.

Dancing, which next to feasting is the most primitive form of festivity, is kept up to an incredible duration, the expenditure of strength being constantly renewed. In the sagas of the Bakaïri, it is said of Keri, the founder of the tribe: “Keri called all his followers together, and in the evening they danced on the village green. Keri stopped to drink while the dance costumes floated in the air about him. He called to Kame [the ancestor of another tribe]. Many of the people came, and Keri was lord of the dance. They danced the whole day, and only rested toward evening; after dark they began again and danced the whole night. Early in the morning they went to the river and bathed; then they came back to the house and began again and danced all that day and night. Then the holiday was over.”[640] The intoxication of motion, which, as we have before seen, is probably the chief stimulus in dancing, is universally enjoyed on such occasions, and enhances the social impulses. It is a sort of ecstatic state apart from the narrow individual sphere, and favourable to social affiliation. Indeed, among primitive people it is often the indispensable condition of an alliance, as there is a widespread custom for several neighbouring tribes to collect for some high feast. No one has given a better description of the importance of the dance for the promotion of sociability than has Grosse. “The warmth of the dance,” he says, “fuses the distinct individualities to a unified essence moved and governed by a single emotion. During its progress the participants find themselves in a condition of social completeness, the different groups feeling and acting like members of a unified organism. This is the most important effect of primitive dancing. It takes a number of men who, in their detached, unsettled condition of varying individual needs and desires, are living unregulated lives, and teaches them to act with one impulse, one meaning, and to one end. It makes for order and cohesion in the hunting tribes whose way of life tends to separate them. After war it is perhaps the one factor which makes the interdependence of individuals of savage tribes apparent to themselves, and incidentally it is one of the best means of preparing for war, for gymnastic exercises prefigure military tactics in more ways than one.”[641]

In studying the festal and social customs of highly civilized peoples, while we find much that is new, many things are reminiscent of savage life. Eating is still the principal feature, but the common impulse to activity is no longer expressed in forms so specialized as the savage dance, for the modern social dance is of comparatively little importance in this connection. Entertainment by means of vocal and instrumental music and rhythmic elocution, displays of physical prowess and singing contests almost complete the list of plays applicable here, being concerned as they all are with collective life. I may mention one other phenomenon, however, which illustrates the analogy with primitive customs—namely, the societies formed for social enjoyment. They prove the need felt by civilized men to form within the limits of their more extended social sphere smaller circles which by their exclusiveness enhance the feeling of sympathy. Formerly, when special well-organized groups arose in the burgher guilds, they were partly of a social character, as J. Schaller points out,[642] and we yet have labour unions, merchants’ clubs, and artists’ leagues, though in many of them the trade or calling is no longer stressed; on the contrary, versatility is the chief desideratum in the membership, and no strict exclusiveness prevails. Such details are commonly determined by the general degree of cultivation prevalent. Moreover, there is apt to be a certain ritual belonging to such organizations, with written statutes and unwritten traditions, all more or less playful, and quickly developed among savages into a sort of cultus. I am not aware whether a monograph exists treating this subject in detail, though one would certainly be of interest.