[302] Frazer, op. cit. I. 133 f.
[303] Uit het leven der Bevolking van Windessi, in the “Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-Landen Volkenkunde,” XL. 157 f. (1898); GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 169 f.
[304] E.g. in such cases as the May-pole dance, and the dances round the Midsummer fires.
[305] Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 455, where references to original authorities are given. See also Stade, Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments, i. 148.
[306] GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 158; for further examples see pp. 161 ff., and The Magic Art, I. 125 ff. Conceivably the taboo on the persons left at home during the absence of the fighting men may have originally had something to do with the victory dance being performed by women alone.
[307] See the present writer’s Immortality and the Unseen World, chaps. VIII-X.
[308] E.g. Gen. xxiv. 49 ff., xxix. 27; Judg. xiv. 7; Isa. lxi. 10; Jer. ii. 32, vii. 34, xxv. 10; Ps. xlv. 10 ff.; Cant. iii. 6-11; cp. 3 Macc. iv. 8. In the New Testament we have more details, e.g. Matth. xxii. 2, xxv. 1 ff.; Lk. xii. 36; John ii. 1 ff.
[309] See König, Hebr. und Aram. Wörterbuch, p. 505, and cp. the Sept. τῇ Σουμανείτιδι (Cod. B).
[310] Kimĕhôlath hammaḥanaim. Cp. the Septuagint rendering: ὡς χοροὶ τῶν παρεμβολῶν.
[311] Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. 52, says, “The tenacity with which the Oriental mind, if left to itself, holds that which has always been, and turns to it as unerringly as the needle to the pole, has often been observed, and is our guaranty that we may find primitive religious conditions among people with whom, if we approach them in the right way, we may hold intercourse to-day.” This may certainly apply to the present instance.