Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/141

 symbolic dance. "After dancing and singing fifteen or twenty minutes, the sound of another tombe (Indian drum) is heard, and another brave, with a malinchi (girl specially attired) and his friends, shouting and whooping, enter on the north side (a similar party having previously assumed a position on the south side of the plaza), and, ranging themselves opposite to the first party, commence the same kind of performance. The tombe of the first party then ceases; and one of the men, going out, leads the brave in front of his friends, who are drawn up in two ranks. Here he is placed on one knee, his bow and arrow still in his hand, while the malinchi commences the Fleeka or Arrow-Dance. At first she dances along the line in front of him, and by her gestures shows that she is describing the 'war-path.' Slowly she pursues, but suddenly her step quickens—she has come in sight of the enemy. The brave follows her with his eye, and the motion of his head intimates that she is right. She dances faster and faster—suddenly she seizes an arrow from him, and now by frantic gestures it is shown that the fight has commenced in earnest. She points with the arrow—shows how it wings its course—how the scalp was taken and Laguna victorious. As she concludes the dance, and returns the arrow to the brave, firearms are discharged, and the whole party wend their way to the Estufa, to make room for another warrior and his friends; and thus the dance was maintained, warrior succeeding warrior, until dusk." If any one doubts the world-wide influence of such symbolical dancing on the development of early lyric and dramatic poetry, let him reflect upon the prominence of symbolic action in a sphere in which it was far less to have been expected—early law.

Side by side with these American examples of symbolic