Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/377

Rh, it may be well to remark that negative evidence is furnished by those savages who have no permanent chiefs or rudimentary kings; for among them these incipient professional actions are scarcely to be traced. They do indeed show us certain rude dances with noisy accompaniments; but these are representations of war and the chase. Though the deeds of celebrated warriors may occasionally be simulated in ways implying laudation of them, there do not commonly arise at this stage the laudations constituted by joyous gesticulations and triumphant songs in face of a conqueror. At later stages ceremonies of this primitive kind develop into organized exercises performed by masses of warriors. Thus among the Kaffirs the war-dances constitute the most important part of their training, and they engage in these frequently; and it is said that the movements in the grand dances of the Zulus resemble military evolutions. So, too, Thomson writes that the war-dance of the New Zealanders approximated in precision to the movements of a regiment of European soldiers. Clearly it is not from these exercises that professional dancing originates.

That professional dancing, singing, and instrumental music originate in the way above indicated, is implied by a familiar passage in the Bible. We are told that when David, as general of the Israelites, "was returned from the slaughter of the Philistines"—

"The women came out of all cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet king Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music; and the women answered one another as they played, and said 'Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands'" (I Sam., xviii, 6, 7).

Here the primitive reception of a conquering chief by shouts and leaps, which has, along with semi-civilization, developed into more definite and rhythmical form, vocal and saltatory, is accorded both to a reigning conqueror and to a conqueror subordinate to him. But while on this occasion the ceremony was entirely secular, it was, on another occasion, under different circumstances, predominantly sacred. When, led by Moses, the Israelites had passed the Red Sea, the song of Miriam, followed by the women "with timbrels and with dances" exhorting them "sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously," shows us the same kind of observance toward a leader (a "man of war," as the Hebrew god is called) who is no longer visible, but is supposed to guide his people and occasionally to give advice in battle. That is, we see religious dancing and singing and praise having the same form whether the object of them is or is not present to sight.

Usages which we find in existing semi-civilized societies, justify the conclusion that ovations to a returning conqueror, at first