THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 749 



It is not generally known that Pawnee, Dakota, and Zuni rites 

 and initiations were retained in the religious dances of ancient 

 Greece. The use of the conus, or bull-roarer, the practice of 

 daubing the candidate with clay or dirt, the wearing of masks, 

 the use of serpents these all are found in the Greek mysteries. 

 It is undeniable that, in their mysteries, the Greeks danced much 

 as the Iroquois, Kwakiutls, and Zunis dance in their secret rites. 

 The goddess Artemis, at Brauron, in Attica, was served by young 

 girls, who imitated in dances the gait of bears. So, too, we have 

 the wolf-dances of the Hirpi, in which the performers clothed 

 themselves in the skin of the wolf whose feast they celebrated.* 

 Even after the Greeks gathered into walled cities, mystic dances 

 {" medicine-dances " the Indians would call them) took place 

 in the local fanes of the tribal gods and around the ancient 

 altars. 



Take, for example, the mysteries of Demeter, " she of the har- 

 vest home," " of the corn-heaps." Two mysteries are well known 

 to classical scholars as the Eleusinia and the Thesmophoria. In 

 the former, after purifications, the mystce, the initiate, performed 

 wild and erotic dances, and in later days, when the Eleusinian 

 rites became part of the state religion of Athens, there was, in 

 conclusion, a spectacular miracle-play representing the sorrows 

 and consolations of Demeter the most touching, most pathetic 

 figure in Greek mythology. The Thesmophoria was the feast of 

 seed time. The Greek matrons performed certain sacred rites and 

 secret dances, which the men were prohibited from seeing. He- 

 roditus says that the Thesmophoria were brought from Egypt, 

 where the women danced in similar fashion before the altar of the 

 bull-god in the Memphian temples. There must have been some 

 licentious doings in the Greek mystery, or else the plain-spoken 

 historian would not have " omitted them by silence." His apology 

 for concealment is neatly put : " As they refused to tell for religion, 

 so we desired not to hear for modesty." 



The important feature of all mysteries, savage or Greek, is 

 dancing. Lucian, in his Treatise on Dancing, says : " You can 

 not find a single ancient mystery in which there is not danc- 

 ing. . . . This much all men know, that most people say of the 

 revealers of the mysteries that they 'dance them out." Mr. 

 Andrew Lang, who has made a close study of Greek mysteries, 

 quotes the reply of Quing, the Bushman, who was asked about 

 some myths of his people. Quing replied : " Only the initiated 

 men of that dance know these things." Hence to "dance out" 

 this or that, observes Mr. Lang, means to be acquainted with this 



ous masks and customs are represented by photographs ; the music was taken with the 

 phonograph. * Aristophanes, Lysistratra, 646. 



