THE FESTAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART. 741 



art. In the dark caverns which formed his first habitations, be- 

 cause they alone could protect him against the attacks of beasts 

 of prey, amid the piles of bones in which have been found the 

 debris of species vanished from the earth perhaps a thousand 

 centuries ago, we have discovered, among flint-formed arrows and 

 knives, objects which could evidently only have been ornaments 

 — necklets, bracelets, rings of stone and of bone — more or less 

 roughly worked and fitted indeed, but enough to show that art is 

 not, as has been asserted, the efflorescence of superior civilizations 

 only. . . . Yes, those savages who lived dispersed in the holes and 

 corners of the world . . . already felt the sentiment of art. They 

 strove after beauty ; they adorned with their best their appalling 

 females ; they decorated their weapons of stone ; they devised 

 musical instruments ; by means of gravers of flint they cut upon 

 flat bones the leading features of many animals, with enough 

 accuracy to enable us to this day to recognize their species." 



It may create some surprise that we regard the dance as the 

 earliest form of art, or even that we allow it any place among the 

 fine arts. To many it will seem a kind of sacrilege to combine in 

 the same category, however broad, such extremes as a dancing 

 savage and a painting of the last judgment; and, if the connec- 

 tion must be made, some would choose to make it along other 

 lines than those of art. But, in truth, the dance supplies us with 

 the key, so to speak, of the development of the fine arts. For 

 light upon the problems of human culture, we naturally appeal to 

 the anthropologist. " Dancing," says Tylor, " may seem to us 

 moderns a frivolous amusement ; but in the infancy of civiliza- 

 tion it was full of passionate and solemn meaning. Savages and 

 barbarians dance their joy and sorrow, their love and rage, even 

 their magic and religion.- The forest Indians of Brazil, whose 

 sluggish temper few other excitements can stir, rouse themselves 

 at their moonlight gatherings, when, rattle in hand, they stamp 

 in one-two-three time round the great earthen pot of intoxicating 

 kawi liquor ; or men and women dance a rude courting dance, 

 advancing in lines with a kind of primitive polka step ; or the 

 ferocious war dance is performed by armed warriors in paint, 

 marching in ranks hither and thither with a growling chant ter- 

 rific to hear." Tylor proceeds to describe the dance of the Aus- 

 tralians, and the buffalo dance of the Mandan Indians, who, wear- 

 ing masks to mark their impersonations, with rude songs and 

 pantomimic gestures, act out the incidents of an imaginary hunt. 

 And then he adds : " All this explains how, in ancient religion, 

 dancing came to be one of the chief acts of worship. Religious 

 processions went with song and dance to the Egyptian temples, 

 and Plato said that all dancing ought to be thus an act of reli- 

 gion. In fact, it was so to a great extent in Greece, as where the 



