ir festivals and before battles. The men danced in a ring, holding
sticks and striking them against one another. Before a battle they
had a war-dance in which the performers were armed and imitated a
combat. To be carried on the shoulders of one of the combatants was
a great honour, perhaps because it symbolised being on horseback. The
object was to obtain success in battle by going through an imitation
of a successful battle beforehand. This was also the common custom
of the Red Indians, whose war-dances are well known; they brandished
their weapons and killed their foe in mimicry in order that they
might soon do so in reality. The Sela dance of the Gonds and Baigas,
in which they perform the figure of the grand chain of the lancers,
only that they strike their sticks together instead of clasping hands
as they pass, was probably once an imitation of a combat. It is still
sometimes danced before their communal hunting and fishing parties. In
these mimetic rehearsals of events with the object of causing them
to occur we may perhaps discern the origin of the arts both of acting
and dancing. Another, and perhaps later form, was the reproduction of
important events, or those which had influenced history. For to the
primitive mind, as already seen, the results were not conceived of as
instrumentally caused by the event, but as part of the event itself
and of its life and personality. Hence by the re-enactment of the event
the beneficial results would be again obtained or at least preserved in
undiminished potency and vigour. This was perhaps the root idea of the
drama and the representation of sacred or heroic episodes on the stage.

64. The common life.

Thus, resuming from paragraph 61, primitive man had no difficulty
in conceiving of a life as shared between two or more persons or
objects, and it does not seem impossible that he should have at
first conceived it to extend through a whole species. [141] A good
instance of the common life is afforded by the gods of the Hindu
and other pantheons. Each god was conceived of as performing some
divine function, guiding the chariot of the sun, manipulating the
thunder and so on; but at the same time thousands of temples existed
throughout the country, and in each of these the god was alive and
present in his image or idol, able to act independently, receive
and consume sacrifices and offerings, protect suppliants and punish
transgressors. No doubt at all can be entertained