fter it had in the other Greek states degenerated into a Bacchanalian
revel, it was still danced by the Spartans as a warlike exercise, and
boys of fifteen were instructed in it." Of the Hunting-dance I have
already given instances. (2) It always had the character of Magic about
it, by which the game or quarry might presumably be influenced; and it
can easily be understood that if the Hunt was not successful the blame
might well be attributed to some neglect of the usual ritual mimes or
movements--no laughing matter for the leader of the dance.

(1) Book IV, ch. 6, Section 7.

(2) See also Winwood Reade's Savage Africa, ch. xviii, in which
he speaks of the "gorilla dance," before hunting gorillas, as a
"religious festival."

Or there were dances belonging to the ceremonies of Initiation--dances
both by the initiators and the initiated. Jane E. Harrison in Themis (p.
24) says, "Instruction among savage peoples is always imparted in more
or less mimetic dances. At initiation you learn certain dances which
confer on you definite social status. When a man is too old to dance,
he hands over his dance to another and a younger, and he then among
some tribes ceases to exist socially.... The dances taught to boys at
initiation are frequently if not always ARMED dances. These are not
necessarily warlike. The accoutrement of spear and shield was in part
decorative, in part a provision for making the necessary hubbub." (Here
Miss Harrison reproduces a photograph of an Initiation dance among the
Akikuyu of British East Africa.) The Initiation-dances blend insensibly
and naturally with the Mystery and Religion dances, for indeed
initiation was for the most part an instruction in the mysteries and
social rites of the Tribe. They were the expression of things which
would be hard even for us, and which for rude folk would be impossible,
to put into definite words. Hence arose the expression--whose meaning
has been much discussed by the learned--"to dance out ([gr ezorceisqai])
a mystery." (1) Lucian, in a much-quoted passage, (2) observes: "You
cannot find a single ancient mystery in which there is not dancing ...
and this much all men know, that most people say of the revealers of the
mysteries that they 'dance them out.'" Andrew Lang, commenting on this
passage, (3) continues: "Clement of Alexandria uses the same term when
speaking of his own 'appalling revelations.' So closely connected are
mysteries with dancing among savages