--and have
connection with the woman. There are often a very large number of
guests and the bride is sometimes so exhausted at the end that
she has to spend several days in bed. (Tautain, "Etude sur le
Mariage chez les Polynesiens," _L'Anthropologie_,
November-December, 1895, p. 642.) The interesting point for us
here is that singing and dancing are still regarded as a
preliminary to a sexual act. It has been noted that in sexual
matters the Polynesians, when first discovered by Europeans, had
largely gone beyond the primitive stage, and that this applies
also to some of their dances. Thus the _hula-hula_ dance, while
primitive in origin, may probably be compared more to a civilized
than to a primitive dance, since it has become divorced from real
life. In the same way, while the sexual pantomime dance of the
Azimba girls of central Africa has a direct and recognized
relationship to the demands of real life, the somewhat allied
_danses du ventre_ of the Hamitic peoples of northern Africa are
merely an amusement, a play more or less based on the sexual
instinct. At the same time it is important to bear in mind that
there is no rigid distinction between dances that are, and those
that are not, primitive. As Haddon truly points out in a book
containing valuable detailed descriptions of dances, even among
savages dances are so developed that it is difficult to trace
their origin, and at Torres Straits, he remarks, "there are
certainly play or secular dances, dances for pure amusement
without any ulterior design." (A.C. Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p.
233.) When we remember that dancing had probably become highly
developed long before man appeared on the earth, this difficulty
in determining the precise origin of human dancing cannot cause
surprise.

Spix and Martius described how the Muras of Brazil by moonlight
would engage all night in a Bacchantic dance in a great circle,
hand in hand, the men on one side, the women on the other,
shouting out all the time, the men "Who will marry me?" the
women, "You are a beautiful devil; all women will marry you,"
(Spix and Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_, 1831, vol. iii, p.
1117.) They also described in detail the dance of the Brazilian
Puris, performed in a state of complete nakedness, the men in a
row, the women in another row behind them