Hunters

symbolised the chase in their dances, and the peculiarities of animals, Some danced naked, like David before the ark, till they dropped half dead, like the flagellants of Apollo, or the dancers of Phrygia before the altars of Kubélé. Some symbolised the revolution of the planets (as the Malawi yah or Dancing Dervishes are supposed to do) which we learned while cro -examining a company of religious per i pate tiks in Central India, who performed strange figures round their camp banner pole. They marked certain dots on the dusty ground which they said were planetary signs; but unfortunately we had no time to get details, and did not again fall in with them. They danced a kind of minuet step, as in some of our Keltik rural dances. After a pirouette the toe was stretched to touch certain points before or behind, representing the Pleiades and other constellations. Our old country dances, “Threading the needle,” and the “up and down and through the loop” in “Sir Roger de Coverley,” represent phallik ideas now forgotten. The worshipers of Pan danced round their goats, as the witches danced round the great Goat Devil at their Sabbath orgies. 541