[277] See, for illustrations not mentioned here, Lilly Grove, op. cit. pp. 65-92.

[278] This is given by Frazer, GB, Spirits of the Corn ..., I. 95 f., from A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo, I. 167-169 (1904 ...).

[279] Frazer, op. cit. p. 107. See also Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea, pp. 323 ff. H. L. Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, I. 262 (1896), says: “The Dyaks really seem to consider dancing as a part of divine service, attributing to it some mysterious and wholesome efficacy”;—they do not enquire why; it is taken for granted that it is so.

[280] Malay Magic, p. 462 (1900).

[281] Cp. Réville, Les Religions des peuples non-civilisés, p. 269, who tells of how the imitative magic dance develops into a specifically religious act.

[282] Op. cit. p. 464; see, further, pp. 465 ff., and also Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, I. 364 f., II. 119 ff., 126 ff., 137 with the illustration on p. 138; and for the negro Baris, whose country is situated on either bank of the White Nile, see Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind, I. 74 (1881).

[283] W. Schneider, Die Religion der Afrikanischen Naturvölker, pp. 52-58 (1891); Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s, p. 327 (1872).

[284] On initiation dances see Harrison, Themis, pp. 24 f.

[285] Bab. Talm. Rosh Ha-shanah 16 a, Mishnah, Sukkah, IV. 9; cp. Mishnah, Berakôth, V. 2; see also the curious story in Lucian, De Dea Syria, XIII.; and for numbers of examples of rain-charms see Frazer, GB, The Magic Art, I. 247-329.

[286] The Threshold of Religion, p. 76 (1909).

[287] ERE, X. 359 b.

[288] The root meaning of ʿanah is “to sing,” see Isa. xxvi. 2, Exod. xxxii. 18, Ps. cxix. 172; and cp. the cognate Arabic root ghanna; in neo-Hebrew it is often used of singing in chorus.

[289] A different interpretation of the passage is given by a few commentators, e.g. Briggs in the Intern. Crit. Com., but the natural meaning seems to be as above.

[290] We have referred to this in another connexion, see p. 141. It is probable that we have in this episode a combination of an historical fact and some form of the Adonis myth.

[291] Pausan. IV. xvi. 4. See, further, Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer, §§ 24, 50.

[292] Reference is made in 1 Sam. xxi. 5, 2 Sam. xi. 11 to an act of self-control which was also part of the consecration for battle; but this, which is found among many other races, had its special reason and does not come into consideration here.

[293] GB, Spirits of the Corn ..., II. 145, where other examples are given.

[294] GB, Spirits of the Corn ..., I. 22.

[295] The possibility is not excluded that in all cases of animals being eaten in order to absorb their qualities, their sacredness may have been the real reason at one time in the history of the rite. When this reason was forgotten and its qualities became the sole reason for eating an animal, the extension of the idea in other ways would be natural.

[296] Religion of the Semites, p. 288.

[297] GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 165 f. (1911); the account is taken from S. Müller, Reizen en Ondergoekingen in den Indischen Archipel., II. 252 (1857). For another example see Chalmers, op. cit. p. 182.

[298] C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 298 (1910), quoted by Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 168.

[299] Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 493 f. (1899).

[300] De Flacourt, Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar, pp. 97 f. (1658), quoted by Frazer, GB, The Magic Art, I. 131 (1911).

[301] The Secret Tribal Societies of West Africa, p. 17, quoted by Frazer, op. cit. I. 132.

[302] Frazer, op. cit. I. 133 f.

[303] Uit het leven der Bevolking van Windessi, in the “Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-Landen Volkenkunde,” XL. 157 f. (1898); GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 169 f.

[304] E.g. in such cases as the May-pole dance, and the dances round the Midsummer fires.

[305] Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 455, where references to original authorities are given. See also Stade, Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments, i. 148.

[306] GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 158; for further examples see pp. 161 ff., and The Magic Art, I. 125 ff. Conceivably the taboo on the persons left at home during the absence of the fighting men may have originally had something to do with the victory dance being performed by women alone.

[307] See the present writer’s Immortality and the Unseen World, chaps. VIII-X.

[308] E.g. Gen. xxiv. 49 ff., xxix. 27; Judg. xiv. 7; Isa. lxi. 10; Jer. ii. 32, vii. 34, xxv. 10; Ps. xlv. 10 ff.; Cant. iii. 6-11; cp. 3 Macc. iv. 8. In the New Testament we have more details, e.g. Matth. xxii. 2, xxv. 1 ff.; Lk. xii. 36; John ii. 1 ff.

[309] See König, Hebr. und Aram. Wörterbuch, p. 505, and cp. the Sept. τῇ Σουμανείτιδι (Cod. B).

[310] Kimĕhôlath hammaḥanaim. Cp. the Septuagint rendering: ὡς χοροὶ τῶν παρεμβολῶν.

[311] Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. 52, says, “The tenacity with which the Oriental mind, if left to itself, holds that which has always been, and turns to it as unerringly as the needle to the pole, has often been observed, and is our guaranty that we may find primitive religious conditions among people with whom, if we approach them in the right way, we may hold intercourse to-day.” This may certainly apply to the present instance.

[312] In the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, pp. 287 ff. (1873).

[313] Cp. the reference to the king in Cant. i. 4.

[314] Mittel-Syrien und Damascus, p. 123 (1853).

[315] Arabia Deserta, II. 118 (1921).

[316] See Rothstein’s article, “Moslemische Hochzeitsgebräuche in Lifta bei Jerusalem,” in Dalman’s Palästinajahrbuch, 1910, pp. 102-123, especially 110-114; a photographic illustration of a sword-dance is given on p. 102; and Klein in the Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästinischen Vereins, VI. 94 ff. (1883).

[317] “Its general unscientific nature has been demonstrated by Mr Fison and Dr Westermarck.... The theory, then, that mankind in general, or even a particular section of mankind, even in normal circumstances were accustomed to obtain their wives by capture from other tribes, may be regarded as exploded. There have been, of course, and still are, sporadic cases of capture of wives from hostile tribes or others, but such cannot prove a rule.” Crawley, The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage, p. 367 (1902).

[318] Op. cit. pp. 323 ff.

[319] For the reasons why these maleficent influences should be believed to be present on such occasions see Crawley’s work, chaps, XIII, XIV.

[320] Palestinischer Diwan, p. 254 (1901). For the custom among the Arabs of the Hedjaz see Featherman, op. cit. V. 402.

[321] Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie, II. 39 (1911).

[322] Bacher, Aggada der Palestinischen Amoraim, III. 36 (1897); JE, VIII. 341 f.

[323] Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, p. 193 (1896).

[324] Abrahams, op. cit. pp. 195 f.; cp. with this the rite in the ancient Indian ritual, in which the bride takes seven steps towards the bridegroom; at the seventh he seizes her by the foot, Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell, in “Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften,” XL. 51 (1892).

[325] Grunwald, in JE, VIII. 346 a, quoting from Chorny, Sefer ha-Massaʿot, p. 298.

[326] Abrahams, op. cit. p. 196. For marriage rites among Jews and Mohammedans in Palestine to-day see Baldensperger in the Quarterly Statement of the Pal. Exploration Fund, 1899, pp. 140 ff., 1900, pp. 181 ff., 1901, pp. 173 ff.

[327] Westermarck, Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, p. 144 (1914).

[328] Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 388 (1910).

[329] On this, see further Crawley, op. cit. pp. 327 ff., 335 ff.

[330] Op. cit. p. 321.

[331] Op. cit. p. 344.

[332] Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind, V. 480 (1881).

[333] Westermarck, op. cit. p. 251.

[334] Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell, XL. 30.

[335] Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 374.

[336] Skeat, op. cit. p. 381.

[337] “For practical purposes, as is hardly necessary to premise, the complex fears of men and women are often subconscious, or are only expressed as a feeling of diffidence with regard to the novel proceedings, and also are not always focussed on the personality of either party with its inherent dangerous properties nor stimulated by conscious realisation of particular dangers.... We have, however, seen cases where the individual in marriage is consciously aware that it is his human partner who is to be feared” (Crawley, op. cit. p. 323).

[338] Skeat, op. cit. p. 377, and for other dances at weddings see pp. 388 f., 392.

[339] The History of Human Marriage, II. 584 (1921); see also Featherman, op. cit. I. 208.

[340] Frazer, GB, The Scapegoat, p. 171.

[341] Frazer, GB, The Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, II. 255.

[342] Westermarck, Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, p. 90.

[343] Westermarck, op. cit. p. 144.

[344] H. A. Metcalf’s translation, The Idylls and Epigrams of Theocritus ... (1905).

[345] The Mystic Rose, pp. 337 ff.

[346] For these, see the present writer’s book, Immortality and the Unseen World: a Study in Old Testament Religion, pp. 141 ff. (1921).

[347] Talmudische Archäologie, II. 67 f., 483 (1911); cp. also Thomson, The Land and the Book: Lebanon, Damascus, and beyond Jordan, pp. 401 ff. (1886).

[348] Crawley, in ERE, X. 358 a.

[349] The mystic number, seven, in connexion with the rite will not escape notice. The whole service will be found in Gaster’s Daily and Occasional Prayers, vol. I. (1901). The supplications, though not in precisely the same form in which they now appear, are known to go back to pre-Christian times; the antiquity of the ritual by which they are accompanied, especially when its nature is considered, will obviously be at least as great, let alone the long history behind it.

[350] Sacred Books of the East, XI. 129 (1879-1910).

[351] In ERE, III. 658 b.

[352] Hartland, in ERE, IV. 426 b.

[353] Walse, in ERE, IV. 453 b.

[354] Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, I. 301 (1903).

[355] Alois Musil, Arabia Petraea, III. 203 (1908).

[356] For illustrations of this kind see, e.g., Rosellini, Les Monuments de l’Égypte et de la Nubie, Pl. CXIV. fig. 2, Pl. CXVI. fig. 6 (1831); Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, Div. II, Pls. 52, 53 (1849); Perrot et Chipiez, Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité: l’Égypte, p. 701 (1882).

[357] In ERE, V. 238 a.

[358] Erman, Aegypten ..., I. 336.

[359] Erman, op. cit. I. 338, II. 434.

[360] Reported in the Times, 29th June, 1922.

[361] Cp. Herodotus, II. 85.

[362] An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, II. 272 (1871).

[363] Op. cit. pp. 344, 408 f., 452.

[364] Among the Romans, during the earliest periods, funerals always took place at night; for the evidence see Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Römer, pp. 343 f. (1886).

[365] As to funeral games see Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités Greques et Romaines, II. 1376 (1896 ...): “La présence de nombreux chars sur les vases peints du Dipylon fait croire qu’on continua à célébrer des jeux funèbres en l’honneur du mort, et cet usage persista longtemps encore, comme semble l’indiquer une peinture où un char de course est représenté à côté d’une stèle qu’on achève de décorer.” Cp. Rohde, Psyche ..., I. 224 f. As Hartland points out (ERE, IV. 437 a), “funeral games, familiar to us in classical literature, are of very wide distribution. They cannot be separated from dances, for there is no hard and fast line between the two.”

[366] See also Rohde, Psyche ..., I. 221.

[367] In Dionys. VII. 72 there is a description of such a procession in which troops danced in the dress of Sileni and Satyrs. Suet. Caes. 84 (Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Römer, pp. 352 f.).

[368] Crawley, in ERE, X. 356 a.

[369] Antike Gesichtshelme und Sepulcralmasken, p. 4 (1878), referred to by Marquardt, Privatleben der Römer, p. 241, and see further, pp. 353 ff.

[370] Showerman in ERE, IV. 505 b, 507 b. Cp. Daremberg et Saglio, op. cit. s.v. Funus.

[371] Op. cit. II. 32.

[372] See the present writer’s Immortality and the Unseen World, pp. 9, 21 f.

[373] I.e. “sacred,” the first month of the Musulman year.

[374] Jaʿfar Sharif, Islam in India, or the Qānūn-i-Islam: The Customs of the Musulmans of India, translated by G. A. Herklots, pp. 161-174 (1921).

[375] Frazer, GB, The Magic Art, II. 183.

[376] J. M. Brown, Maori and Polynesian, p. 203. “Funeral dances and death-bed dances are a world-wide custom. We hear of them in Patagonia, in Abyssinia, in North America, in the East Indian isles and in the Highlands of Scotland; we read about them in ancient Egypt, and we can see them to-day in Spain, in Ireland, and in the centre of France,” Lilly Grove, op. cit. p. 4.

[377] ERE, IV. 434 b.

[378] Seligmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea, pp. 358 ff., 716 (1910).

[379] Frazer, The Belief in Immortality, I. 200 (1913).

[380] Frazer, op. cit. I. 399.

[381] The Indian Tribes of Guiana, pp. 154 f. (1868).

[382] Schoolcraft, op. cit. I. 198, 234.

[383] Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind, I. 413 (1881).

[384] Baldwin Spencer, The Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia, pp. 234 ff. (1914).

[385] Frazer, op. cit. I. 293 f.

[386] Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits, V. 256.

[387] Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, V. 1070.

[388] Nelson, The Eskimo about Bering Strait, Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Pt. I. 363 (1899).

[389] Frazer, GB, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 166.

[390] Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 505 ff. (1899).

[391] Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, I. pp. 384 ff. (1903).

[392] ERE, IV. 481 a.

[393] ERE, IV. 416 b.

[394] See on this the present writer’s Immortality and the Unseen World, p. 180.