. . .eral, because it touches every vital organ, the higher centers no longer dominating. Primitive dancing differs very widely from that civilized kind of dancing—finding its extreme type in the ballet—in which energy is concentrated into the muscles below the knee. In the finest kinds of primitive dancing all the limbs, the whole body, take part. For instance, "the Marquisan girls," Herman Melville remarked in Typee, "dance all over, as it were; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers,—ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. In good sooth, they so sway their floating forms, arch their necks, toss aloft their naked arms, and glide, and swim, and whirl," etc.

If we turn to a very different people, we find this characteristic of primitive dancing admirably illustrated by the missionary, Holden, in the case of Kaffir dances. "So far as I have observed," he state. . . Read More