would die.”  Under other circumstances men and women dance together with ardor, not forming couples but often vis-a-vis:  their movements are lascivious.  Even the dances following a funeral tend to become sexual in character.  At the end of the rites attending the funeral of a chief’s son the entire population began to dance with ever-growing ardor; there was nothing ritualistic or sad in these contortions, which took on the character of a lascivious dance.  Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, sought to rival each other in suppleness, and the festival became joyous and general, as if in celebration of a marriage or a victory.  (Eysseric, “La Cote d’Ivoire,” Nouvelles Archives des Missions Scientifiques, tome ix, 1890, pp. 241-49.)

Mrs. French-Sheldon has described the marriage-rites she observed at Taveta in East Africa.  “During this time the young people dance and carouse and make themselves generally merry and promiscuously drunk, carrying the excess of their dissipation to such an extent that they dance until they fall down in a species of epileptic fit.”  It is the privilege of the bridegroom’s four groomsmen to enjoy the bride first, and she is then handed over to her legitimate husband.  This people, both men and women, are “great dancers and merry-makers; the young fellows will collect in groups and dance as though in competition one with the other; one lad will dash out from the circle of his companions, rush into the middle of a circumscribed space, and scream out ’Wow, wow!’ Another follows him and screams; then a third does the same.  These men will dance with their knees almost rigid, jumping into the air until their excitement becomes very great and their energy almost spasmodic, leaving the ground frequently three feet as they spring into the air.  At some of their festivals their dancing is carried to such an extent that I have seen a young fellow’s muscles quiver from head to foot and his jaws tremble without any apparent ability on his part to control them, until, foaming at the mouth and with his eyes rolling, he falls in a paroxysm upon the ground, to be carried off by his companions.”  The writer adds significantly that this dancing “would seem to emanate from a species of voluptuousness.” (Mrs. French-Sheldon, “Customs among the Natives of East Africa,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xxi, May, 1892, pp. 366-67.) It may be added that among the Suaheli dances are intimately associated with weddings; the Suaheli dances have been minutely described by Velten (Sitten und Gebraueche der Suaheli, pp. 144-175).  Among the Akamba of British East Africa, also, according to H.R.  Tate (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Jan.-June, 1904, p. 137), the dances are followed by connection between the young men and girls, approved of by the parents.

The dances of the Faroe Islanders have been described by Raymond Pilet ("Rapport sur