of the naked youths in honour of Apollo, that of the Lacedaemonian maidens, and that of the Thyiads in Athens, the rite of Mother Dindymene and the Kordax on Mount Sipylus.[1] It is repeated in that of the Salii at Rome, and in the ritual of the Floralia. Of modern instances it is only necessary to name the puberty- and wedding-dance among savages, the Zulus for instance, and to this day there is a special wedding-dance in Brittany.[2] It is doubt- less with the same motive that the Madonna del Mateno of Sardinia pirouettes in public, that there is a Whitsuntide dance at Echternach in Luxemburgh, and that the Mexicans dance in honour of Our Lady of Guadalupe.[3] We have another survival of the same rite in the Furry or Faddy dance at Helston in Cornwall, which is said to commemo- rate a dragon which once passed over the town without doing any harm, possibly a reminiscence of the great rain- serpent.[4]
Secondly, in the Gopis we may recognise the temple- slaves of the East, concubines of the god, known in India as Devi-dâsis, an institution connected with the custom of marriage to the god, of which I have given many instances in another place.[5] The same custom prevailed in Egypt; and these divine dancers passed into the Greek world as
the Hierodouloi, of whom Strabo tells us there were six
- ↑ Pausanias, iii., il, 9 ; lO, 7 ; iv., 16, 9 ; x., 4, 3 ; vi., 22, i ; Frazer, ii., 411 ; iii., 320; iv., 95, 147.
- ↑ Theal, he. cit., 217 ; 8th Series Notes and Queries, vi., 48 1 ; Frazer, Pausanias, iii., 469.
- ↑ 8th Series Notes and Queries, x., 397 ; 7th Series, ix. , 381 ; 8th Series, X., 115, 202,
- ↑ 6th Series Notes and Queries, xi., 468, 496 ; 5th Series, v., 507 ; vi., 32 ; 7th Series, ix., 424 ; Home, Everyday Book, ii.. 324 seqq. ; Gentleman's Magazine, loc. cit., 216 seqq.
- ↑ North Indian Notes and Queries, iv., 9 seqq.; C. Ramachendrier, Collection of Decisions of the High Court and Privy Council on Dancing Girls, Intro., I seqq.; Crooke, loc. cit., ii., 118; Bombay Gazetteer, xviii. (i), 546; Dubois, Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies, (ed. Beaucharap) 133, 592; Yule, Marco Polo, ii., 288 seqq.
