without any ulterior design." (A.C. Haddon, _Head Hunters_, p.
233.) When we remember that dancing had probably become highly
developed long before man appeared on the earth, this difficulty
in determining the precise origin of human dancing cannot cause
surprise.

Spix and Martius described how the Muras of Brazil by moonlight
would engage all night in a Bacchantic dance in a great circle,
hand in hand, the men on one side, the women on the other,
shouting out all the time, the men "Who will marry me?" the
women, "You are a beautiful devil; all women will marry you,"
(Spix and Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_, 1831, vol. iii, p.
1117.) They also described in detail the dance of the Brazilian
Puris, performed in a state of complete nakedness, the men in a
row, the women in another row behind them. They danced backward
and forward, stamping and singing, at first in a slow and
melancholy style, but gradually with increasing vigor and
excitement. Then the women began to rotate the pelvis backward
and forward, and the men to thrust their bodies forward, the
dance becoming a pantomimic representation of sexual intercourse
(ibid., vol. i, 1823, pp. 373-5).

Among the Apinages of Brazil, also, the women stand in a row,
almost motionless, while the men dance and leap in front of them,
both men and women at the same time singing. (Buscalioni, "Reise
zu den Apinages," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, ht. 6, p.
650.)

Among the Gilas of New Mexico, "when a young man sees a girl whom
he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will