Dancing is so powerful an agent on the organism, as Sergi truly
remarks (_Les Emotions_, p. 288), because its excitation is
general, 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 states, "the perfection of the art or science
consists in their _being able to put every part of the body into
motion at the same time_. And as they are naked, the bystander
has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which
presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,--the head,
the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones,
muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at
the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild
beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling,
shouting, and leaping. It would appear as though the whole frame
was hung on springing wires or cords. Dances are held in high
repute, being the natural expression of joyous emotion, or