ABSTRACT
The primitive dances that have been considered up to now may, broadly speaking, be regarded as ‘normal’. They are sometimes frenzied and frequently ecstatic, but the ecstasy is produced by exaltation and rhythmic movement, not by mortification of the flesh. There is, however, another type of primitive dance – tortured, joyless, convulsive – regarded by Curt Sachs as ‘out of harmony with the body’. This tends to be characteristic of shaman cultures, making its appearance where magic power is in the hands of the medicine man and religious experience and cult formation rest on a form of hypnosis. 1
