Corresponding to these differences in the character of the masks that are worn, are _two_ main forms of the dance, particularly of the cult dance. The first of these is the _ceremonial dance_, which moves in slow and solemn rhythm. This is the dance that generally inaugurates the great cult festivals of the semi-cultural peoples of totemism or that accompanies certain of the chief features of the festival--such, for example, as the entrance and procession of the cloud-masked ancestral spirits in the vegetation festivals of New Mexico. Contrasting with the ceremonial dance are the _ecstatic dances_, which for the most part form the climax of the festival. Only the men are allowed to take part in the ceremonial dances, and the same is generally true also of the ecstatic dances. The women, if not altogether excluded from the ceremonies, are either silent witnesses or accompany the dance with songs or screams. It is only in the more extreme form of the ecstatic-orgiastic dance that both sexes participate. The mixed dances probably arose in connection with the vegetation festivals, as a result of the relation which was thought to exist between the sexual emotions and the creative forces of nature. It was doubtless because of this late origin that the Greeks long continued to regard the dances of the Dionysian festivals, which were borrowed from Oriental cults and executed by women alone or by women and men together, as in part a degeneration of good custom. In the drama, whose origin was the mimetic dance, the rôle of women was taken by men.