extreme rapidity, so as to preserve the straight line radiating from the centre and headed by the chieftains. The measure of the dance and of the chorus chanted by the participants was beaten by the drums and the musicians asserted their absolute control of the great moving wheel of human beings, by alternately quickening or slackening the measure. The perfect harmony of the dance, which successive sets of dancers kept going for eight or more hours, was only disturbed occasionally by certain individuals who pushed their way through the lines of dancers and amused these by indulging in all sorts of buffoonery. No one, on reading the above description of the most ancient and sacred of native dances can fail to recognize that it was an actual representation of axial rotation and that no more effective method of rendering the apparent differences in the degrees of velocity in the movements of the circumpolar and equatorial stars, could possibly have been devised. The fact that this dance was a most solemn and sacred rite, whose performance was obligatory to the entire population, indicates that it constituted an act of general obedience and homage and a public acknowledgment of the absolute dominion of a central dual, ruling power. It is particularly interesting that, in this dance, the latter is represented by two individuals who respectively employ the sacred drum of the priesthood, and that used by war chieftains only (the one instrument emitting a low and the other a high tone); for the culture hero of the Tzendals, Votan, who, with the aid of his followers, taught this tribe the civil laws of government and the religious ceremonials, was entitled “the Master of the sacred Drum.” (See Brinton, American Hero-Myths, p. 214.)