Other instances of a similar character could easily be adduced. The idea is not so fantastic as, at first sight, it may appear to some. When we are dealing with things from the point of view of uncultured man we must not look for the laws of cause and effect to follow the course which would appeal to us. He believes that he can put into motion the working of Nature by means of his own devising; and if he induce or assist the spirits of fertility in producing corn and buffaloes, there is no reason why he should not by the same means assist them in quickening the child-bearing capacity of a woman. Many other examples could be given of the dance as a marriage rite, but we must content ourselves with the few following references to it among peoples in very different parts of the world: The Indians of British Columbia, Westermarck, _The History of Human Marriage_, I. 458 f.; the natives of Central Africa, Miss Alice Werner, _The Natives of British Central Africa_, p. 131 (1906); the Kayans of Borneo, H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and North Borneo_, I. 114 f. (1896); the aborigines of Australia, Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South Eastern Australia_, pp. 233 f., 245 (1904); the natives of Tahiti, Featherman, _op. cit._ II. 33 f.; the natives of New Britain, George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 116 (1910). SUMMARY AND CONSIDERATIONS Once only in the Old Testament is there mention of a ceremonial wedding dance, though there are frequent references to other marriage customs. We have to look in other directions for the meaning and purpose of this type of sacred dance. From the custom among the Bedouin Arabs it seems that at their weddings the sword-dance forms one of the most important ceremonies; and from this we may gather that the “dance of Maḥanaim,” mentioned in Canticles, was a similar sword-dance. Various considerations point to the probability of this sword-dance being a relic of the custom of warding off what were conceived to be malign influences at the times of weddings. Traces of the same old-world idea, though, of course, entirely forgotten, are to be discerned in some of the customs among the Jews of the Middle Ages. It is possible that among them certain other ceremonies which were performed on these occasions had the object of ensuring a fruitful marriage.