By personating the deceased in the mourning dance it is believed by some that he can be induced to return to his friends and dance with them, greatly to the comfort of the relatives. The idea is about on a level with the Roman belief in the presence of a man’s ancestors, when their images are carried in the funeral procession. But the same rite can, among others, have the purpose of protecting the survivors from the spirit of the deceased; he is sometimes supposed to be annoyed at having been forcibly taken away from his familiar haunts, and lest he should vent his angry feelings on his relatives, they either dance to scare him away, or else propitiate him by various means. Another purpose of the rite is for the survivors to protect both themselves and their departed friend from the malice of other departed spirits who are believed to congregate in the vicinity of a corpse; in this case the dance is accompanied by sundry noises. A variation of this is the dance round the corpse, whether by way of perambulation or dancing in the more literal sense. The magic circle thus formed keeps away unwelcome spirit-visitors. But this may have another purpose; it may possibly be a means of “keeping in” the spirit of the deceased, and thus preventing him from getting abroad and doing mischief. When the dance is performed round slain enemies the object of it seems to be that of propitiation. If it be asked which of these purposes may be supposed to have been that for which the Israelites performed this rite, we imagine the reply would be: any or all of them, according to the stage of culture in which they found themselves. Two of them: that of honouring the dead, and that of forming the magic circle round the corpse (probably for keeping it safe), can be vouched for. FOOTNOTES [1] _Pioneering in New Guinea_, pp. 181 f. (1887); see further, J. E. Harrison, _Ancient Art and Ritual_, pp. 31 ff. (1913). [2] _The Evolution of Religion_, p. 9 (1905); cp. the same author’s _Greece and Babylon_, p. 37 (1911). [3] See Marett, _The Threshold of Religion_, pp. 128 ff. (1909). [4] Mrs Lilly Grove (now Lady Frazer) and other writers, _Dancing_, p. 8 (1895); elsewhere in the same volume the writers say: “There must have been a period of the world’s history when every action in life, every game, every banquet, every dance, was a game, a repast, a dance, in honour of the gods,” p. 15. The evidence entirely bears this out if we take “gods” as meaning supernatural powers in general. [5] _La danse ancienne et moderne, ou Traité Historique de la Danse_, p. 19 (1754). For a different opinion see Irving King, _The Development of Religion_, p. 58 (1910). [6] _Der Tanz und seine Geschichte_, pp. 3-15 (1869). [7] He says: “Les différentes affections de l’âme sont donc l’origine des gestes, et la danse qui en est composée, est par conséquent l’art de les faire avec grâce et mesure relativement aux affections qu’ils doivent exprimer,” _op. cit._ p. 17.