(4) The kind of sacred dance which was the most common among the Israelites, as among other peoples, was that proper to _Vintage and Harvest Festivals_. That it seems, from the scanty references to it which we have in the Old Testament, as well as from many indications in regard to its performance among other races, largely to have lost its sacred character will not deceive us as to its originally religious purpose. It was a characteristic of Israelite worship that the note of joy should sound during its celebration; the command: “Ye shall rejoice before Jahwe your God” sufficiently bears this out. Apart, therefore, from the original purpose of this kind of sacred dance to which reference will be made in Chapter VIII, there is no reason to doubt that Vintage and Harvest dances among the Israelites were essentially of a religious character, although the rejoicing, of which dancing was one of the most natural modes of expression, might not always appeal to some of the more austere prophets, see, _e.g._, Amos v. 21-23. The very rare specific mention in the Old Testament of the festival dances is quite comprehensible, for what was obviously proper to the celebration of a feast it would be superfluous to speak about. Moreover, there is ample evidence in post-biblical Jewish literature of the existence of the sacred dance at festivals. (5) _Dances in celebration of victory_ in battle are referred to several times in the Old Testament. Taking the passages in which these are mentioned by themselves the custom of which they speak is nothing more than a simple and natural expression of joy and thanksgiving for victory. But all such customs have a long history behind them; and when analogous customs among other, less civilized, peoples are considered, some points of interest and significance emerge which suggest the possibility of the custom being, in its origin, due to a different and more practical cause. There are some grounds for believing that the custom of which the Old Testament speaks was a remnant of what was originally a dance performed by women which had for its object the helping of the men to gain a victory by means of imitative magic. In the Old Testament there is, of course, no trace of this beyond the fact that the dance was performed by women; and it has become simply an act of joyful thanksgiving to God and a tribute to the returning victors. It is necessary to consider the analogous rite in its earlier forms as seen among peoples of lower civilization to estimate what justification there may be for this supposition. If it should be the fact that this type of dance was, in its origin, a means of effecting victory by magic, it would be an interesting illustration of magic being, as Marett says, “part and parcel of the ‘god-stuff’ out of which religion fashions itself.”[33] Indeed, when dealt with in detail, this subject of the sacred dance in the Old Testament receives its chief interest and importance from the fact that