Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 3): The great transitional age in the northern and eastern sections of the Palace (London, 1930)

7?

INDIVIDUAL POSSESSION OF DANCERS

Chain or
ring
dances
in honour
of the
Goddess.

In these cases, where the mainspring of the action is the individual
possession, we have a class of performance which in its extreme results is
still vividly illustrated throughout the East by the dancing dervishes. In
one form or another, indeed, the pas seul is the prevailing characteristic

among oriental
dancers of both
sexes, even on or-
dinary festive oc-
casions that have
no religious signi-
ficance. In many
such dances that
I have witnessed
the body is slowly
rotated while its
more fleshy sur-
faces are made to
quiver like a jelly
by intensive mus-
cular action. The
power of produc-
ing this is pos-
sessed in an extra-
ordinary degree
by Hungarian gip-
sies.

Dancing of this
individualist kind
may, nevertheless, be carried out by a series of performers so as to execute
a combined figure, and it is joint action of this kind that we recognize in
the scenes depicted on the Miniature Fresco and on the Isopata signet. The
dance here in both cases is ex hypothesi of a ritual character. One or other
of the priestesses may have led the train, but the dancers themselves must
be severally regarded as inspired with the divine afflatus.

That there were also ' chain' or ' ring' dances in honour of the Goddess
in which the performers joined hands may be gathered from the remarkable
terra-cotta group found at Palaikastro (Fig. 41).J

1 R. M. Dawkins, Excavations at Palai- objects were found in Room 44 of the large
kasiro, iii {U.S.A., x, p. 217 seqq.). The Mansion or Palace with vases of L. M. Ill a.

Fig. 41.

Terra-cotta Model ok Lyre-player, Ring Dance, and
Dove : Palaikastro.