Portland Public Library

The dancing goddesses, folklore, archaeology, and the origins of European dance, Elizabeth Wayland Barber

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 381-394) and index

illustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

The dancing goddesses

bibliography

783163466

Elizabeth Wayland Barber

folklore, archaeology, and the origins of European dance

An ethnographic and archaeological exploration of ancient traditions and folklore pertaining to "dancing goddesses" traces their roots in early Roman, Greek, and European cultures to reveal the origins of modern customs

Introduction : dancing as life -- Geographical maps -- pt. I. Dancing the year : the ritual cycle of fertility -- 1. Swan maidens, mermaids, and tree spirits : introduction, through folktales, to some dancing goddesses (vily, rusalki, willies, etc.) of eastern European folklore -- 2. Marking time : how nonliterate farmers devised and kept their agricultural (seasonal) calendar -- 3. To bring the Spring : fertility rituals of early spring -- 4. Dancing up a storm : dance ritual of leaf-clad orphans to end drought -- Problems of rain and hail -- 5. Crazy Week, Rusalia Week : fertility rituals of Semik, Trinity, and Rusalia Week -- Dance brotherhoods of Rusalia; perils of Mad Wednesday -- 6. Flowers with powers : plants the willies love and hate -- Plants to heal, protect, and bewitch -- 7. Midsummer Rusalii : fertility rituals of St. John's Night -- Herbs, water, fire -- Child's sleeve dance -- 8. Friday, St. Friday : curious history of the weekday sacred to female deities -- 9. The Twelve Days of Christmas : midwinter Rusalii, during intercalary Twelve Days -- Propitiating good and bad spirits for the New Year (and whence came our Yuletide customs) -- pt. II. Bride-dancing for fertility : The Frog Princes -- 10. Cosmic arrow : finding a bride -- 11. Bride testing : rituals testing a girl for marriage (Can she make the food and clothing?) -- 12. Trial by dance : is she strong enough to do all the farmwork, too? -- The Magic Sleeve Dance : more relics of dancing swan maidens -- 14. Second Skins : shape-changing spirits -- 15. The hut on chicken legs : old witches keeping ritual knowledge, training young women -- 16. Koshchey the Deathless : shamans and wizards, battling for communal good -- pt. III. Dancing back through time -- 17. Medieval traces : medieval evidence for rituals and beliefs -- 18. Roman showbiz : Roman evidence for the rituals -- 19. Dancing with the Greeks : classical and archaic Greek evidence -- Dionysos and Thrace -- 20. Back to the Bronze Age : Minoan and Mycenaean evidence -- From Indo-European horse rituals to a hobbyhorse -- 21. Dancing at the dawn of agriculture : evidence that this whole belief system began with the first farmers of Europe, 6000-3000 BC -- pt. IV. Gotta dance! -- 22. Keeping together in time : what cognitive science has learned about human dance -- Trance-dancing and firewalking -- 23. Dancing the time warp : possibilities of reconstructing the dances -- Epilogue: dancing divinity -- Parallel stories from Greece and Japan of angry fertility goddesses made to laugh by obscene dance : dance restores life -- Appendix: Bracelets from Kiev with ritual motifs