Rain dance
A rain dance is a ceremonial dance that is performed in the hope of triggering rain in order to e.g. B. to guarantee the next harvest.
Different types of rain dance can be found in different cultures, whether in Ancient Egypt or among Native American people . Even in the 20th century there was a rain dance ritual in the Balkans called Paparuda (Romanian) or Perperuna (Slavic).
Cherokee Indians from the southeast ( Appalachian mountains ) of the USA performed rain dances to trigger precipitation and drive away evil spirits. The legends of the tribe say that the conjured rain contains the spirits of the earlier tribal leaders and that they fight the evil between reality and the spirit world. The Cherokee believed that particularly elaborate rain dances would enable participants and audiences to perform unusual and extreme acts of worship.
A story of the indigenous peoples of the USA tells how the term "rain dance" came about. During the Indian Resettlement Days , various religious ceremonies, including the sun dance and the ghost dance , were banned by the government. The Windigokan, an alleged cannibalist sect, became famous as a result by telling federal officials that they would not perform the sun dance but the rain dance, and thus not act illegally.
Julia M. Butree (a wife of Ernest Thompson Seton ) describes in her book the rain dance of the Zuni, among other dances of the indigenous people .
Feathers and turquoises were worn during the dance to symbolize wind and rain. The special processes during the dance were passed on orally for generations.
Before the Enlightenment, humans generally had a tendency to attribute a mystical meaning to physical phenomena ( mysticism ). Another example of this are the weather saints .
Individual evidence
- ^ Rain's Dance Group . ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ dizzy.library.arizona.edu. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 15, 2004 ; accessed on September 2, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Julia M. Butree (Julia M. Seton): The Rhythm of the Redman: in song, dance and Decoration . AS Barnes, New York 1930
- ^ Rain Dance of Zuni. (English)
- ↑ How the Rain Dance Helped Native Americans through dry summers. (English)
