Animal role play
There are animal role- playing games in different cultures as the representation of animals by human role-players within ritual acts, for example in dances of the North American Indian tribes . They played or play a role in the religion and myths of various tribal groups and probably also in prehistory and early history .
The last of these Indian animal dances (massaum) was photographed by Julia Tuell at the Cheyenne in Montana in 1911. There are representations from prehistory and early history that suggest that physical or spiritual animal roles were ritually taken over by people; probably this served the worship, or the acceptance of the animal abilities, or the evocation of the animal as a hunting object. A known cave paintings of this theme is the representation of a shaman as a deer -like creature in the caves of Trois-Freres , known as the Dancing Shaman ( English Dancing Sorcerer ).
When dealing with children, animal roles are also occasionally used in order to encourage them to take a certain, mostly sporty movement and to make the movement sequence clear to them; Examples of this are "bunny hop", frog hop or elephant run.
See also
- Animal Warrior (Scandinavia)