This is a preliminary study of Alaskan Eskimo dance, the first findings of a three-year comprehensive survey of Alaskan Eskimo and Indian musical systems, funded by the National Science Foundation. The study is primarily synchronic; limited diachronic comparison may be made by consulting a recent study of nineteenth century Alaskan Eskimo dance (Johnston 1974a: 17–26). The populations investigated are the Inupiaq-speakers of Northwest Alaska, numbering about. 11,000, the Central Yupik-speakers of Southwest Alaska, numbering about 17,000, and the Siberian Yupik-speakers of St. Lawrence Island (Alaska), numbering about 1,000. A prime finding is that stylistic differences in Alaskan Eskimo dance coincide approximately with Alaskan Eskimo language (not dialect) areas, with the exception of St. Lawrence Island Eskimo dance, which follows Northwest Alaskan tendencies. The study presents both emic and etic information concerning dance elements, symbolism, functions, and accoutrements.

Alaska Eskimo music has a relatively homogeneous style centering around use of the shallow frame-drum, unison singing, glottal pulsation, pentatonism (but with the additional use of microtones), asymmetrical rhythm, and sectionalized repetition. Intentionally rhythmic, patterned sequences of nonverbal body movement and gesture form an integral part of this musical system, for each complete dance routine (particularly of the sayuun category) is permanently associated with a specific melody, drum rhythm, and set of meaningful songwords. More significantly (from the anthropological point of view), each song-dance pairing is associated with and re-enacts either some recent, significant, true event in cultural history (such as a heroic or comic whaling incident), or a story involving a legendary figure or culture hero. Each song-dance pairing is associated with a specific Eskimo dancer, the latter usually being the creator. If the original creator of the dance is deceased, then the dance is associated with the present-day owner, usually the namesake, partner, or offspring of the creator.

In considering dance, the arts generally, human movement and physical education from a philosophical point of view, it has increasingly struck me that perhaps the biggest single area of confusion in the theoretical literature on these important aspects of human experience concerns the relationship of body to mind. This is, of course, a very large issue in contemporary philosophy, which I have tried to consider rather more fully in a recent book. But I want now to concentrate on one aspect of that issue, and to suggest that much popular talk and many theories of expression and meaning in the arts, especially dance, are vitiated by an underlying confusion about the emotions generally. In this paper I want to try to show just how a fallacious theory of the emotions creates insuperable difficulties for an understanding of any of the arts. It can, I suggest, be shown that though it is commonly accepted without question, this theory implies a position which few would want to accept, for a consequence would be that the arts, like the emotions in general, could not be intelligibly discussed. And even those who hold this traditional dualist view of the emotions usually contradict that consequence pragmatically, in that they exchange opinions about the arts as freely as anyone else.

As an example, consider the dilemma in which a teacher of dance, imbued with such a theory, would find herself if she were to trace out the consequences of it, though we should remember that the same issue of principle would apply in other art forms and to discussion of expression in other physical activities.

The phenomenon of spirit possession exists throughout Africa and many other parts of the world. Recent studies view possession as a performance, concentrating on the manner in which mediums become possessed and a description of the ensuing action. The following study of the Ondo ceremony of the Anago-Yoruba in Dahomey, while concerned with this, focuses more specifically on the numerous symbolic references to possession within the dramatic framework. Possession cannot be meaningfully discussed solely as a state of dissociation. As a performance it is made up of complex arrangements of symbols—visual, aural, and kinetic. The combination forms the reality of possession as witnessed by the audience. An examination of each element in the ritual complex deepens one's understanding of the others and of the whole. Dance specialists, particularly those analyzing dance cross-culturally, should be sensitive to all contextual elements in order to perceive patterns of thought and philosophical ideas expressed kinetically. This paper considers a number of crucial ritual elements: first, imagery in oral tradition, which reveals the personalities of the gods involved in the ritual; second, shrine architecture and priestly regalia, which symbolizes man's relationship to the divine; and third, the possession dance, which unifies the vast array of references to possession in time and space.