The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-05-28
Miscellany.
The Dancing Azauia,

Most people have, at one time or other,
seen some poor creature affected with those
curious and painful convulsive movements
which are commonly called Saint Vitus's
Dance. That at least is the popular name
for the terrible affection, of which even now
we have some instances among us; but it
must not be confounded with the Dance of
Saint John or Saint Vitus, p mania in the
middle ages, although they have some points
of resemblance. There was the dancing
mania in Germany called Saint Johns
Dance, in Italy called tarantism from the
supposed bite of a SPIDER and we have also
records Of it in Abyssmia, where il has been
named the tlgretier, from the name OF the
country,th Tigre, in which il most commonly
occurs. AS early as the latter part of the
fourteenth century large numbers of men
and women in Germany, both in places OF
worship and in the streets, behaved as if they
were possessed by devils. They danced in
circles for hours together, leaped high into
the air with wild gestures and contortions
and alter ravIng for some time, they fell to
Che ground completely exhausted. Strange TO
say, in a few months this terrible disease
spread rapidly in the Netherlands, and in cities
of Belgium the Economical dancers appeared.
Everything was done which the wisdom of
the age could suggest to put stop TO them,
but in vain. The priests tried eXorcismss.
and there was even a law made that only
square toed shoes should be worn throughout
the country, seeing that the pointed toes,
which were then popular, were objects OF
dislike to the fanatical dancers. Certain col
ors, too, they hated and stunned, and the
sight of anything red was enough TO throw
them into renewed commissions. The num-
Der of people who were possessed in various
places was enormous. Five hundred were
affected in Cologne, and the streets of Metz
were SAID at one time TO have been filled with
eleven hundred Of them.
Many stories Of dancing plaques were cur
rent in medieval times, even before the
Saint Johns Dance broke out in Aix-la-Cha-
pelle A mad rage for dancing had at yari-
GUS periods boon manifested by large bodies
of men, and even children had caught the
contagion in their youth, and been afflicted
with an lncurable tremor for the rest of their
lives. These dancing plaques seem to have
arisen from the wild orgies with which the
feast of st. John the Baptist was celebrated
in medieval times; and the religious and
medical authorities of that day were wholly
unable to cope with them.
Music of "a rude kind always ACCOMPANIED
troops of St. Johns Dancers, and served bv
turns to excite and soothe them. They did
OF course an immense amount of mischief in
every town they visited and had they NOT
found in ST. Vitus a patron saint. under
whose protection they supposed themselves TO
be, it would have gone hard with them
Moreover people believed them to be inno-
cent victims to Beezebub, and to be possess
ed with devils, like the persons mentioned
in the Bible. These fanatics were luckier i'm
Germany than in other countries, where
those possessed, and the people charged with
being the authors of the Economical possess
ion, were often prosecuted with all the cruel
ty which could be devised by men who beliey-
ed that IN such persecution they were fulfill |
ing religious duty. Even in our own coun- |
Try, IN Scotland, case occurred where the |
supposed authors of the Economical fits of |
leaping and dancing in girl named Chris |
tian Shaw, were punished with DEATH Three |
men and four women were tried and burnt |
at Paisley, in June, 1857. the jury ascribinn /
the girls hysterical condition to witehcrat
The dancing mania in Italy was attributed |
TO different cause from the ST. Vituss Dance |
and was called by the name OF tarantism, for |
It was supposed TO arise from the bite OF the |
"tarantula," or ground spider, an insect COM
mon IN The Italian provinces of Apulia.-
We say supposed to arise, for the greatest |
authority ON the subject believes that there |
existed a nervous disorder, afterwards called |
Iarantlsm, long before any connection be- |
tween IL and the spider was found out. The
Dites, moreover, OF scorpions, and other ven
omous insects, were said to have much the
same effect, andpeople feared the tarantula. SO
lluch that the sting often existed only in
their imaginations.
Certainly every one believed, when this Gu
rlous disorder first made its appearance, that |
the tarantula was the cause of it. And ex-
ceedingly strange the symptoms were, the !
most extraordinary of them being an irresist- |
lble desire to dance, and wonderful suscept- |
l0lllty to musical sounds. Some held that |
the music and dancing spread the poison ov-
er the whole body, and that it finally made |
its escape through the skin. II any of the |
poison remained in the body they believed
that 1t could at any time be reused into ac-
ton by the music, which had an one time
been used to mitigate its evil effects. Hence |
various pieces Of music called taraptelas |
were written, and even to this day, in memo |
ry OF the famous spider, there are MANY mus
zeal pieces of light and sparkling character
which composers still designate tarantellas.-
C0SsetPs Magazine.