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The Dancing English, Part Two: The Ritual Dance
| Article
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21933 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1993 |
2,659 Words |
| Author
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John Bremer
John Bremer, a Cambridge philosopher and educator, writes
mostly on Plato. |
It is the first day of May. The hour is dawn and the sun is lightening the eastern sky as six men, all dressed in white, with ribbons fluttering from their loosely swinging arms, move in a procession across the greensward, behind their leaders, who, turning to his right, brings them into a circle around a beribboned maypole. Above the murmur of the awakening world, the brass bells on pads a round their legs can be heard, shivering in time with their rhythmical steps. The leader stops, the team forming a rough rectangle with two ranks of three men, as he calls out "The Orange in Bloom." Immediately, a shrill whistle pierces the air and a barbaric drumbeat moves the men around a center that holds them as tightly as if with radial ropes. The men circle, round and back, their legs moving strongly, gracefully, and precisely, the bells ringing out in time with the music, their arms swinging fully and elegantly, accentuated by the white handkerchiefs held by one corner in every hand.
This double image, in 1993 New York and 1693 Sherborne, is of Morris men. The New Yorkers call themselves the Bouwerie Boys, while the Sherborne men are just that, the Sherborne Morris Men, and they dance for the good of their village.
Who are these Morris men, and what connects them with each other across three hundred years and three thousand miles of ocean? And what connects both with countless others across thousands of years and across continents? And with the more than three hundred Morris sides, or teams, in North America and the thousand or so that form the Morris Ring in England?
The answers lie in the history of a people known today as the Indo-Europeans and in the geography of Europe and Asia.
The Indo-Europeans
Around 3000 B.C. the people who lived in the region of the Black and Caspian seas prospered and expanded for reasons that are not fully known, although climatic change, the wheel, and mastery of the horse were significant factors. They migrated eastward, occupying northern India, and westward, occupying virtually all of modern Europe. Their language superseded all others and created a family of languages as groups split off, settled, and gradually developed their own culture and dialect. Thus, all the Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Italic, and Celtic languages are related to the Persian, Kurdish, and Pamir languages of Iran, and to Sanskrit, Marathi, and the Hindi languages of ancient and modern India.
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