medicine dance

American  

noun

1. a ritual dance performed by some North American Indians to invoke supernatural assistance as for driving out disease.

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Etymology

Origin of medicine dance

First recorded in 1800–10

Example Sentences

After a medicine dance, according to Indian custom, they proposed a feast, but there was nothing on which to feast.

From Fifty Years In The Northwest With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes by Folsom, William Henry Carman

It may be the boy’s medicine dance, part of the ritual which will keep harm away from him.”

From Boy Scouts in Glacier Park The Adventures of Two Young Easterners in the Heart of the High Rockies by Eaton, Walter Prichard

The medicine dance is carried on chiefly to celebrate the skill of the "Medicine-man" in curing diseases.

From Wau-bun The Early Day in the Northwest by Kinzie, Juliette Augusta Magill

A four-day medicine dance is founded on the following legend: Two maidens lived at the bottom of a deep pit.

From The North American Indian by Curtis, Edward S.

Occasionally there was a medicine dance away off in the woods where no one could disturb us, in which the boys impersonated their elders, Brave Bull, Standing Elk, High Hawk, Medicine Bear, and the rest.

From Indian Boyhood by Eastman, Charles Alexander