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medicine dance

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

First recorded in 1800–10
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for medicine dance

Historical Examples

  • It was but the "medicine-dance" of a very old Greek tribal settlement, perhaps from the first with an ethical element.

    Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)

    Andrew Lang

  • One speaks of the medicine-dance with respect; another smiles at the name.

  • I have also indicated the closest of all known parallels to the Eleusinian in a medicine-dance and legend of the Pawnees.

  • The tune they sung to the Medicine-dance of the Loucheux, struck me as being soft and pretty.