Krotala of the Cult of Artemis (Part II)
Picking up where we left off with Part I.
These are dancing spoons. They are made of wood and you can see how they are held in the hands in this second image. I use rubber bands on mine, like you see in the first image, because it helps to keep them from sliding while you are trying to get your groove on. These are most commonly used today in what is now Turkiye.
Next we have a few examples of nacchere. These are used in Southern Italy in tammurriata traditions.
And for your delight and amusement, here are a few samples of an Egyptian version dated to around 1900BCE. Funsies. These are made of hippopotamus ivory.
What I really want to highlight in that 2nd image just above with the whole scene of musicians and dancers laid out are how the drummers are playing and the difference in the size of the dancers. This is a single-handed frame drum style that was once prevalent all over the Mediterranean and Aegean but is now only found in a few isolated areas--mostly Islands and in the South of what is now Italy. As for the dancers, this dance family tree is strongly associated with youth. As I said in Part I, it was a normal part of a young girl's education in martial arts and courtship that would prepare them to hopefully find a good mate and also give them the building blocks to defend themselves.
Just a little close up on what they are holding in their hands. This was a dance family that was very popular all over the Med and Black Sea regions. I have followed it all the way out to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic and, more recently, it has gone on to influence some South and Central American dance traditions. I am a big ol' dance nerd so I just love seeing all the ways this dance family tree has spread and what different groups of people have done with it over time. It was known to be an import to Egypt, it was not reportedly a native dance there. The Egyptian court had a very long standing tradition of importing performers from all over the place. They just liked cool dances.
Back to Artemis and what this all has to do with her cult!
Artemis had a lot of weapon based dances back in the day. Shield dances (prulin eonoplion) were very common in her worship especially. A funerary dance called prylis is a very good example of that. Prylis was a shield dance that was danced around a funeral pyre, culminating in the dancers depositing their wooden shields onto the pyre to help the body burn. It was a way to show deep grief and honor. This dance was featured in the Iliad as King Priam performed it for the burning body of Hector. So, there are some funerary associations for Artemis for you.
There were also sword dances, spear dances, archery dances, etc. If it was a weapon or could be used in defense, there was probably an associated dance for Artemis tied to it. Such pyrrhic dances were used to train for warfare and self-defense. They were basically a series of weapon drills set to music and often done with a partner. This would result in trading blows with your partner, and since these were kids initially doing it, those blows would go clack--because they were made of wood. Over time, the rhythmic sound of the wooden clacking came to represent Artemisian dances and became an essential component in them.
To the point that weapons and shields were replaced with krotala in the courtship version of this type of dance. This allowed people to dance more freely with each other, without smacking your potential mate in the head. Which, I shouldn't have to tell you, is not a great start to a romance. There were other versions of this dance that replaced the shield with a cape or mantle. That one was usually accompanied by a sword or a spear and was intended to look extremely elegant.
These dances were set to music utilizing a single handed frame drum in a 1-2 1-2-3 type of pattern, and involved singing layered over the top of this. Different cults paired different types of instruments and songs together so the unique combination of:
single handed frame drum
+ vocals
+ wooden hand clackers
+ the 1-2 1-2-3 rhythm pattern
+ paired dance with elements of self defense and courtship
= a rather specific thing.
Makes it very easy to track. There are many surviving examples of this rhythm out there today. Tammurriata is one of them! Which is part of the reason why I set my version of the Orphic Hymn to Artemis to a Tammurriata.
To be continued yet again...
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