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On Puzzling Wavelengths
style function that was held in the community hall—dances generally
took place on grassy banks on long, golden summer evenings. All that
was called for were an open space, a fire, a couple of drummers, some
dancers, and people who have “songs” to share.
The spirit of sharing was what struck me. Earlier I described the
individualism of the Dene; this is the point at which I can give you a
glimpse of an activity that brought out the coherence of the community
as an organic whole. Drummers provided a loud, hypnotic beat as a
singer led a line of male and female dances in a slow circle. They locked
arms, swaying in a simple step together as they followed along. What
I have called “songs” might be better called chants. They are strictly
in the Dene tongue, and each is the personal property of a singer, for
it is a text that has been received by that person in a dream. Every-
thing I learned about the songs is consistent with what Robin Riding-
ton has told us so eloquently in his Trail to Heaven ( 1988 ) andLittle
Bit Know Something ( 1990 ), about comparable song among the ad-
jacent Dunne-za peoples. In sharing them, the singer offers to others
spiritual knowledge that he or she had been given about the trail we
all must follow after death. It was a precious offering that shortened
the path. And what a gift for the anthropologist to have two smiling
grannies step out of an ongoing dance, take him firmly by the elbows,
and insert him into the dance line between them.
Sorcery and Kindred Phenomena
Medical and other researchers can tell us a great deal about the actual
effectiveness of certain rituals. There appear to be several physiolog-
ical means by which belief one is under a magical attack can have fa-
tal consequences. Let me give one example. An endocrinologist, Curt
Ritcher, has examined autopsy reports of people in the city of Balti-
more who died believing they had consumed a lethal dose of some poi-
son—when, in fact, it was proven later they had taken a far smaller
dose than would have been fatal ( 1957 ). These Baltimore cases, med-
ically studied deaths from magic attack in the Australian desert, and
experiments with comparable reactions in lab rats, show that being
resigned to the inevitability of death can have a prompt and fatal ef-
fect. It leads to a major production of an adrenal hormone that pre-
