a kind of pious pantomime of death performed in churches in the fifteenth century. Why the performance received this name, is that the rite of Mass for the dead is distinguished by the reading of that passage from the twelfth chapter of Book II. of the Maccabees, which relates how the people betook themselves to prayer, and besought the Lord that the sin of those who had been slain among them might be wholly blotted out; for if Judas had not expected that the slain should rise again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead.[1] Traced to its origin, it is thus seen that the Danse Macabre is neither more nor less than the Dance of the Dead.
It is not an unusual thing for tribes and nations to be known by the name of their chief, as in books of African travel we read of 'Eyo's people,' or 'Kamrazi's people.' Such terms may become permanent, like the name of the Osmanli Turks taken from the great Othman, or Osman. The notions of kinship and chieftainship may easily be combined, as where some individual Brian or Alpine may have given his name to a clan of O'Briens or Mac Alpines. How far the tribal names of the lower races may have been derived from individual names of chiefs or forefathers, is a question on which distinct evidence is difficult to obtain. In Patagonia bands or subdivisions of tribes are designated by the names of temporary chiefs, every roving party having such a leader, who is sometimes even styled 'yank,' i.e. 'father.'[2] The Zulus and Maoris were races who paid great attention to the traditional genealogies of their clan-ancestors, who were, indeed, not only their kinsfolk but their gods; and they distinctly recognize the possibility of tribes being named from a deceased ancestor or chief . The Kafir tribe of Ama-Xosa derives its name from a chief, U-Xosa,[3] and the Maori tribes of Ngate-Wakaue and Nga-Puhi claim
