Dance, Music, and Song in Mandaean Anti-Religious Polemics

Any element of culture, whether material or immaterial, can acquire the status of a distinctive marker of one’s own identity or that of others; dance, music, and song are no exception. It is in this light that we should interpret the role assigned by classical Mandaeism to singing, music, and the choreutic arts. Perfectly parallel to Christian antireligious polemic, Mandaean polemic stigmatizes other cults through a rhetoric of distinction, portraying the adherents of other religions as thralls and victims of demons who, among their countless misdeeds, drive human beings into frenzied and lascivious dances to the sound of their instruments and songs. Unfortunately, no element useful to the history of dance has been preserved in the corpus of classical Mandaean literature.