Some religious meaning is attributed to it (Stuckey 1987, p. As the exercise continues, the excitement increases, occasionally becomes hysterical. The "shout" is a peculiar service in which a dozen or twenty jog slowly round a circle behind each other with a peculiar shuffle of the feet and shake of arms, keeping time to a droning chant and hand-clapping maintained by bystanders. One white witness to a Civil War-era ring shout described it thus: The dancers achieved a sense of euphoria. In some cases, another individual rhythmically beat the (usually wooden) floor with a broomstick or other piece of wood. One individual would set the tempo by singing, and his lines are answered in call-and-response fashion. Participants moved in a circle, providing rhythm by clapping hands and patting feet. The ring shout as practiced by slaves was a religious activity, with Christianity augmenting the African elements.
In some cases leaping was associated with the dance, and this was sometimes true of the North American variant as well.
"Wherever in Africa the counterclockwise dance ceremony was performed," Sterling Stuckey wrote, "the dancing and singing were directed to the ancestors and gods, the tempo and revolution of the circle quickening during the course of the movement" (Stuckey 1987, p. The Ring Shout has its origins in a dance form indigenous to much of Central and West Africa, in which the dancers move in a counterclockwise circle.
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