The Georgian Butcher Dance

Hi, all.

I've been reading about Georgian culture and one item just fascinated me.  It's called the Georgian Butcher Dance, and, having married into a family of dancers, I had to look deeply into it.  The Butcher Dance is done in small villages in the North Caucasus Mountains.  These villages are very remote so the Butcher dance is rarely seen by outsiders.  The dance occurs every year, twice a year, at the equinoxes.  It starts with the village electing a tshkvili (shock-veeley), usually the wisest elder in the village.  The tshkvili sets the exact time for the dance, sometimes at noon, other times at midnight. 

When the time for the Butcher Dance approaches, the villagers dress in their traditional costumes and come to the "town square" for lack of a better word.  The tshkvili separates them by gender and orders the villagers to form a huge circle, men on the north side of the circle and women on the south side (I imagine having women on the southern side of the circle has something to do with fertility, the southern part of the village getting the most sun and getting it earlier in the day.)  When the circle is formed, the tshkvili enters the circle and begins to chant, thanking God for watching over the village the past year and asking Him to continue to watch over them in the upcoming year.  His chanting reaches a crescendo as the villagers watch in absolute silence. 

When the tension is at its very peak, the tshkvili sings in a big, booming voice, "You butcher right arm in, you butcher right arm out, You butcher right arm in and you shake it all about..."