cantico

Noun

cantico (plural canticos or canticoes)

1. A sacred ceremony of the Algonquin tribe that involved dancing in a circle, at which colonists were not welcome.
   • We lodged in the woods that night, and heard the shouting of the Indians at a cantico, which they were said to hold that evening in a town hard by.1888, The National Magazine: (Cleveland) a Monthly Journal of American History
   • The other is their canticoes as they call them which is performed by round dances, sometimes words, then songs, then shouts being in the middle that begin and direct the chorus this they perform with equal fervency but great appearance of joy.1888, William Joseph Buck, William Penn in America
2. A dance festival in which colonial Americans and natives both participated.
   • The cash-book tells us of the expense of himself and family going to fairs, and Indian canticoes, probably gotten up to amuse the Proprietary.1876, William Watts Hart Davis, The History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania
   • The record says that handsome dinners were provided, and the health of King George, the proprietaries, the governor, etc., were drank in high good humor, and at a certain time, at one of these sociable canticoes, the subject of the walk was introduced, and the several deeds and writings shown and...1877, William Wallace Beach, The Indian Miscellany, page 90
3. (broadly) An uproar; activity that is full of high spirits and violent action.
   • It was almost like father and son meeting to adjust a little misunderstanding arising from the latter's canticoes.1873, James J. Brooks, Whiskey Drips
   • But even the halt, the blind et al. would cut up canticoes and Smash gas fixtures unless they were properly chaperoned.1919, Work with Boys - Volumes 19-20 -, page 56