Drama had its earliest beginnings in the corporate life of the village. The villagers had to undertake the communal task of ploughing, reaping and harvesting and clearing the wasteland. This pattern of work and the survival of the community were determined by cycles of cultivation and change of seasons. And this in turn expressed itself in rituals that fed into mythologies. The rituals were performed as types of worship that both ensured the continuity of the cycles and acknowledged its significance. As community activities these rituals did not require texts, so that many folk plays survived as mimetic actions alone.