A Technical definition: Method of Payment

8. The spectators pay the dancer directly in the form of coins or cash thrown on the floor or placed on the dancer's body.

This custom reveals, in part, this attests to the hisorically lowly status of dancers in these
cultures, but there are other associations in historical references. In classical Greece, a woman
from a poor family tied a sash around her hips and went to dance for her dowry in the
marketplace. Spectators threw small gold coins at her, money which she then sewed into her
bodice and hip-belt as decoration, since she had nowhere else quite as safe to keep them. Today,
dancers still wear costumes decorated with "dowry" coins. In Egypt at the time of the fourth
dynasty (approx. 2680-2560 BC), dancers were presented with gold necklaces in payment. By
the 19th century, when the custom of tipping was known as "nukoot", a dancer would go into a
backbend to receive the money, which would be moistened and placed on the dancer's upturned
face. It is still the custom to give a belly dancer money while she dances, and there is no other
kind of dancer who receives money directly from her audience.

The women of the Ouled Nail (prounounced ooh-led nai-eel) tribe of Algeria would come down
from the mountains and work in a special district in the city for a few years. These women
would have "love affairs" and collect coins from their admirers, whom they danced for in private.
Only one form of their dance bore any relation to "belly dance", and they offered "full-service"
entertainment to their male admirers. They wore many layers of dresses, and decorated their
headdresses with the coins to show their wealth. Most of them would go back home as wealthy
women, purchase a husband, and settle down respectably. This institution of the Ouled Nail has
disappeared for the most part in modern times.