Dancing is their great amusement, and
though on Christmas Day we made them compete in running, jumping, and
spear-throwing, they take but little interest in such recreations. Though
known to Australian readers, a description of such a dance may prove of
interest to some in the old country.
"A CORROBOREE," OR NATIVE DANCE.
The entertainment begins after sundown, and on special occasions may be
kept up for two or three days and nights in succession. A moonlit night
is nearly always made the occasion for a corroboree, to which no
significance is attached, and which may be simply held for the amusement
the actual performance affords.
Descriptions of the great dances attendant on the initiation of a boy
into manhood, and its accompanying brutal rites, find a more suitable
place in scientific works than in a book intended for the general reader.
I will therefore merely describe some of the dances which are performed
for entertainment.
The word corroboree is applied equally to the dance, the whole festival,
or the actual chant which accompanies the dancing.
Men and women, the men especially, deck themselves out with tufts of emu
feathers, fastened in the hair or tied round the arm, or stuck in the
waist-belt of plaited hair; paint their bodies with a white paint or wash
made from "Kopi" (gypsum similar to that found by the shores of salt
lakes), with an occasional dab of red ochre (paint made from a sandstone
impregnated with iron), and fix up their hair into a sort of mop bound
back by bands of string. Thus bedecked and painted, and carrying their
spears and boomerangs, they present a rather weird appearance.
A flat, clear space being chosen, the audience seat themselves, men and
women, who, unless the moon is bright, light fires, which they replenish
from time to time. The dancers are all men, young warriors and older men,
but no greybeards. The orchestra consists of some half-dozen men, who
clap together two sticks or boomerangs; in time to this "music" a
wailing dirge is chanted over and over again, now rising in spasmodic
jerks and yelled forth with fierce vehemence, now falling to a prolonged
mumbled plaint. Keeping time to the sticks, the women smack their thighs
with great energy. The monotonous chant may have little or no sense, and
may be merely the repetition of one sentence, such as "Good fella,
white fella, sit down 'longa Hall's Creek," or something with an equally
silly meaning. The dancers in the meantime go through all sorts of queer
movements and pantomimes. First, we may have the kangaroo corroboree, in
which a man hops towards the musicians and back again, to be followed in
turn by every other dancer and finally by the whole lot, who advance
hopping together, ending up with a wild yell, in which all join.
