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.
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