Too Justly, As My Observations Teach Me Has Hobbes Defined A State Of
Nature To Be A State Of War.
In the method of waging it among these
people, one thing should not, however, escape notice.
Unlike all other
Indians, they never carry on operations in the night, or seek to destroy
by ambush and surprise. Their ardent fearless character, seeks fair
and open combat only.
But enmity has its moments of pause. Then they assemble to sing and dance.
We always found their songs disagreeable from their monotony. They are
numerous, and vary both in measure and time. They have songs of war,
of hunting, of fishing, for the rise and set of the sun, for rain,
for thunder and for many other occasions. One of these songs, which may
be termed a speaking pantomime, recites the courtship between the sexes
and is accompanied with acting highly expressive. I once heard and saw
Nanbaree and Abaroo perform it. After a few preparatory motions she
gently sunk on the ground, as if in a fainting fit. Nanbaree applying his
mouth to her ear, began to whisper in it, and baring her bosom, breathed
on it several times. At length, the period of the swoon having expired,
with returning animation she gradually raised herself. She now began
to relate what she had seen in her vision, mentioning several of her
countrymen by name, whom we knew to be dead; mixed with other strange
incoherent matter, equally new and inexplicable, though all tending to one
leading point - the sacrifice of her charms to her lover.
At their dances I have often been present; but I confess myself unable
to convey in description an accurate account of them. Like their songs,
they are conceived to represent the progress of the passions and the
occupations of life. Full of seeming confusion, yet regular and systematic,
their wild gesticulations, and frantic distortions of body are calculated
rather to terrify, than delight, a spectator. These dances consist of
short parts, or acts, accompanied with frequent vociferations, and a kind
of hissing, or whizzing noise. They commonly end with a loud rapid shout,
and after a short respite are renewed. While the dance lasts, one of them
(usually a person of note and estimation) beats time with a stick on a
wooden instrument held in the left hand, accompanying the music with his
voice; and the dancers sometimes sing in concert.
I have already mentioned that white is the colour appropriated to the
dance, but the style of painting is left to every one's fancy. Some are
streaked with waving lines from head to foot; others marked by broad
cross-bars, on the breast, back, and thighs, or encircled with spiral
lines, or regularly striped like a zebra. Of these ornaments, the face
never wants its share, and it is hard to conceive any thing in the shape
of humanity more hideous and terrific than they appear to a stranger - seen,
perhaps, through the livid gleam of a fire, the eyes surrounded by large
white circles, in contrast with the black ground, the hair stuck full
of pieces of bone and in the hand a grasped club, which they occasionally
brandish with the greatest fierceness and agility.
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