Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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This very peculiar sound appears to be common among the American
Indians, and to be used in a similar manner.
- Vide Catlin, vol. 2. p.136.]
The "Paritke," or natives inhabiting the scrub north-west of Moorunde,
have quite a different form of dancing from the river natives. They are
painted or decorated with feathers in a similar way; but each dancer ties
bunches of green boughs round the leg, above the knees, whilst the mode
of dancing consists in stamping with the foot and uttering at each motion
a deep ventral intonation, the boughs round the knees making a loud
rustling noise in keeping with the time of the music. One person, who
directs the others in the movements of this dance, holds in his hands an
instrument in the form of a diamond, made of two slight sticks, from two
and a half to three feet long, crossed and tied in the middle, round this
a string, made of the hair of the opposum, is pressed from corner to
corner, and continued successively towards the centre until there is only
room left for the hand to hold the instrument. At each corner is appended
a bunch of cockatoo feathers. With this the chief performer keeps a
little in advance of the dancers, and whisking it up and down to the time
of the music, regulates their movements.
In another dance, in which women are the chief performers, their bodies
are painted with white streaks, and their hair adorned with cockatoo
feathers.
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