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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The Tribes Who Are Not Engaged In Dancing, Are Seated In A Large
Semicircle As Spectators, Occasionally Giving A Rapturous Exclamation Of
Delight, As Any Part Of The Performance Is Well Gone Through Or Any
Remarkable Feat Of Activity Exhibited.
Where natives have not much
acquaintance with Europeans, so as to give up, in some measure, their
original habits, if there is any degree of jealousy between the
respective tribes, they are sometimes partitioned off from each other by
boughs of trees, whilst they look at the dance.
On one occasion I saw
five tribes met together, and the evening was of course spent in dancing.
Each tribe danced in turn, about forty being engaged at once, besides
sixteen females, eight of whom were at each corner of the male
performers. The men were naked, painted in various devices with red and
white, and had their heads adorned with feathers. The women wore their
opossum cloaks, and had bands of white down round their foreheads, with
the long feathers of the cockatoo sticking up in front like horns. In the
dance the men and women did not intermingle; but the two sets of women
who were dancing at the corners of the line, occasionally changed places
with each other, passing in this transit, at the back of the men. All
sung, and the men beat time upon their smaller weapons whilst dancing,
the whole making up a wild and piercing noise, most deafening and
ungrateful to the ears.
The natives of the Rufus and Lake Victoria (Tar-ru) have a great variety
of dances and figures.
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Page 650 of 914
Words from 181515 to 181780