A NATIVE WAR DANCE.
When Baker arrived in the Obbo country, he found the people in a great state of excitement owing to the presence of a marauding band of Arabs who had announced a raid on the neighboring Madi people. While it was plain that the proposed raid was wholly for booty in slaves and ivory, the Obbo people were easily influenced, and found in it an opportunity to revenge themselves for some old or imaginary grievance.
They are a fine, athletic people, and somewhat fantastic, as things go in Central Africa. As nothing is ever done among them without a grand palaver, the chief called the tribe into consultation, which turned out to be a very formal affair. The warriors all appeared fully armed with spear and shield, and their bodies painted in various patterns with red ochre and white pipe clay. Their heads were ornamented with really tasteful arrangements of cowrie shells and ostrich feathers, the latter often hanging down their backs in graceful folds.
The consultation proceeded for some time with due regard to forms and with an apparent desire to get at a majority sentiment, when of a sudden it ended with an outburst from the warriors, and then filing away into sets or lines, each line indulging in pantomimic charges upon an imaginary enemy, and going through all the manœuvers of a fierce contest. Their activity was simply wonderful, and if they could have brought that show of vigorous athleticism and that terrible determination of countenance to bear upon their Madi enemies they must have carried consternation into
their ranks. The exhilarating and ostentatious ceremony proved to be the national war-dance of the tribe, which takes place as a ratification of the results of a tribal palaver, when the sentiment has been unanimous for war.
NATIVE WAR-DANCE.
It was a pity to see these fine fellows so imposed upon by the wily Arabs, but they seemed to be wholly under their influence, for no sooner had the war-dance ended, which it did more through the exhaustion of the participants than through a desire to stop, than the chief arose and delivered a most voluble and vehement address, urging upon his warriors to assist the Arabs in their proposed raid and to beat the Madi people at all hazards. Several other speakers talked in a similar strain, with the effect of arousing the greatest enthusiasm. The result was that the Arab leader started on his raid with 120 of his own armed followers, surrounded and supported by the entire warlike force of the Obbos.