CHAPTER XIX
A festival dance of the blacks—Their orchestra—A plain table—Yokkai wants to become a “white man”—Yokkai’s confession—A dangerous situation—A family drama.
The next day, before sunset, the dance began again. At one end of the little place for dancing, where the grass had already been well trampled down, sat the orchestra, consisting, as usual, of only one, or sometimes of two men. The musician was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, and was singing the new song, accompanying himself by beating together a boomerang and a nolla-nolla.
In front of him on the little plat of level ground fourteen to sixteen men were dancing in ranks of four or five each. Near the orchestra, on the right, a woman kept dancing up and down, keeping time with the men and with the music.
On Herbert river more than one woman never takes part in the dance. This is a great honour to her, and she is envied by all the other women, who sit in rows on both sides of her and the musician. They assume their favourite position and do not, like the men, cross their legs before them or sit on one of their hams, but they rest on their legs and heels, the legs being very close together. In this position they usually play an accompaniment to the music by beating both their open hands against their laps, thus producing a loud hollow sound.
The spectators sit on both sides of the dancers all the way up to the corners occupied by the women. The arrangement is as follows:—
m. the music. f.d. the female dancer. ww. the women. dddd. the dancers. ss. the spectators.
