GROUP OF LARGE AND SMALL DRUMS ON A DANCING-GROUND NEAR PORT SANDWICH.
Unnoticed, we entered the dancing-ground. A number of men were standing in a circle round a huge fire, their silhouettes cutting sharply into the red glare. Out of a tangle of clubs, rifles, plumes, curly wigs, round heads, bows and violently gesticulating arms, sounds an irregular shrieking, yelling, whistling and howling, uniting occasionally to a monotonous song. The men stamp the measure, some begin to whirl about, others rush towards the fire; now and then a huge log breaks in two and crowns the dark, excited crowd with a brilliant column of circling sparks. Then everybody yells delightedly, and the shouting and dancing sets in with renewed vigour. Everyone is hoarse, panting and covered with perspiration, which paints light streaks on the sooty faces and bodies.
Noticing us, a man rushes playfully towards us, threateningly swinging his club, his eyes and teeth shining in the darkness; then he returns to the shouting, dancing mob around the fire. Half-grown boys sneak through the crowd; they are the most excited of all, and stamp the ground wildly with their disproportionately large feet, kicking and shrieking in unpleasant ecstasy. All this goes on among the guests; the hosts keep a little apart, near a scaffolding, on which yams are attached. The men circle slowly round this altar, carrying decorated bamboos, with which they mark the measure, stamping them on the ground with a thud. They sing a monotonous tune, one man starting and the others joining in; the dance consists of slow, springy jumps from one foot to the other.
On two sides of this dancing circle the women stand in line, painted all over with soot. When the men’s deep song is ended, they chant the same melody with thin, shrill voices. Once in a while they join in the dance, taking a turn with some one man, then disappearing; they are all much excited; only a few old hags stand apart, who are past worldly pleasures, and have known such feasts for many, many years.
The whole thing looks grotesque and uncanny, yet the pleasure in mere noise and dancing is childish and harmless. The picture is imposing and beautiful in its simplicity, gruesome in its wildness and sensuality, and splendid with the red lights which play on the shining, naked bodies. In the blackness of the night nothing is visible but that red-lit group of two or three hundred men, careless of to-morrow, given up entirely to the pleasure of the moment. The spectacle lasts all night, and the crowd becomes more and more wrought up, the leaps of the dancers wilder, the singing louder. We stand aside, incapable of feeling with these people or sharing their joy, realizing that theirs is a perfectly strange atmosphere which will never be ours.
Towards morning we left, none too early, for a tremendous shower came down and kept on all next morning. I went up to the village again, to find a most dismal and dejected crowd. Around the square, in the damp forest, seedy natives stood and squatted in small groups, shivering with cold and wet. Some tried to warm themselves around fires, but with poor success. Bored and unhappy, they stared at us as we passed, and did not move. Women and children had made umbrellas of large flat leaves, which they carried on their heads; the soot which had formed their festival dress was washed off by the rain. The square itself was deserted, save for a pack of dogs and a few little boys, rolling about in the mud puddles. Once in a while an old man would come out of the gamal, yawn and disappear. In short, it was a lendemain de fête of the worst kind.
About once in a quarter of an hour a man would come to bring a tusked pig to the chief, who danced a few times round the animal, stamped his heel on the ground, uttered certain words, and retired with short, stiff steps, shaking his head, into the gamal. The morning was over by the time all the pigs were ready. I spent most of the time out of doors, rather than in the gamal, for there many of the dancers of the evening lay in all directions and in most uncomfortable positions, beside and across each other, snoring, shivering or staring sulkily into dark corners. I was offered a log to sit on, and it might have been quite acceptable had not one old man, trembling with cold, pressed closely against me to get warm, and then, half asleep, attempted to lay his shaggy, oil-soaked head on my shoulder, while legions of starved fleas attacked my limbs, forcing me to beat a hasty though belated retreat.
In the afternoon about sixty pigs were tied to poles in front of the gamal, and the chief took an old gun-barrel and smashed their heads. They represented a value of about six hundred pounds! Dogs and men approached the quivering victims, the dogs to lick the blood that ran out of their mouths, the men to carry the corpses away for the feast. This was the prosaic end of the great “sing-sing.”
As it is not always easy to borrow the number of pigs necessary to rise in caste, there are charms which are supposed to help in obtaining them. Generally, these are curiously shaped stones, sometimes carved in the shape of a pig, and are carried in the hand or in little baskets in the belt. Such charms are, naturally, very valuable, and are handed down for generations or bought for large sums. On this occasion the “big fellow-master” had sacrificed enough to attain a very high caste indeed, and had every reason to hold up his head with great pride.
Formerly, these functions were generally graced with a special feature, in the shape of the eating of a man. As far as is known, the last cannibal meal took place in 1906; the circumstances were these: Some young men were walking through the forest, carrying their Snider rifles, loaded and cocked as usual, on their shoulders. Unluckily, one of the rifles went off, and killed the man behind, the son of an influential native. Everyone was aware that the death was purely accidental, but the father demanded a considerable indemnity. The “murderer,” a poor and friendless youth, was unable to pay, and fled to a neighbouring village. He was received kindly enough, but his hosts sent secretly to the offended father to ask what they were to do with him. “Kill him and eat him,” was the reply. They therefore prepared a great feast, in honour, as they said, of their beloved guest, and while he was sitting cheerfully near the fire, in anticipation of the good meal to come, they killed him from behind with an axe. The body was roasted, and the people of his village were asked to the feast. One man had received the forearm and hand, and while he was chewing the muscles and pulling away at the inflectors of the fingers, the hand closed and scratched his cheek,—“all same he alive,”—whereupon the horrified guest threw his morsel away and fled into the forest.