On Melville and Bathurst Islands, and on the Victoria River, the palms of both hands are struck against the buttocks, one on either side of the body, while the person is standing. Along the coast of the Northern Territory, the natives, as often as not, simply clap the hands in rhythmic order, or they slap the palms of one or both upon the ground; occasionally one even notices mothers gently slapping the buttocks of their babies-in-arms, all under the impulse of a catchy air which is striking their ears.
A peculiar sort of sound accompaniment is rendered by the women dancers of the Katherine and Victoria River districts of the Northern Territory. As each of the dancers hops forwards in a straight line, with her heels together and her feet turned outwards, she jerks her body in mid-air and whacks the muscles of her thighs together, an act which produces a loud, sharp sound. In this way she moves both forwards and backwards, making a similar noise with every hop, whilst her feet make a track in the sand which is to represent the female turtle coming on shore to lay its eggs.
In the same districts, as well as on the Daly River, the dancing gins use skeins of string stretched between the thumbs of their hands, which they sway to and fro like the bow of a fiddle. Although this manoeuvre does not produce a sound, it is here mentioned because the movement takes place in perfect rhythm and in unison with the singing which is going on; and one is reminded of a modern conductor using his stick.
If we now turn our attention to the consideration of the accompaniment produced with musical instruments, there is a small choice at our disposal. We find that certain of the southern tribes, along the River Murray, made use of skins, which they stretched across their thighs, as they sat upon the ground, and struck with their hands or a stick like beating a drum.
In the Kimberley district of Western Australia, the large nuts of the boabab, when dry, are used after the style of the European toy known as a baby’s rattle by the children, but curiosity soon leads to the destruction of the shell, when the pithy matrix and the seeds are eaten. Occasionally these nuts are introduced into ceremonial dances by the men; they are then elaborately and beautifully carved as previously referred to.
In the same district, and in fact all along the north coast, large convoluted sea-shells with a small pebble inside of them, or even a number of smaller shells threaded upon a string, serve the same purpose of noise-making.
Bundles of gum leaves, fresh or dry, tied round the ankles or arms of the performers, produce a rustle which imitates the noise produced by the wiry feathers of a romping emu. Most of the tribes adopt this scheme, especially in connection with sacred festivals and ceremonies having to do with the emu.
Among the central and northern central tribes, the boomerang is extensively used as a musical instrument. The operator, taking up a squatting position, holds a boomerang at half-arm’s length in each hand, so that the concave edges are turned towards his body. Then by bringing the instruments near each other, with their surfaces parallel, he claps their ends together in quick succession, and by so doing produces rhythmic clanks to suit the step of any dance or the time of any song ([Plate LII]).
The Larrekiya, Wogait, Berringin, and other Northern Territory tribes make use of “music sticks.” Two of such are required. One is of hard “iron-wood,” about nine inches in length, flatly cylindrical, and bluntly pointed at one end; the other, which is the beating stick, is simply a smaller rod, of circular section, made of light mangrove wood. The former stick is held firmly in the left hand, whilst it is struck by the latter, not far from its end. The beating stick is held in the right hand with one end of it pressing either against the third or fifth finger. The sounds produced by the percussion are ringing, sub-metallic clanks; and any alteration in the length of the free end of the beating stick naturally tends to vary their pitch.
The instrument which is capable of producing the loudest, and, at the same time, most weird sound, when correctly manipulated by an aboriginal, is the bamboo trumpet, otherwise known as the drone-pipe or “didjeridoo.” This consists of a piece of bamboo, of the stout, tropical variety, from four to five feet long, the septa of which have all been burnt out with a fire-stick. The outside surface is decorated with engraved designs. Drone-pipes are used by all coastal tribes living between the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cambridge Gulf, and as far inland as Wave Hill on the Victoria River. Where the bamboo is not available, the instrument is made out of a long hollow limb of the woolly-butt eucalyptus; this is the prevailing type in the western portion of the area mentioned. To serve the requirements of a single night’s performance, a green stem of a native hybiscus bush might be cut off and the thick bark removed in toto in the form of a pipe.