"I suppose, dad," said Sandy, turning to his father, "we may all go? It's to be held at the old spot."
"Oh, weel, I suppose you'd think me hard-herted if I said no? I'll jist mak' one condeetion, and that is, dinna interfere wi' the blacks. You maunna mak' ony attempt to boss them. Let them cairry oot things in their ain way."
"All serene, dad."
"Can the boys have the whitnin' and other things from the store?" repeated Sandy.
Consent is given, and the heart of Tarpot, the King of Bullaroi, is made glad with a goodly parcel of pigments.
That night after tea the party, including Denny Kineavy, mount their steeds and ride out to the corrobberie grounds, a matter of three miles.
It was situated on a lightly timbered box-tree flat, where a cleared space occurred forming a natural amphitheatre, wherein the aboriginal tribes foregathered periodically and disported themselves in their national characters and games at night time.
The blacks make a distinction in these festivals. There is the corrobberie and the cobborn (or great) corrobberie. It was one of the former that the whites were to witness. The latter occurred only at long intervals, and was a time of feasting as well as amusement; both feasting and play being prolonged often for weeks, and generally attended by all the tribes within a radius of hundreds of miles.
Each tribe would bring its song and dance (corrobberie), in many cases composed for the special occasion. This produced the exciting element of competition. A corrobberie of exceptional excellence would be learned by the other tribes, and on their return to their own country passed on to the surrounding tribes. Thus it happened sometimes that a corrobberie of singular merit travelled round and through the continent.
These folk-songs were associated with the dances, and treated on elemental themes, as war, the chase, the feast, love, birth, death. Often some humorous theme would be introduced, causing immense fun. As a rule each tribe had clowns, whose grotesque attitude and voice intonations were mirth-provoking to a degree. The Australian native manifests a keen appreciation of a joke and has an inborn tendency to laughter.