The numbers who congregate for a dance were a constant source of astonishment to me. Out of the silent and trackless bush scores of expectant guests, all painted and feathered, will pour into the clearing about the maloka, at the time appointed by the signal drum, and by nightfall some hundreds are gathered. Great bonfires are set ablaze, and the interior of the tribal lodge, where the chief has a place in the centre, flares ruddy with the light of torches. The men make loud clangour with their instruments, flutes, pan-pipes, or drums, and out in the clearing they form into line, clutching their jingling dance-poles, while the women form up facing them. Led by a strenuous tribesman clattering with nuts and dried seeds, the line begins its perambulation of the maloka. Forward two steps—thud! Backward two steps—thud! Clattering and pattering, with the fifes shrieking high above all other sounds, as the drums growl deep below, the procession slowly encircles the maloka, and then enters. In a frenzied flutter of feathers and leaves the performers move round the chief, to a jangle of seed-pods and rattles, till the company is completed, and the tribal lodge is packed with the dancers, when he signals for silence. The dance stops. The instruments cease their outcry, and in the sudden contrast of silence the chief sings a line which is the keynote of the occasion, the explanation, the reason for the assembly. Then dance and song begin, while those who are not taking active part squat round upon their haunches and ejaculate hoarse cries of approval and encouragement at intervals.
As aforesaid, any excuse is good enough reason for such festival. Dances take place continuously: at the harvest of the pine-apple and the manioc; at the conclusion of a successful hunt or war-expedition; and at such other times in the Amazonian season as the chief feels moved to give entertainment. As the weather does not vary sufficiently to influence the harvesting of the crops at any particular date, there is no equivalent to our harvest; and, though manioc is planted as a rule just before the heaviest annual rainfall becomes due, there is no part of the year when some of the roots are not ready to gather. Pines are most plentiful in October, and it is then that the special pine-apple dances take place.[314]
The dance takes its character from the occasion. The dancing staff, unless the dance is in honour of some specific thing, is undecorated, merely furnished with a calabash that contains nuts, or with a carved head hollowed for the same purpose, and is sometimes hung with bunches of dried seeds that rattle when shaken or when knocked on the ground. These form important additions to the orchestra, and to the garters and anklets strapped to the legs. Very often the Indian decorates his staff with palm leaves merely for ornament, but in the harvest dances the staves are adorned with bunches of whatever crop is to be honoured—a tuft of pine-apple leaves or a bundle of manioc shoots. The Yakuna carve patterns on their dance staves.[315] Among the Tureka, north of the Japura, dance staves are a most important possession, and are looked on with great affection by their owners. The Tureka men wear aprons when dancing, and use clappers in one hand, instead of the horns and rattle used alternately by the Tukana.[316] The Menimehe carries a club in his right hand. On the Tikie, dancers are said to hold a flute in the left hand, and always to have a green twig under their girdle. Koch-Grünberg further states that they have clay whistles with which they blow at dances as well as for signals. These are not customs of the Issa-Japura tribes.
The soloist who leads the dancers from the start outside the maloka very probably commences by executing some fancy high stepping. He may, for instance, prance like a stallion, and this is calculated to amuse the company immensely. When the performers get too heated by their exertions in the house they will file outside, still dancing, and after a few turns on the open space in front of the maloka, will return within.
PLATE XLIV.
OKAINA GIRLS PAINTED FOR DANCE
Among the Okaina and the Boro the hand is often placed on the far shoulder of the next in line. I especially remember one endless dance in an Okaina house in which all free performers were double locked, while those in possession of staves or rattles were content with a single lock to allow freedom for one hand. The dancers invariably stand in single file, usually with one hand resting on the shoulder of the next in line. The Menimehe and most other tribes place the left hand on their neighbour’s right shoulder, but, according to Koch-Grünberg, tribes on the Tikie place the right hand, though the Tukana rest the left. The figure is composed of a broken circle of men thus linked together, whilst in their free hands they hold the dancing staves, rattles, or flutes. Within, and concentric, is the ring of women dancers, who face the men and maintain a time which is complementary and not identical with theirs.[317] North of the Japura in some cases the women dance between the men in the same circle,[318] or the men and the younger girls dance round the elder women. When dancing, personal touch is not tabu or disliked, possibly because it is ceremonial or conventional. In most of these dances the woman who is not engaged in the inner circle of the select—the complementary figure of the dance—places herself outside the outer circle with her left hand on the left shoulder of the man of her choice. Her frontal portion is thus at right angles, and away from that of her man.
The rhythm of the dance is always very marked. The figures and steps are simple, neither suggestive nor lascivious, and wholly destitute of the lustful invitation of the dances of the East. The step is almost invariably a high, prancing flexion of the thigh upon the body, followed by a deliberate extension to the ground, repeated two or three times, the advance being completed with a resounding stamp of the right foot upon the earth, according to the accentuation of the measure. The same steps are repeated backwards in retiring, although less ground is covered, so that the dancers sway rhythmically forward and backward; but the end of each movement finds the whole line advanced some little distance from where it was at the conclusion of the previous one. The forward movement may be described simply as, right foot forward, left foot forward, stamp with right, right foot backward, left foot backward, right foot back in position, toe on ground, to start da capo right foot forward, in uninterrupted repetition. Spruce has described this movement as “a succession of dactyls.”[319] In stamping, which is done by all the dancers in unison, the knee is brought up to a right angle with the trunk, and the foot then thrust down with the whole weight of the body. Toe with right is the same motion as stamp right, but with only a slight flexion of the knee, and comparatively noiseless. The circles move to the right, continuing, but almost imperceptibly on account of slight change of ground. The Tureka make a jump before the stamp, shout at the end of the figure, and whistle through their teeth.
