PLATE XLV.
BORO DANCING
GROUP OF NONUYA, MEN AND WOMEN
While the principal dance is in progress a frequent form of side-show to the main entertainment is the entrance of a tribesman with a grievance. He will have made for himself the most remarkable costume he can devise, and to ensure that he shall gain attention, wears upon his head a veritable “matinée hat” of absurd proportions.[320] He pays no heed to the dance when he comes into the maloka, but stalks solemnly to a position in the sight of all, though he will keep out of the actual track of the dancers. Then, standing stock-still with upraised hand, facing neither the performers nor the “sitters out,” but in any chance position, he raises his staff and begins to recite his complaint to a monotonous refrain. The following is a typical instance of what may be chanted:
There came a man this morning to our lodge—
A man who took cassava from my woman.
Cassava she gave him in exchange for two pines,
For two pines she gave him much cassava.
But where are the pines?
Where are the pines he promised?