The island of stone money

by William Henry Furness

I was extremely desirous of taking a moving picture of one of their dances, and, accordingly, promised the natives of our district that if they would perform a really good, genuine dance, and hold it outside of the failu, in the bright light of day, they should have all the tobacco they could smoke for many days and a lavish feast of their favourite tinned meats, sardines, salmon, boned chicken, etc., all to be had in Friedlander’s Emporium. But little did I dream at what expense I was to get my wish. There are two affiliated failus, both within a hundred yards of Friedlander’s house, and, the nights being almost as light as day under the full moon, rehearsals for the dance and song took place in the cool night outside the failu, and lasted far on toward dawn. It took at least a week of rehearsals, and I am afraid poor Friedlander deeply anathematised the unmelodious, howling, explosive nights I was responsible for, at peaceful Dulukan. The singers punctuate the end of each verse or stanza with a loud clap produced by bending the left arm at the elbow, and holding it across the chest, then the right hand with the fingers and thumb held together and the palm bent so that it is cup-shaped, is clapped down sharply over the bend of the left arm, and produces, when skilfully done, a report nearly as loud as a pistol. When this is performed simultaneously by thirty or forty men and boys, it wakes the echoes, and everything else that is trying to get a wink of sleep.

At last the momentous day for the dance dawned, and I urgently begged the performers to be ready before noon so that I could get the best possible light under the thick palm trees. By eight o’clock in the morning they were all busy and bustling near the failu, donning their costumes and having head-dresses renovated and elaborated; and I adjusted my five-hundred feet of film ready for an exceptional show; my camera was all set up to begin at a moment’s notice. Ten o’clock came, and they were still busy. The day wore on to eleven o’clock; still came the threadbare answer that they were not nearly ready, but would surely be fully decked out by noon, or a little after.

Noon found them still as excited as bees about to swarm and preparing long strips of pandanus leaves or of the bast of Hibiscus for their costumes, collecting white chicken-feathers, bits of cotton wool or pieces of paper for their combs, and practising the steps of their dance. The hours came and passed; one o’clock; two o’clock; three o’clock; and not until near five o’clock in the afternoon did they pronounce themselves ready.

I had refrained from bothering them with too many requests to hurry; it would have been not only absolutely useless, but I desired to be sure that they were really completely satisfied with themselves and would therefore enter into the spirit of the dance with animation, and not with that resigned mien implying “of course, since you insist.”

At last they filed out from behind the failu and burst in all their glory upon my aching sight; they had been fully nine hours most busily and incessantly dressing and I could not, after the closest scrutiny, detect that they had done anything more than dab on their foreheads and cheeks a few streaks of white paint with the lime from their betel baskets, and decorate their combs with streamers of pandanus leaves and yellow stained paper, and tie bands of narrow palm fronds round both knees and their right elbows (only the right elbows, so as not to interfere with the punctuation). They walked with exultant pride and supreme self-consciousness to the front of the failu where there was a good open space, and there sat down cross-legged in one long straight line, the little boys, or petir, at one end; the youths, or pagul, in the middle; and the proficient adults, or pumawn, at the other end; all arranged according to size and age.

These dances, or rather posture-songs, are to the natives like theatrical performances or grand opera; the rumour of this performance had spread near and far, and for several hours an audience of a hundred or more men, women, and children had waited patiently and expectantly, smoking innumerable cigarettes and chewing many a pound of betel nut.

Out of consideration for the “ladies” the first number on the programme was, paradoxical as it may seem, a sitting-down dance or “tsuru.” This song-dance is the only one that is considered proper for the women to witness and hear. As well as I could make out, it is a dramatic narration of adventures of heroes in canoes at sea, or dramatic legends of the Kan or devils who control the lives of men. While the men sing in unison, with the higher voices of the boys in accord making it slightly harmonious, they wave their arms about, sometimes as though rowing with paddles, sometimes as though repelling foes, but most of the time merely accompanying the cadences of the song with graceful, waving motions of the wrists; no weapons, neither sword, spear, nor shield, were used.

This posture-dance belongs to the same class as those to be seen in Japan, Anam, Siam, the Malay States, and Java. The dancers do not move from their sitting position; every now and then they make a loud clap, on the bend of their elbows with the palms of their hands, and apparently the stanza is finished. Several times they seemed merely to take a rest between songs and, without rising, begin another; possibly it was only another verse or chapter of the same narrative; I had no one to interpret or explain it to me.

The audience of women was scattered in groups in the coconut grove at a respectful distance from the failu, while the men pushed forward close to the performers; they were all as fixedly attentive as if witnessing the intricate plot of a problem play, and the performers were equally absorbed in their parts, never even smiling nor hesitating for a moment in the perfect rhythm of their song and the accompanying movements of their arms. Even down to the small boys at the end of the line, the gestures were identical and as synchronous as the steps and body-swing of a troop of soldiers.

After several verses, or songs, a loud, high shout proclaimed the end of the sitting-down dance, and the performers arose and sauntered off into the failu, or out of sight on the other side of it, to repair whatever damage might have been done to their costumes by their exertions or by the wind. The announcement that a “standing-up tsuru” was about to be performed, caused a lively stir among the women; the greater part of them really did retire to the houses nearby or wandered off in the side paths to their own homes, but quite a number merely moved off a short distance deeper in the grove and sat down again upon the ground, albeit with their backs turned; others sought conveniently stout coconut trees behind which they hid themselves and took surreptitious peeps at the forbidden dances. I think their conduct was not considered downright reprehensible, but only a little “fast,” verging on immodest; the men knew perfectly well that these women were watching them and even twitted them about it, so that several of the younger ones, who were a little too conspicuous, broke from their ostrich-like hiding places and ran giggling to another equally insufficient shelter at a greater distance.