Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/308

 286 The Poehy of the Kiwai Papuaiis.

and songs, but in spite of all efforts could not reconstruct the texts beyond a few broken syllables. Shortly after- wards I left Mawata. On my return in a couple of months I heard my former companions on the Kudji trip sing the same songs without any hesitation ; they had practised them in the meantime, and professed that they were genuine Budji songs, words and all. There had been no comm.uni- cation between Mawata and Budji since our trip, and one can understand how much the original songs must have changed through this method of learning them.

A, Mimetic Sonos and Dances.

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Of the different kinds of songs I will first deal with those accompanying mimetic dances. In these dances the young men are the chief performers ; they dance together in a group in the open air to the accompaniment of their unison songs, while a small " orchestra " of drummers keeps time on their instruments. The dancers imitate actions from real life, but without merely copying them in a mechanical way, the gestures, simplified and convention- alized, mimicing the characteristic moment only of each act. One could not understand without being told what the various dances represent, but having once grasped their meaning one usually watches the movements of the dancers with unfeigned admiration. The subjects of these small pantomimes vary enormously. The following are a few of the motives belonging to a dance called taibubn : — a canoe being launched from the beach, a wave coming and lifting it up ; the rocking movement of a canoe sailing in fair wind ; a canoe being beached, the waves lifting it higher and higher up ; a sail shaking in the wind ; the tree-tops bending down in a heavy rainstorm ; spearing a fish and throwing it on the beach ; a bird on the beach is frightened away by an approaching canoe; the walk of a pelican; directing a blow at an enemy, and dodging his counter blow. One