Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/457

Rh "We are told that the natives have various dances, and in this particular they resemble the savage tribes of most other lands. They have their war-dances before and after fights, dances for the time when the youths are 'made men'—i.e., when they attain their majority, and are no longer to be classed as boys—dances in which only the women take part, dances in which the movements of the kangaroo and other animals are imitated, and a variety of religious and mystical dances to which Europeans are never admitted. In some dances an entire tribe—men, women, and children—participate; in others only the men, or only the women; and there are certain dances in which several tribes may join. All the people of the tribe are instructed in these dances, and the rules concerning them must be observed with most scrupulous care.

"Nearly all the dances are performed at night, and quite often by the light of the moon added to that of the fire. I have heard some amusing descriptions of dances where there was a mimic battle between white men and aboriginals, the fictitious white men biting their cartridges and going through the motions of loading and firing a gun with great exactness. There was a representation of a herd of cattle feeding, of some of the animals being speared by the blacks, who then went through the motions of skinning and cutting up the slaughtered beasts. The movements of the kangaroo, emu, and other animals were imitated, and so were those of the pig, the bear, and the opossum.

"At the end of the dance we went to our camp accompanied by the natives, who were to receive payment for the performance. After their departure we sat around the fire for a while listening to corrorobee stories, and then retired to our blankets and to sleep. Our dreams were filled with pictures of yelling and gyrating natives, and altogether neither Fred nor myself felt much refreshed when we rose in the morning; but we were all right in an hour or so, and shall always remember our adventure among the Australian blacks.

"We heard some curious stories about their customs, particularly of the way the men get their wives. Marriage as understood among