Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/289

Rh music with the kind of slow movement of hands and feet which is customary in India, where they have probably learnt it; but in their own bleak and cold country, where rapid motion is almost a necessity, though they sometimes begin by dancing slowly, they frequently wind up with a general romp. The whole of Spiti, especially Losar, one of its largest villages, is subject (in summer at least) to violent winds, which begin to blow daily between the hours of 12 and 3 p.m., and continue through the rest of the day and night till about 6 a.m. It may be imagined that such a climate causes the people to enjoy violent exercise. They frequently dance for hours for their own amusement. Men and women dance together; all join hands and form a long line or a circle. They commence by singing, presently they begin also to dance to the accompaniment of their own voices, and the fun speedily becomes fast and furious. In a short time some of their number are much exhausted with singing, dancing, and laughing. They seat themselves on the ground, and beat time for the rest by knocking two stones together. The people who carried our loads when we were on the march frequently amused themselves thus. Sometimes they had already carried a heavy burden up a mountain for several miles, a feat which most would consider a good day's work.

During the four weeks we spent in Spiti we witnessed, on more than one occasion, from sixteen to twenty persons of both sexes dancing together to the sound of their own voices. Their music is for the most part in common time; it has a considerable amount of pleasing melody. Sometimes the dancers vary their accompaniments by giving four bars of singing and four bars of whistling alternately. They also perform four or five quite distinct dances.

In Kashmir, where the bulk of the population is Mahomedan under a Hindú ruler, the people look depressed, and seem to lack the energy required for dancing; but the inhabitants of Ladakh, or Western Thibet, as it is sometimes called, a province annexed to Kashmir by Goolab Sing, the father of the late Maharaja, are quite the reverse, they are always merry, both sexes look light-hearted. Unlike the people of Hindostan, the men and women appear to mix freely; they may often be seen talking together, and enjoying a good joke.

When entering Ladakh from Kashmir it is not until we get within