Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/355

Rh and stamp their feet in a circle; in the lenga of the Banks' Islands they stamp, and scream a song. In a Banks' Island feast while the men sing and dance round the drum, the women, two and two, with the arms of each over the other's neck, tramp round the dancing-ground with short heavy steps, shaking as they go. The most graceful men's dance I have seen is one in which in San Cristoval and Saa performers wave dancing clubs as they represent fighting scenes, with the accompaniment of a very soft and tuneful song. The general term for men's dancing in Florida is gavai in the siilaru they sit as if paddling; in the hauhamumu there is a concert of many bamboo pipes blown in certain tunes, without a song; this is a performance learnt by men from ghosts, and brought over from Laudari in Guadalcanar. Parties of men practise these dances till they are perfect, and then start on a voyage about the neighbouring islands, going a-dancing, gavai tona, exhibiting their performance everywhere, and receiving hospitality and handsome presents wherever they go. After the return of such a party they will divide from two to five hundred rongo, a large sum of money, among them. In Santa Cruz every great man has near his house his dancing-ground, nava, fenced with huge discs of coral; the great aim in dancing is to stamp the feet all together with the utmost exactness and the loudest shock. Many of the Banks' Island dances, in elaborate figures carried out with the greatest precision, are really beautiful and interesting; the performers, with their heads wonderfully adorned, and their limbs decorated with shining fringes of unopened palm-fronds, advance and retire in two lines, interlace in curves, cross and recross in ranks, waving their arms and stamping their feet, on which rattling anklets of empty nuts are hung, to the beat of a bamboo drum carried by a leader, or beaten by a seated performer. To keep them right in their steps they repeat to themselves the words of the song belonging to the dance. In Maewo, Aurora, clapping of hands plays a great part in common dancing and singing. In Lepers' Island, when a hundred or more men dance and sing round a