Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/67

 about must be done decently and in order. The quieter kinds of ring dances are the Scrha and the Vulghariko (Bulgarian), and the more energetic dances are those known as the Tshamb, the Arvanitovlakhiko and the Karahatatiko, which are reputed to be of Albanian origin, and certainly the Tshamb takes its name from the part of Albania between Tepeleni and Yannina known to the Greeks as Tshamuriâ. Women of course do not dance these energetic dances ; the ring dance usually performed by them is the Sirto, supposed to be derived from the Ancient Greek dance of the same name. This is a slow and stately dance, but rather dreary. A ring of women dancing the sirto to the tune of a monotonous song sung slowly in their wailing voices always has an effect of weird melancholy. All the dances are of an elementary three- step type, and the variations introduced are mere adornments to suit individual taste, but the sirto has few if any variations. In Samarina and apparently in most large villages local talent is easily capable of providing music which is taught at the higher grade schools. At weddings and festivals and other important occasions itinerant musicians are employed (Plate XVII). It is worth noting that among the Vlachs such musicians whatever their race, and they are now usually Greeks, are invariably spoken of as Gipsies, just as the Greeks call all shepherds Vlachs. There do not seem ever to have been any local native musical instruments, at least if such were ever employed for producing dance music they have totally disappeared. The itinerant musicians and the local talent use European instruments. A band of itinerant musicians consists at least of three performers, the leader with a clarionet, a fiddler, and a boy with a drum or cymbal to accentuate the time for the guidance of the dancers. A band may consist of more, but the leader is always the one who has the clarionet and acts as conductor beating time for the others by waving about his head and clarionet as he plays. When music cannot be procured, singing takes its place and this probably was the original custom. The shepherds who are natural and good dancers always dance to songs and have no native instrument of their own except flutes, which they