Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/77

Rh afternoon of the same day, the first undisturbed dance of the festivities is held.

In full dress dancing (see pls. 14, 58, 65, 73, 82), it is mainly the men who display their beauty and skill. In some dances, such as those performed in a quick tempo with carved dancing boards or with bunches of streamers or in conventionalized imitation of animals, men alone may participate (pls. 65, 73, 82). Only in one traditional type of dance, for which men put on the fibre petticoats of the female (see pls. 3, 58), are women not debarred by custom from participation. But though I witnessed scores of performances of this type, I only once saw a womanlywoman [sic] actually dance, and she was of the very highest rank. As passive witnesses and admirers, however, women form a very important adjunct to this form of display.

There are many other long, continuous periods of amusement in the Trobriands besides the dancing season, and in these women take a more active share. The nature of the amusement is fixed in advance, and has to remain the same during the whole period. There are different kinds of kayasa, as these entertainments are called (see ch. ix, secs. 2-4). There is a kayasa in which, evening after evening, groups of women, festively adorned, sit on mats and sing; in another, men and women, wearing wreaths and garlands of flowers, exchange such ornaments with each other; or a kayasa is announced, the main theme of which is a general daily display of a certain type of ornament. Sometimes the members of a community prepare small toy sailing canoes and hold a miniature regatta Rh