332 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



some of them with grey beards, performed. In all the dances, 

 except the first one already described, the chorus sat on the 

 ground at a corner of the Green, and usually contained a 

 number of small girls and boys, and used in addition to the 

 wooden drum, a number of long bamboo joints open at the 

 upper end, which, when held vertically and struck on the 

 ground, give out a peculiar booming note. 



In each of the dances there was a leader, who gave the word 

 of command for the changes in the figures, and his part was 

 especially prominent in the Club Dance, In this dance all the 

 attitudes of advance, retreat, and the striking of the blow, were 

 gone through with various manoeuvres, such as the forming of 

 single file and of column. Clubs are carefully decorated when 

 used for dancing; some clubs indeed seem to be kept for dancing 

 with, and to correspond to our Court swords in being merely 

 decorative. There are flat spaces near the heads of the curved 

 clubs, which on festive occasions are freshly smeared with red, 

 blue, or white paint. Coloured strips of Screw-pine leaf are 

 often wound round the clubs, and some clubs are decked with 

 beads strung on Bhizomorpha fibres. Thackombau's son's club 

 was, as I have said, freshly painted blue near the top. Thackom- 

 bau on State occasions had a decorated club carried before him, 

 just as at home the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and even the Presi- 

 dent of the Eoyal Society. No doubt at some future time, when 

 fire-arms have been superseded, rudimentary guns, richly orna- 

 mented, will be carried in state before distinguished personages. 



In the Fan Dance, all the dancers were provided with a fan 

 of tappa stretched on a wooden frame. They divided themselves 

 into two parties, which formed into single file in the same line 

 with one another, but with a considerable interval between the 

 two parties. The two bands took up the chant and danced 

 alternately, answering each other as it were. The fans were 

 waved in various attitudes, and at the end of each movement 

 thrown suddenly up over the head (still held in the hands), a 

 wild war-cry, uttered by the whole line simultaneously, accom- 

 panying the movement. The war-cry was of a single prolonged 

 high-pitched note, and sounded intensely savage. 



In another dance, performed by a large body of men, about 



