MEN OF THE TREES 



of all the men lined up in opposite ranks and began a 

 rhythmic dance to song, without moving their positions. 

 As the lilt of the song became more lively and the tempo 

 increased each rank began to advance toward the other, 

 until they were within a pace. Spontaneously at this 

 point they reversed, going backward three paces, then 

 forward two, until they had returned to the starting 

 point. This was repeated many times and ended in a 

 grand finale, when from sheer exhaustion they had to 

 stop for a moment's rest. To me it seemed like a glorified 

 game of "Here we come gathering nuts in May," and 

 reminded me of my childhood days when we had picnic 

 parties on our holidays from school. 



The women, for their part, had spontaneously im- 

 provised a new dance, all on their own; for in the day- 

 light it is not customary for the sexes to participate in 

 the same dance. As the afternoon wore on the song and 

 dance became livelier and at a given signal all began to 

 wend their way homewards. As the younger members 

 of the party dispersed in groups the older men and women 

 began dancing on their own account. It was evident 

 that the Dance of the Trees had caught on and all were 

 anxious to participate in it. 



Two days later I was sitting in my office busy with the 

 ordinary routine work of a forester, issuing permits, for 

 felling trees, interviewing fuel contractors for the 

 Uganda Railway, signing on forest squatters to assist in 

 the work of reafforesting the cut-over areas, when one 

 of my forest guards reported to me that many Morans 



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