A DANCING HOUSE 143 



are often rich, and they have a true musical car. Their 

 intervals arc very similar to ours and not at all like 

 those of the Malays and many other Eastern singers, 

 who recognize perhaps five notes where we have only 

 two. Beside the drum the only instrument of music they 

 have is a straight trumpet made from a short piece of 

 bamboo. This produces only a single booming note and 

 is not used at the concerts. 



As an amusement of the Papuans even more impor- 

 tant than singing is dancing, of which they often talked, 

 but though we saw some of their dancing halls (see 

 illustration p. 48), we never had the good fortune to 

 witness a performance. At the coast village of Nimc, a 

 few miles to the East of the Mimika River, there was a 

 very elaborate dancing house, which must have cost an 

 immense amount of labour to build. The length of the 

 house from front to back was about 100 feet, the width 

 about 25 feet, and it rested on poles which were about 

 8 feet high in front, rising up to about 14 feet high at 

 the back. The side walls and the back were of " atap " 

 as was also the roof, which sloped from a long ridge- 

 pole running the whole length of the house. The ridge- 

 pole was remarkable as being made from a single tree 

 trunk [Casuarina) shaved down very smoothly to a uni- 

 form thickness of about 10 inches ; the ends of it, which 

 projected about 8 feet both at the front and back of 

 the house, were carved in very lifelike representations 

 of the head of a crocodile and were painted red. The 

 weight of the beam must have been immense and one 

 wondered how it had been hoisted into position. Be- 

 tween the ridge of the roof and the eaves there projected 



