196 Manners and Customs of the Australian Natives, 



wards and backwards, holding the one hand to the side to 

 which they jump, while the other hangs down by the body. 

 The dancers place themselves in an irregular line, and at such 

 a distance from each other as to leave sufficient room. They 

 advance sloAvly until they stand before the singers, and then 

 step again to the baclcground. A dance, as the rule, lasts 

 scarcely more than eight or ten minutes, for the movements 

 of the body are so violent, and require so much exertion, that 

 the dancers even in this short time are fully exhausted. 

 Although the women are prominent in the singing, they take 

 but little part in the dance ; and, when they do, never more 

 than two or three at a time. Still even this small amount of 

 interest on the side of the women never fails to excite the 

 men to greater exertions. At the end of the dance the men 

 sit down forty or fifty paces from the singers. Being rested 

 for about a minute, they come forward dancing one after 

 the other, and one of the female dancers meets them half- 

 way, and accompanies them in step up to the singers. At 

 that point where the woman meets them they make a pause, 

 and, later on, they repeat it two or three times, stamping 

 with the feet on the ground^ perhaps as a sort of ball-room 

 courtesy towards the lady. 



These evening amusements often last till long past mid- 

 night, especially should the number of dancers be great, or 

 should two different tribes grace this aboriginal ball. Then 

 they do their best to amuse each other by the number 

 and different kinds of dances; on these occasions joy and 

 cheerfulness are depicted on each countenance, and it can 

 scarcely be credited that these good-natured faces could 

 assume the distorted traits of deep and powerful anger, and 

 that the wild gestures incident to the dance should change 

 into wilder passions. 



This, alas, happens but too often, especially during the hot 

 portion of the year, when they disclose an amount of irrita- 

 bility of which in the cooler periods of the year they could 

 not be supposed capable. 



Their wars can be divided into two classes, viz., the one 

 beginning suddenly, and arising from some paltry cause ; 

 the other being the fruit of deep premeditation, and proceed- 

 ing from an earnest, sometimes from a true, and still oftener 

 from an imaginary cause. Although the behaviour of the 

 aborigines towards each other is generally characterised by 

 good-nature, mildness, and even politeness, still it often hap- 

 pens that friends engage in sanguinary strife with quondam 



