232 
DANCES. 
open rank, change places, and thread through the 
mazes of the dance, without ever deranging their 
plans, or coming in contact with each other. 
The tribes who are not engaged in dancing, are 
seated in a large semicircle as spectators, occa- 
sionally giving a rapturous exclamation of delight, 
as any part of the performance is well gone through 
or any remarkable feat of activity exhibited. 
Where natives have not much acquaintance with 
Europeans, so as to give up, in some measure, their 
original habits, if there is any degree of jealousy 
between the respective tribes, they are sometimes 
partitioned off from each other by boughs of trees, 
whilst they look at the dance. On one occasion I saw 
five tribes met together, and the evening was of course 
spent in dancing. Each tribe danced in turn, about 
forty being engaged at once, besides sixteen females, 
eight of whom were at each corner of the male per- 
formers. The men were naked, painted in various 
devices with red and white, and had their heads 
adorned with feathers. The women wore their 
opossum cloaks, and had bands of white down round 
their foreheads, with the long feathers of the 
cockatoo sticking up in front like horns. In the 
dance the men and women did not intermingle; 
but the two sets of women who were dancing at the 
corners of the line, occasionally changed places with 
each other, passing in this transit, at the back of the 
men. All sung, and the men beat time upon their 
smaller weapons whilst dancing, the whole making 
