The Tribes Who Are Not Engaged In Dancing, Are Seated In A Large Semicircle As Spectators, Occasionally 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 performers. 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 up a wild and piercing noise, most deafening and ungrateful to the ears.

The natives of the Rufus and Lake Victoria (Tar-ru) have a great variety of dances and figures.

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