lasted at least three hours, when, as a wind-up, they gave three tremendous shouts, at the same time pointing to the sky with their sticks; they each shook me heartily by the hand, again beating their breasts, as a token of friendship."
"The corrobboree," says the Rev. Mr. Bulmer, a Missionary at Lake Tyers, in Gippsland, "is a simple affair. The tune is the best part of it. In fact the tune is the chief feature, the poetry being generally poor. The song which made a great stir at the last corrobboree I witnessed was composed of about five words. It was of a language I did not understand, and indeed the blacks themselves did not understand it; but that did not matter to them. All they desired was the tune and the figure of the dance. The words were as follows:—
Wilpon
Tho Wilpon
Me
Gra!
The sound of gra was carried on to a great length, while all the men made a very graceful bend of the body, and thus it was repeated at pleasure. In the corrobboree the blacks sometimes use their legs as in a regular dance, always keeping time remarkably well. At other times they only bend their bodies in a very graceful way. When the dance consists in using the legs freely, then, as a rule, they never use any particular stick, but carry in the hand a boomerang or a tomahawk, as in a war-dance; but when they present themselves in figure only bringing the body into play, they mostly have something in the shape of a stick, which it is presumed belongs to that particular kind of dance. Sometimes the stick is held in the left hand, to support the performer while he sways his body backwards and forwards. At each forward movement he strikes the stick in his left hand either with a bough or with another stick. It is astonishing to see with what soldier-like regularity the body of each man bends to the time. On certain occasions, when the legs have been mostly exercised in the dance, some of the men would assist the women in the singing, and would use their sticks in beating time."
The corrobboree-dance appears to be of a very similar character in all parts of the island-continent. Mr. Gideon S. Lang gives a very amusing description of a grand corrobboree at which he was present, in the Maranoa district. There were about five hundred natives assembled, and the dance was performed in an open glade, about two hundred yards in length and breadth, narrowing towards the south end, and surrounded by a belt of rather thick timber. Across the south end sat the orchestra, consisting of nearly one hundred women, and led by a well-known native named Eaglehawk. "The leader," says Mr. Lang, "chanted a description of the scenes as they passed, accompanied by the women, their voices continuously repeating what seemed to be the same words, while they beat time by striking with a stick a quantity of earth, tightly rolled up in a piece of cloth or opossum rug. The moon shone brightly, lighting up the stage and the tops of the trees, but casting a deep shadow below. This shadow however, was again relieved by several large fires on each side of the stage, leaving a clear view to Eaglehawk and the orchestra, behind whom stood the
