others one by one drop in, until each imperceptibly warms into the truly savage attitude of the 'corrobboree jump;' the legs striding to the utmost, the head turned over one shoulder; the eyes glaring, and fixed with savage energy in one direction; the arms raised and inclined towards the head; the hands usually grasping waddies, boomerangs, or other warlike weapons. The jump now keeps time with each beat, and at each leap the dancer takes six inches to one side, all being in a connected line led by the first dancer. The line is doubled or tripled according to space and numbers, and this gives great effect; for when the first line jumps to the left, the second jumps to the right, the third to the left again, and so on until the action requires due intensity, when all simultaneously and suddenly stop."[1]
In describing a corrobboree performed when certain young men of the Yarra-Hapinni tribe (Macleay River) were "made young men," Mr. Hodgkinson says that the dance on such occasions is of a much more solemn character than ordinary, and that the performers paint themselves elaborately, even to the toes. They cover their heads with the snowy down of the white cockatoo, and when the light of the fires flashed upon them they appeared to be adorned with white wigs. They carried their boomerangs, which were also elaborately painted for the occasion. They seemed to have far excelled any of the natives of the south in their decorations, and not to have come short of them either in their evolutions. "They displayed," says Mr. Hodgkinson, "a degree of flexibility in their limbs which might have created the envy of many a pantomimic artist."[2]
Amongst the Narrinyeri (Lakes Alexandrina, Albert, and Coorong, and the Lower Murray River) "there are many kinds of corrobborees, but the main thing in all of them is the song and dance. Skin rugs are rolled up tightly, and beaten by the fist, as they lie in front of the beater, who squats on the ground. These are called planggi, and the drumming is called plangkumbalin. The men knock two waddies together; these are called tartengk, and this practice is called tartembarrin. By these means they beat time to the song or chant. In most ringbalin only the men dance; the women sit on the ground and sing. The songs are sometimes harmless, and the dances not indecent; but at other times the songs will consist of the vilest obscenity. I have seen dances which were the most disgusting displays of obscene gesture possible to be imagined, and although I stood in the dark alone, and nobody knew that I was there, I felt ashamed to look upon such abominations. There are also war-dances. I have felt the ground almost tremble with the measured tramp of some hundreds of excited men just before a fight. The dances of the women are very immodest and lewd. The men sit and sing, and the women dance. In Cobbin's Family Bible is a picture, at Luke vii. 32, of the dance of Egyptian women. If it had been drawn for a dance of Narrinyeri women, it could not have been more exact. The corrobboree of the natives is not necessarily a religious observance; there
- ↑ Three Expeditions Into the Interior of Eastern Australia, by Major T. L. Mitchell, F.G.S., &c., 1838, vol. II., p. 5.
- ↑ Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay, by Clement Hodgkinson, 1845.
