is nothing of worship connected with it. It is used as a charm to frighten away disease, and also in some ceremonies, but its real character is only that of a song and a dance."
Mr. Taplin says that it is exceedingly difficult to get a corrobboree song, which consists principally of words descriptive of incidents of travel, or hunting, or war. He gives, however, one native song in his pamphlet:—
"Puntin Narrinyerar, Puntin Narrinyerar, O, O, O.
Puntin Narrinyerar, O, O, O, O, O.
Yun terpulani ar
Tuppun an wangamar
Tyiwewar ngoppun ar O, O, O, O.
Puntin Narrinyerar," &c.
It is thus translated by Mr. Taplin:—"The Narrinyeri are coming; soon they will appear, carrying kangaroos; quickly they are walking."[1]
A lively picture of a corrobboree which was held in New South Wales some twenty-five years ago is furnished by Lieut.-Col. Mundy. The preliminaries were not different from those already described, and the various performers took their stations and acted much in the same way as in a grand dance in Victoria; but the graphic description of the behaviour of the natives in the war-dance, and when imitating the dingo, kangaroo, and emu, is worthy of quotation:—"The first performance was a war-dance, wherein a variety of complicated evolutions and savage antics were gone through, accompanied by a brandishing of clubs, spears, boomerangs, and shields. Suddenly the crowd divided into two parties, and after a chorus of deafening yells and fierce exhortations, as if for the purpose of adding to their own and each other's excitement, they rushed together in close fight. One division, shortly giving way, was driven from the field and pursued into the dark void, where roars and groans, and the sound of blows, left but little to be imagined on the score of a bloody massacre. Presently the whole corps re-appeared close to the fire, and, having deployed into two lines and 'proved distance' (as it is called in the sword exercise), the time of the music was changed, and a slow measure was commenced by the dancers, every step being enforced by a heavy stamp and a noise like a pavior's grunt. As the drum waxed faster, so did the dance, until at length the movements were as rapid as the human frame could possibly endure. At some passages they all sprang into the air a wonderful height, and, as their feet again touched the ground with the legs wide astride, the muscles of the thighs were set a quivering in a singular manner, and the straight white lines on the limbs being thus put in oscillation, each stripe for the moment became a writhing serpent, while the air was filled with loud hissings. . . . . . The most amusing part of the ceremony was imitations of the dingo, kangaroo, and emu. When all were springing together in emulation of a scared troop of their own marsupial brutes, nothing could be more laughable, nor a more ingenious piece of mimicry. As is usual in savage dances, the time was kept with an accuracy never at fault. . . . . . The men were tall and
- ↑ The Narrinyeri, by the Rev, Geo. Taplin, 1874.
