THE JÔGET
and winnowing of the grain, might easily have been
guessed from the dancer’s movements. But those
of the audience whom I was near enough to question
were, Malay-like, unable to give me much information, Attendants stood or sat near the dancers and
from time to time, as the girls tossed one thing on
the floor, handed them another. Sometimes it was
a fan or a mirror they held, sometimes a flower or
small vessel, but oftener their hands were empty, as
it is in the management of the fingers that the chief
art of Malay dancers consists.
The last dance, symbolical of war, was perhaps the best, the music being much faster, almost inspiriting, and the movements of the dancers more free and even abandoned. For the latter half of the dance they each held a wand, to represent a sword, bound with three rings of burnished gold which glittered in the light like precious stones.
This nautch, which began soberly, like the others, grew to a wild revel until the dancers were, or pretended to be, possessed by the Spirit of Dancing, hante měnâri as they called it, and leaving the Hall for a moment to smear their fingers and faces with a fragrant oil, they returned, and the two eldest, striking at each other with their wands seemed inclined to turn the symbolical into a real
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