Indian dances--Songs without meaning--Elaborate preparations--The
Chief’s invitation--Numbers assembled--Dance step--Reasons
for dances--Special dances--Dance staves--Arrangement of
dancers--Method of airing a grievance--Plaintiff’s song of
complaint--The tribal “black list”--Manioc-gathering dance and
song--Muenane Riddle Dance--A discomfited dancer--Indian riddles
and mimicry--Dance intoxication--An unusual incident--A favourite
dance--The cannibal dance--A mad festival of savagery--The
strange fascination of the Amazon.
Whatever of art there may be in the soul of the tribesman finds
expression in the dance. It is the concert and the play, the opera,
the ball, the carnival, and the feast of the Amazons, in that it
gives opportunity for the æsthetic, artistic, dramatic, musical, and
spectacular aspirations of the Indian’s nature. It is his one social
entertainment, and he invites to it every one living in amity with
him. Any excuse is enough for a dance, but nevertheless the affair is
a serious business. The dance, like the tobacco palaver, is a dominant
factor in tribal life. For it the Amazonian treasures the songs of his
fathers, and will master strange rhymes and words that for him no longer
have meaning; he only knows they are the correct lines, the phrases he
ought to sing at such functions, because they always have been sung, they
are the words of the time-honoured tribal melodies.[313] It is for these
occasions that he fashions quaint dancing-staves and wonderful musical
instruments, and dons all his treasured ornaments, while his wife paints
her most dazzling skin costumes. He practises steps and capers, tutors
his voice to the songs; meantime his children rehearse assiduously in the
privacy of their forest playground, against the time when they too may
take part in the tribal festivities.
[Illustration: PLATE XLII.
ANATTO, _BIXA ORELLANA_, A RED DYE, OR PAINT, IS MADE FROM THE SEED]
The entertainment demands elaborate preliminaries. When any such carnival
is on hand the old women of the tribe for days previously are busied
making cassava, and with the preparation of _kawana_ or other appropriate
drinks. The amount of liquid refreshment necessary for a large dance is
enormous, in view of the custom by which the liquor-logged native simply
steps aside, and by the insertion of a finger down the throat is speedily
ready for a further supply. During the four or five days that a dance
continues only the old men among the Turuka will eat anything, and that
nothing more substantial than manioc starch; the dancers merely drink
_hashiri_.
Nor is the inner man only to be considered. All sartorial treasures,
the feathers and necklaces of the men, the beaded girdles of the women,
are taken from their receptacles, the wardrobes in the rafters of the
_maloka_. The men--for the Amazonian male reserves to himself the
greatest brilliance of attire on occasions of ceremony--array themselves
in their feather tiaras, with necklaces, armlets, and sounding garters
of polished nuts. The maidens and matrons also apply themselves to
the elaboration of their toilets. No court dressmaker ever gave more
anxious thought to the fashioning of _chef-d’œuvre_ in silk and brocade
than do these dusky daughters of Eve to the tracing of circles, angles,
bands, and frets upon their naked skins. Coquetry is as essential an
accompaniment of the savage dance, in the unmapped bush of the Amazons,
as in a garlanded ballroom of Mayfair. The most vain of English beauties
probably spends less time over her adornment for any function than do
these young women as they squat in chattering crowds over the calabashes
of vegetable dye, white, scarlet, black, or purple, with which they trace
upon each other the cunning patterns that make their only dresses.
When these preparations are satisfactorily advanced the chief, or some
one in authority, despatches his invitations, no formal cards entrusted
to a postman, but a summons mysterious as a Marconigram, and imperious
as a writ of the High Court. The chief takes his stand between the
_manguare_, the signal drums slung from the rafters of the great house,
and with the rubber-headed drumstick he beats out as message sonorous
notes that travel to every Indian within eight or nine miles. This
summons is no mere manipulation of the four notes which constitute the
range of the instrument, but an articulate message to convey the time,
the place, and the purpose of the meeting to the initiated.
[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.
HALF GOURDS DECORATED WITH INCISED PATTERNS, MADE BY WITOTO NEAR THE
MOUTH OF THE KARA PARANA RIVER
DUKAIYA (OKAINA) RATTLE MADE BY NUTSHELLS]
The numbers who congregate for a dance were a constant source of
astonishment to me. Out of the silent and trackless bush scores of
expectant guests, all painted and feathered, will pour into the clearing
about the _maloka_, at the time appointed by the signal drum, and by
nightfall some hundreds are gathered. Great bonfires are set ablaze,
and the interior of the tribal lodge, where the chief has a place in
the centre, flares ruddy with the light of torches. The men make loud
clangour with their instruments, flutes, pan-pipes, or drums, and out in
the clearing they form into line, clutching their jingling dance-poles,
while the women form up facing them. Led by a strenuous tribesman
clattering with nuts and dried seeds, the line begins its perambulation
of the _maloka_. Forward two steps--_thud!_ Backward two steps--_thud!_
Clattering and pattering, with the fifes shrieking high above all other
sounds, as the drums growl deep below, the procession slowly encircles
the _maloka_, and then enters. In a frenzied flutter of feathers and
leaves the performers move round the chief, to a jangle of seed-pods and
rattles, till the company is completed, and the tribal lodge is packed
with the dancers, when he signals for silence. The dance stops. The
instruments cease their outcry, and in the sudden contrast of silence the
chief sings a line which is the keynote of the occasion, the explanation,
the reason for the assembly. Then dance and song begin, while those who
are not taking active part squat round upon their haunches and ejaculate
hoarse cries of approval and encouragement at intervals.
As aforesaid, any excuse is good enough reason for such festival. Dances
take place continuously: at the harvest of the pine-apple and the manioc;
at the conclusion of a successful hunt or war-expedition; and at such
other times in the Amazonian season as the chief feels moved to give
entertainment. As the weather does not vary sufficiently to influence the
harvesting of the crops at any particular date, there is no equivalent
to our harvest; and, though manioc is planted as a rule just before the
heaviest annual rainfall becomes due, there is no part of the year when
some of the roots are not ready to gather. Pines are most plentiful
in October, and it is then that the special pine-apple dances take
place.[314]
The dance takes its character from the occasion. The dancing staff,
unless the dance is in honour of some specific thing, is undecorated,
merely furnished with a calabash that contains nuts, or with a carved
head hollowed for the same purpose, and is sometimes hung with bunches of
dried seeds that rattle when shaken or when knocked on the ground. These
form important additions to the orchestra, and to the garters and anklets
strapped to the legs. Very often the Indian decorates his staff with
palm leaves merely for ornament, but in the harvest dances the staves
are adorned with bunches of whatever crop is to be honoured--a tuft of
pine-apple leaves or a bundle of manioc shoots. The Yakuna carve patterns
on their dance staves.[315] Among the Tureka, north of the Japura, dance
staves are a most important possession, and are looked on with great
affection by their owners. The Tureka men wear aprons when dancing,
and use clappers in one hand, instead of the horns and rattle used
alternately by the Tukana.[316] The Menimehe carries a club in his right
hand. On the Tikie, dancers are said to hold a flute in the left hand,
and always to have a green twig under their girdle. Koch-Grünberg further
states that they have clay whistles with which they blow at dances as
well as for signals. These are not customs of the Issa-Japura tribes.
The soloist who leads the dancers from the start outside the _maloka_
very probably commences by executing some fancy high stepping. He may,
for instance, prance like a stallion, and this is calculated to amuse the
company immensely. When the performers get too heated by their exertions
in the house they will file outside, still dancing, and after a few turns
on the open space in front of the _maloka_, will return within.
[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.
OKAINA GIRLS PAINTED FOR DANCE]
Among the Okaina and the Boro the hand is often placed on the far
shoulder of the next in line. I especially remember one endless dance in
an Okaina house in which all free performers were double locked, while
those in possession of staves or rattles were content with a single lock
to allow freedom for one hand. The dancers invariably stand in single
file, usually with one hand resting on the shoulder of the next in
line. The Menimehe and most other tribes place the left hand on their
neighbour’s right shoulder, but, according to Koch-Grünberg, tribes
on the Tikie place the right hand, though the Tukana rest the left.
The figure is composed of a broken circle of men thus linked together,
whilst in their free hands they hold the dancing staves, rattles, or
flutes. Within, and concentric, is the ring of women dancers, who face
the men and maintain a time which is complementary and not identical
with theirs.[317] North of the Japura in some cases the women dance
between the men in the same circle,[318] or the men and the younger girls
dance round the elder women. When dancing, personal touch is not tabu
or disliked, possibly because it is ceremonial or conventional. In most
of these dances the woman who is not engaged in the inner circle of the
select--the complementary figure of the dance--places herself outside the
outer circle with her left hand on the left shoulder of the man of her
choice. Her frontal portion is thus at right angles, and away from that
of her man.
The rhythm of the dance is always very marked. The figures and steps
are simple, neither suggestive nor lascivious, and wholly destitute of
the lustful invitation of the dances of the East. The step is almost
invariably a high, prancing flexion of the thigh upon the body, followed
by a deliberate extension to the ground, repeated two or three times, the
advance being completed with a resounding stamp of the right foot upon
the earth, according to the accentuation of the measure. The same steps
are repeated backwards in retiring, although less ground is covered, so
that the dancers sway rhythmically forward and backward; but the end of
each movement finds the whole line advanced some little distance from
where it was at the conclusion of the previous one. The forward movement
may be described simply as, right foot forward, left foot forward, stamp
with right, right foot backward, left foot backward, right foot back
in position, toe on ground, to start _da capo_ right foot forward,
in uninterrupted repetition. Spruce has described this movement as “a
succession of dactyls.”[319] In stamping, which is done by all the
dancers in unison, the knee is brought up to a right angle with the
trunk, and the foot then thrust down with the whole weight of the body.
Toe with right is the same motion as stamp right, but with only a slight
flexion of the knee, and comparatively noiseless. The circles move to the
right, continuing, but almost imperceptibly on account of slight change
of ground. The Tureka make a jump before the stamp, shout at the end of
the figure, and whistle through their teeth.
[Illustration: PLATE XLV.
BORO DANCING
GROUP OF NONUYA, MEN AND WOMEN]
While the principal dance is in progress a frequent form of side-show to
the main entertainment is the entrance of a tribesman with a grievance.
He will have made for himself the most remarkable costume he can devise,
and to ensure that he shall gain attention, wears upon his head a
veritable “_matinée_ hat” of absurd proportions.[320] He pays no heed
to the dance when he comes into the _maloka_, but stalks solemnly to a
position in the sight of all, though he will keep out of the actual track
of the dancers. Then, standing stock-still with upraised hand, facing
neither the performers nor the “sitters out,” but in any chance position,
he raises his staff and begins to recite his complaint to a monotonous
refrain. The following is a typical instance of what may be chanted:
There came a man this morning to our lodge--
A man who took cassava from my woman.
Cassava she gave him in exchange for two pines,
For two pines she gave him much cassava.
But where are the pines?
Where are the pines he promised?
Was this man a thief?--
This man who took cassava from my woman.[321]
Or the complaint might run:
I came in with meat;
The hungry man took my meat,
But promised me bread.
He gave me no bread,
And my belly is empty.
The following is a complaint made by a Boro chief’s daughter of her
treatment by her own tribe:
The chief’s daughter was lost in the bush,
And no one came to find the spoor;
The branches were broken and the leaves were turned,
And no one came to find the spoor.
And where were my brothers and the sons of the chief’s brothers,
That no one came to find the spoor? etc.
The petitioner will repeat his or her song for hours without ceasing.
To all appearance no one takes the slightest notice of his presence,
unless the dance should come to an end during the recitation, when the
performers jeer and laugh at his tale of woe. This has no effect upon the
plaintiff, who continues gravely to voice his grievance. The chief must,
however, take note of the matter, and if it be thought of sufficient
importance it is brought up for discussion and judgment at the next
tribal conference in tobacco palaver. At any rate, this method of airing
a grievance has the effect of placing the culprit on the black-list, in
view of the resultant publicity; and the natural wariness that is shown
by others of the tribe in all dealings with such suspect for the future,
is in itself a punishment for the crime.
It is difficult in the extreme to obtain any reliable evidence of the
existence of initiation dances. Sixty years ago Dr. Russell Wallace
described as the initiation dance of the girls of the Uaupes a dance
which, six years ago, Dr. Koch-Grünberg, the latest and most painstaking
of Amazonian investigators, found as a Jurupari ceremony confined to
men on the river Aiary. The dance is the same in each case, and depends
for its distinction upon the infliction of serious bodily injury. The
mysteries of initiation, as has been said, have not yet been fathomed in
the Amazons, nor have those of Jurupari. There is undoubtedly a dance
in which the performers beat their fellows with lianas until the blood
is drawn and the victims faint with pain, but no white man has yet
spoken with certainty upon its origin.[322] The dance is not known in
the district between the Issa and the Japura, nor do the mysteries of
initiation fall to be discussed in this chapter. Those are not matters
which are readily laid bare to even the most enterprising investigator in
the haunts of the aborigines.
According to Koch-Grünberg’s account, all the women, accompanied by the
smaller boys, leave the _maloka_ directly the notes of the flutes are
heard, and either hide in the woods or in another house with closed
exits. The performers circle round in quick marching time, blowing their
flutes, which each holds in his right hand, his left resting on the right
shoulder of the next man. At the completion of the circle they stand in
line. One dancer then draws the long whip they all carry under their
right arms, and while his companion holds his flute high up, blowing
lustily, he gives him three blows on the side and stomach heavy enough to
draw blood freely. This continues till all have taken part. There is no
singing, but the gaping wounds and much drinking of _kashiri_ rouse the
performers to a state of wild excitement. This dance is followed by an
ordinary one, in which the women take part.[323] Obviously none of the
Issa-Japura tribes practise this dance, for I never saw any signs of the
scars that must inevitably remain on the bodies of dancers cut in this
wholesale fashion.
The account given by Bates of a dance at the Feast of Fruits among the
Juri and the Passé Indians is an equally good description of some of the
Issa-Japura harvest dances. The men carry long reeds instead of javelins,
and with their left hands on their neighbours’ right shoulders move
slowly to right and to left. The accompaniment is a song as drawling and
monotonous as the movement, which will be continued for upwards of an
hour at a time.[324]
In the pine-apple dance the Indians tie pine leaves to boughs and wave
them as they move. The women of the chief, and possibly all the women
of the tribe, form a semicircle with the chief in the centre, sometimes
alone, sometimes with others. They carry the mid-rib of the Trooly palm
or some similar wand, with a small pine, or often the pine-top, tied to
the end.
The proceedings at all harvest dances are very similar. I give as example
a Boro dance at the gathering of the manioc, which is but an excuse for
this dance, as manioc is pulled up at all times and seasons. As is almost
universal in Indian dancing, the outer circle, or rather semicircle,
is composed of men. The women, fewer in number, stand together in the
centre, or each behind the man of her choice. Their dancing staves are
all decorated with bunches of manioc shoots. The woman, with the nearer
hand resting on the man’s shoulder, keeps step with him, moving to her
own front and not sideways like the man, though in the same direction.
The inner group face the circle of men, and their steps are complementary
to those of the men, and not identical with them. The chief starts the
dance with the first line of the song, his wife replies, and her answer
is echoed by the chorus of the chief’s women.
_Chief._
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has sown the _pika_[325] in the _emie_?[326]
_Wife._
I have sown the _pika_ long, long ago.
The _maica_[327] is sown with young shoots.
_Chorus._
We have sown the _pika_ long, long ago.
The _maica_ is sown with young shoots.
_Chief._
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has cut the _pika_ in the _emie_?
_Wife._
I, even I myself, have cut the _maica_.
The _maica_ is cut in the _emie_.
_Chorus._
We, even we ourselves, have cut the _maica_.
The _maica_ is cut in the _emie_.
_Chief._
I am old and weak and my belly craves food.
Who has soaked the _maica_ for the _mao_?[328]
_Wife._
I, even I myself, have soaked the _maica_.
I have soaked the _maica_ for the _mao_.
_Chorus._
We, even we ourselves, have soaked the _maica_.
We have soaked the _maica_ for the _mao_.
The whole process of growing, harvesting, and preparing the manioc for
cassava is thus related, then the chief will ask:
Who has made the _mao_ that I may eat?
That my belly may swell with _mao_?
_Wife._
I, even I, have made the _mao_,
And my belly will swell with _mao_.
_Chorus._
We, even we ourselves, have made the _mao_.
We will all eat that our bellies may swell,
That our bellies may swell with _mao_.
_Chief._
_Ina? ina?_[329] that your bellies are swollen?
Who has eaten the _mao_ from the _pika_--
The _pika_ in the _emie_?
The suggestion is obviously that the women have stolen and eaten the
cassava of the chief, but it is made solely to bring in the sexual
suggestion. The women deny the imputation, and declare that their bellies
are empty, or that they are great with child, not swollen with _mao_.
The chief will then ask why, or when, the belly fills with child, and so
the song continues on the lines of the sexual ideas introduced until the
finale is reached, when the chief would sing:
_Imine, imine_,
The women are good women,
_Imine_.[330]
[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.
MUENANE DANCE]
The Muenane, who occupy a part of the central Issa-Japura watershed,
between the Andoke and the Resigero, possess a dance of their own, which
has travelled into many of the other tribes south of the Japura, and has
become very popular.[331] This is a combination of a riddle and an animal
dance. The figure is formed as in the pine-apple dance, but the centre is
taken by a warrior who has gained a reputation as a wit. His business is
to ask a riddle, which will in all probability be an original one, and he
asks it after the manner of a chant. Naturally a man with at least the
indigenous sense of wit is loudly applauded and received with shrieks of
laughter from the outset. The dancers take up the chanted question as
they rotate round the questioner. At the end of the measure the dance
stops, and the riddler rushes frantically round the circle with a lighted
torch, looking, like Alcibiades, for a man--to answer his riddle. He
stops suddenly, thrusts his torch into the face of a performer, and,
peering into his eyes to seek for some sign of answering intelligence,
repeats his question. The answer, if in the negative, is given--whatever
the tribe dancing may be--in the tongue of the originators of the dance,
Muenane--“Jana” (I do not know). The dancer thereupon, having failed to
reply correctly, is then impressed to be a follower of the questioner,
and must rush after him and imitate all his antics, which are apparently
to give the clue to the riddle. In a short time a long single file of
these failures is engaged in presenting a burlesque of the habits of the
animal whose name is the answer required. The first performer who guesses
correctly becomes the questioner in turn, and the dance starts afresh.
It may be pertinent here to relate an incident which tends to convey at
least an insight into the Indian character, the lack of altruism, the
love of discomfiture of others. On one occasion the questioner--evidently
to take a rise out of a stranger, and being intoxicated, if not with coca
at least with the dancing mania--thrust his torch into my face, nearer
than would be tolerated in the usual way. I quickly placed my foot on his
chest, with the resultant back-somersault of torch and man. The shrieks
of laughter lasted a considerable time. I was the hero of the hour, and
custom decreed that the victim should laugh at his own discomfiture.
All Indians are clever mimics, and the fidelity with which they reproduce
the actions of jaguars, tapirs, monkeys, parrots, and other familiar
animals of the bush is remarkable. The riddles are nearly always
concerned with animals, and the test of wit is the amount of sexual
suggestion contained in the reply.[332] A typical query is, “When is a
howler-monkey not a howler?” The answer would be, “When he is covering
his mate.” The dumb show of the actors delights the audience, and
leaves no small characteristic to the imagination. The riddles may defy
translation, but the actions are certainly not beyond interpretation.
In this connection it is well to refer again to the subject of dance
intoxication. The excitement due to rhythmic motion struck me very
forcibly. It should be remembered too that the men are heroic cocainists,
and this stimulant, in forcing the imagination, undoubtedly for the
moment--_qua_ alcohol--has an aphrodisiacal tendency. The sexual
innuendoes of the songs, though not of the dance, increase the effect. It
must also be borne in mind that five days and nights is not an uncommon
limit to one dance. It may cease at sunrise for a short space, and
individuals, of course, rest and sleep as nature may dictate, but never,
to my knowledge, for any length of time.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.
OKAINA DANCE]
On one occasion I was witness to the most remarkable salacity on the part
of an individual. In my innocence I considered it part of the dance, and
was satisfied with the idea that I had at last happed upon the indigenous
counterpart of the coition and parturition dances of the East. It was
not until the man was restrained by order of the chief that the true
facts were realised.[333] But this was exceptional. The dance is carried
on with frenzy and excitement, but with nothing beyond that. It never
touches eroticism.[334] The dance never ends, as we know ending. It
dwindles to cessation.
Another dance, much appreciated by the tribes between the Issa and the
Japura, is not very dissimilar in essentials from the musical chairs of
our childhood. The dancers form into a line, or two parallel lines, and,
headed by the song-leader, carry out the customary step in single file.
At the leader’s mention of a certain word, or perhaps a certain subject,
previously agreed upon, the whole line must right-about turn, and pick
up the step again without losing a beat. Those who fail are withdrawn
from the line. The dance continues until the fittest alone remain, and is
productive of general amusement.
But there are more tragic inspirations for a dance than the guessing
of riddles or the garnering of the crops. I refer to the triumphant
home-coming of tribal warriors, laden with booty from the war-path,
with a band of doomed prisoners. The treatment of the latter and their
disposal at the feast have been already dealt with. But the cannibal
ritual of insult is not the end. When the orgy of blood and gluttony is
over, the warriors must dance. Only the men may take part in the feast,
so only the men may participate in this dance. The music is chiefly
that of the drums, and to their gloomy rolling--according to Robuchon’s
account--the warriors lurch portentously, drunk already with victory, and
excited by dancing. They break apart frequently to stir the great troughs
of liquor with the forearms of their dead enemies, and to quaff deep
calabashes full of drink. Then they stagger back to the wild intoxication
of the dance. Their songs become shrieks, demoniacal, hellish. For eight
days this horrible dance of triumph continues, while the captive boys and
girls, young enough to be saved from the fate of the earthen pot, cower
in the darkness of the _maloka_ and suffer, perforce in silence, the
gibes of the women. But this scene defies description.
Set against the darkly impressive background of the forest any tribal
dance gives an amazing effect of kaleidoscopic light and colour when,
with nightfall, by the flare of great fires and the glow of torches, the
performance begins. The chosen soloist of the tribe jangling his circlets
of nuts, sounding his gourd rattle, in a falsetto voice sings the ancient
air of the dance. The warriors follow the melody in canon. Then slowly
the great line of naked men, arms interlocked about each other’s necks,
surges forward two steps in perfect time, pauses a moment, then recedes
two steps. In a little while the whole earth shakes with the swing of the
movement. It is like the flowing and ebbing of mighty waves upon a shore.
It intoxicates with the recurrence of the accentuation. Slowly round the
big _maloka_ the procession passes, swaying in unison. The streaked and
banded women dance uniformly in an opposite direction. The fires splutter
and blaze. The torches cast strange shadows. The flutes, the pan-pipes,
and the drums blare, bleat, and boom their barbaric accompaniment.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.
OKAINA DANCE]
It is a mad festival of savagery. The naked men are wildly excited; their
eyes glare, their nostrils quiver, but they are not drunk. The naked
women abandon themselves to the movement of the dance; they scream their
chorus to the tribal dance-song; but they are not lewd. There is about
it an all-pervading, illimitable delirium. The wild outburst affects
even the stranger in their midst. Forgotten cells in his brain react to
the stimulus of the scene. He is no longer apart, alien in speech and
feeling. He locks arms in the line of cannibals, sways in rhythm with
them, stamps as solemnly, and sings the meaningless words as fervently
as the best of them. He has bridged an age of civilisation, and returned
to barbarism in the debased jetsam of the river banks. It is the strange
fascination of the Amazons.