Of their appearance at a dance Colonel Dalton states: [611] "Forming
a huge circle, or rather coil, they hooked on to each other and
wildly danced. In their hands they sternly grasped their weapons,
the long stiff bow and arrows with bright, broad, barbed heads and
spirally-feathered reed shafts in the left hand, and the gleaming
battle-axe in the right. Some of the men accompanied the singing on
deep-toned drums and all sang. A few scantily-clad females formed
the inner curl of the coil, but in the centre was the Choragus who
played on a stringed instrument, promoting by his grotesque motions
unbounded hilarity, and keeping up the spirit of the dancers by his
unflagging energy. Their matted back hair was either massed into a
chignon, sticking out from the back of the head like a handle, from
which spare arrows depended hanging by the bands, or was divided
into clusters of long matted tails, each supporting a spare arrow,
which, flinging about as they sprang to the lively movements of
the dance, added greatly to the dramatic effect and the wildness of
their appearance. The women were very diminutive creatures, on the
average a foot shorter than their lords, clothed in scanty rags,
and with no ornaments except a few tufts of cotton dyed red taking
the place of flowers in the hair, a common practice also with the
Santal girls. Both tribes are fond of the flower of the cockscomb
for this purpose, and when that is not procurable, use the red cotton."
They dance the karma dance in the autumn, thinking that it will procure
them good crops, the dance being a kind of ritual or service and
accompanied by songs in praise of the gods. If the rains fail they
dance every night in the belief that the gods will be propitiated
and send rain.