Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
Sometimes there is a huge imitation of an alligator made of logs plastered over with earth and painted in stripes of different colours, a piece of wood cut open stuck in at one end as a gaping mouth. This alligator corroboree is generally indicative of a Boorah, or initiation ceremony, being near at hand. Sometimes the stage effects are high painted poles merely.
They mimicked the high stomach as they stood, as the dead man had stood, with arms aloft in rebellion against his lot, and fell back, as he had fallen, screaming, to kick and wallow on the ground. Here was plot and matter for ludicrous corroboree, the first rehearsal of which took place on the scene. Soon curiosity took possession of the unstable actors.
In the distance rose a pillar of sparks and fire, which marked the place where the performers were preparing for the corroboree, a name given to their dancing by these savages, and presently 200 men and 60 boys in nudity came from among the forest trees. Each dancer was provided with a bunch of leaves fastened above the knee, which, as they stamped in unison, made a loud switching noise.
But should any existing relatives turn up, I shall be only too happy to place at their disposal all the information I possess. Presently, I grasped the whole terrible affair, and realised it as absolute fact! My first impulse was to leap from the corroboree and go and reassure the unhappy victims in person, telling them at the same time that they might count on my assistance to the last.
She whispered to Dot that it would be nice for a little Human to see some other Humans after being so long amongst bush creatures, and said, also, that there would be no great danger in hopping to a rock that would command a view of the open ground where the corroboree was being held.
It was magnificent, but I am sure it was not war. The braves of both sides decorated themselves with many pigments in the evening, and the two tribes united in one gigantic corroboree, which was kept up all night, and for several days afterwards.
A shout from Moongarr Bill cut short the monotonous corroboree tune which the two black boys had been singing at their camp some little distance away. 'My word, I believe YARRAMAN* break him hobble! At which the boys scampered off through the grass, and presently came the cracking of a stock whip among the trees.
Sometimes the women would cease beating the skin bags to clap their hands and strike their sides, yelling the words of the corroboree song, as the painted figures, like fiends and skeletons, danced before the row of fires. It was a terrifying sight to Dot. "Oh, Kangaroo!" she whispered, "they are dreadful, horrid creatures." "They're just Humans," replied the Kangaroo, indulgently.
The corroboree was, at any rate, a howling success. It took place at night, and the performers, painted in fantastic colors, danced or leaped about before a blazing fire. Some were rigged and painted like birds and beasts, in which the emu and kangaroo were well represented. One fellow leaped like a frog.
The black fellows having learnt where the nest was, would get their net and go out to camp near it. All that evening they would have an emu-hunting corroboree. The next morning at daylight they would erect their net into a sort of triangular-shaped yard, one side open. Black fellows would be stationed at each end of the net, and at stated intervals along the mirroon, as the net was called.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking