17 March
Journal, March 17
I put the party in movement towards Buree and rode across the country on
our right with Piper. We found the earth parched and bare but, as we
bounded over hill and dale a fine cool breeze whispered through the open
forest, and felt most refreshing after the hot winds of Sydney. Dr.
Johnson’s Obidah was not more free from care on the morning of his
journey than I was on this, the first morning of mine. It was also St.
Patrick’s day, and in riding through the bush I had leisure to recall
past scenes and times connected with the anniversary. I remembered that
exactly on that morning, twenty-four years before, I marched down the
glacis of Elvas to the tune of St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning as the
sun rose over the beleaguered towers of Badajoz. Now, without any of the
pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, I was proceeding on a
service not very likely to be peaceful, for the natives here assured me
that the Myalls were coming up murry coola, i.e. very angry, to meet us.
At Buree I rejoined my friend Rankin who had accompanied me from Bathurst
to the camp, and Captain Raine who occupied this place with his cattle. A
hundred sheep and five fat oxen were to be furnished by this gentlemen to
complete my commissariat supplies.
CORROBORY-DANCE OF THE NATIVES.
In the evening the blacks, having assembled in some numbers, entertained
us with a corrobory, their universal and highly original dance. (See
Plate.) Like all the rest of the habits and customs of this singular race
of wild men, the corrobory is peculiar and, from its uniformity on every
shore, a very striking feature in their character. The dance always takes
place at night, by the light of blazing boughs, and to time beaten on
stretched skins, accompanied by a song.* The dancers paint themselves
white, and in such remarkably varied ways that no two individuals are at
all alike. Darkness seems essential to the effect of the whole; and the
painted figures coming forward in mystic order from the obscurity of the
background, while the singers and beaters of time are invisible, have a
highly theatrical effect. Each dance seems most tastefully progressive;
the movement being at first slow, and introduced by two persons
displaying graceful motions both of arms and legs, others one by one join
in, each imperceptibly warming into the truly savage attitude of the
corrobory jump; the legs then stride to the utmost, the head is turned
over one shoulder, the eyes glare and are fixed with savage energy all in
one direction, the arms also are raised and inclined towards the head,
the hands usually grasping waddies, boomerangs, or other warlike weapons.
The jump now keeps time with each beat, the dancers at every movement
taking six inches to one side, all being in a connected line, led by the
first. The line however is sometimes doubled or tripled according to
space and numbers; and this gives great effect, for when the front line
jumps to the LEFT, the second jumps to the RIGHT, the third to the LEFT
again, and so on; until the action acquires due intensity, when all
simultaneously and suddenly stop. The excitement which this dance
produces in the savage is very remarkable. However listless the
individual may be, laying perhaps, as usual, half asleep; set him to this
dance, and he is fired with sudden energy, and every nerve is strung to
such a degree that he is no longer to be recognised as the same person
until he ceases to dance, and comes to you again. There can be little
doubt that the corrobory is the medium through which the delights of
poetry are enjoyed, in a limited degree, even by these primitive savages
of New Holland.
(*Footnote. To this end they stretch a skin very tight over the knees,
and thus may be said to use the tympanum in its rudest form, this being
the only instance of a musical instrument that I have seen among them.
Burder says: “By the timbrels which Miriam and the other women played
upon when dancing, we are to understand the tympanum of the ancient
Greeks and Romans, which instrument still bears in the East the name that
it is in Hebrew, namely, doff or diff, whence is derived the Spanish
adufe, the name of the Biscayan tabor. Niebuhr describes this instrument
in his Travels Part 1 page 181. It is a broad hoop, with a skin stretched
over it; on the edge there are generally thin round plates of metal,
which also make some noise when this instrument is held up in one hand
and struck with the fingers of the other hand. Probably no musical
instrument is so common in Turkey as this; for when the women dance in
the harem the time is always beat on this instrument. We find the same
instrument on all the monuments in the hands of the Bacchante. It is also
common among the negroes of the Gold Coast and Slave Coast.” Oriental
Customs Volume 1.)