13. SINGING, DANCING, ENTERTAINMENT

Of the songs that were sung, one was "The tide has gone down over the reef. I walk around the world. There is great wind and rain."

Some of these dances I was able to understand even without explanation. One of them represented Biliku. The performer held in his right hand a shell, and as he danced grotesquely round the open space he looked fiercely at the spectators and threatened to throw the shell at them. Many of the women and children could not prevent themselves from starting backwards when he thus threatened them, but their fears were immediately dispelled in laughter. The shell was not a pearl-shell (be) but a Cyrenia shell (bun), but I believe that this was because there was no pearl shell available. The representation of Biliku was thus reduced to a single gesture, that of threatening the natives with her pearl-shell (lightning).

Another dance represented the jungle spirits (Bido-tets Lau). In this he first hid himself behind a screen of bido leaves (Calamus tigrinus) that had been prepared, singing a song. The leaves represented a clump of the Calamus palm such as is supposed to be the favorite haunt of the jungle spirits. After having sung for some time behind his screen of leaves, he came out with a bow and arrow in his hand, and as he danced in front of the spectators he pretended to shoot at them.

In another dance he represented Ele, the lightning. He sat on a stone that had been placed in the middle of the open space, swinging his arms to the time of the chorus, and every now and then shaking his leg.

This observation is an important one in several ways. Although I asked the man to repeat it, in order that I might make fuller notes and obtain explanations of many obscure points, and although he grudgingly said that he would, yet he did not do so. He was, moreover, very reserved over the matter, and not very willing to talk about his performance.

The Onge word for 'dance' is onolabe, from onola='others' or 'beyond' or 'above all' and wabe='crying out' or 'feeling.' The meaning is obvious. We have already met the erotic dances that some Onge women put on for the benefit of honored male visitors. There are other dances and songs in which they recall legendary or extraordinary recent evens, usually to do with hunting and fishing or with contact to outsiders. One such song was sung and danced in honor of a visiting Italian anthropologist in the early 1950s. The visitor was in the habit of stringing up his hammock between two trees and sleeping in it. This seemed highly hazardous to the Onge who composed a song warning their guest of the danger of trusting such thin cords.

Spontaneous informal dances of pure exuberance by individuals and small groups (with the sexes always dancing separately) are still common among the Onge. In such dances the participants hold each other by the arms to make a simple circle. Their dancing, as that of the Jarawa as far as it is known, involved and still involves much slapping with hands and a movement in which the buttocks are slapped with a thrown-back leg.