The first hand to be released is placed in the middle of the player’s palm uppermost, and each succeeding hand is placed upon it in the same manner; sometimes the two hands of a player are placed side by side; the whole pile of hands is raised up and down. One boy with a disengaged hand gently taps the uppermost of the pile of hands three times, holding his index finger vertically downwards while he sings:—

At the end of the refrain the tapped hand is removed, and the nearest ear of the next player is held by it. When all the hands have been released and every ear is held by a hand, the players swing their bodies backwards and forwards, and pulling each other’s ears with more or less vigour, all sing:—

This continues until one of the players gives in.

The words for the ear-pulling may apparently be varied, as some children once sung:—

Mr. Ray saw the korikini game played at Saguane, where it is called kuke.

Kinimali. This is a very similar game to the foregoing. The players, however, pinch up the skin of the back of each other’s hands, the slightly flexed hands being placed one on the top of the other. The whole column is swayed up and down to the following song:—

When this is finished, the top hand is placed at the bottom of the column, palm uppermost, with extended fingers. The song is repeated until all the hands are placed the one on the top of the other. The Toitoi phase then finishes the game.

There appears to be considerable variation in these songs; we found it very difficult to write them down, and when we did, it was still more difficult to get a satisfactory translation; indeed, as with us at home, some words do not appear to have a meaning. This is also the case with many of the men’s legendary songs, the meaning of which is now completely forgotten.

During our stay at Bulaa, we had one or two opportunities of seeing the young people amuse themselves by dancing on the sand beach. All those young men who had drums held them in their left hands and beat them with their extended right hands; one man rhythmically tapped the inside of his lime gourd with its spatula. The girls edged themselves between the men, linking their arms within those of the men. The drum-beats were in triplets (). There was very little movement in the dancing. The men flexed their knees slightly, and the girls swayed their petticoats laterally; in some figures they swayed them backwards and forwards.

There were numerous figures, or separate small dances, in the Bulaa dances. In one that was often repeated the majority of the dancers formed a shaped group, lads and lassies alternating; all these remained in their places. Other dancers, men only, advanced in couples, beating their drums and capering up the central space. In some figures the dancing men zigzagged across the space in a prancing manner as they proceeded up and down; in others they formed two parallel rows, all facing one side of the hollow oblong, and pranced sideways a few steps up and down the space. Then they jumped right round, so as to face the opposite way, and repeated the same process; then back again, and so on. In this dance the girls swayed their petticoats backwards and forwards.

In one figure groups of three—a man and two girls—stood in a series of rows. The active dancing men with drums came up and stood in a row along one side facing the others, and sang a song to the beats of the drums. After doing this three times, they ran round one end of the stationary column, and repeated the song on the other side, facing the others as before.

In another figure all the men and girls formed numerous short rows; this was, I believe, a Motu dance. The men in some of the figures formed a parallel row facing one another, with four others in the middle facing towards one end; the girls were at one end of the short avenue, and they swayed their petticoats laterally. The men then grouped themselves into two rows facing one another at right angles to the previous row. Then the first figure was repeated, only the two rows of men faced outwards instead of inwards, and the central pairs also reversed their previous position.

It is characteristic of some of the dances in the Hood peninsula for the girls to be, as it were, appendages to the dance rather than active participators in it. They make the minimum amount of movement, usually standing their ground, or else slowly advancing and retreating with the general movements of the men. They sway their petticoats sideways, or backwards and forwards; the latter is only a slight movement, but the former is more energetic, and (owing to the petticoat being tied on the right side and the two ends scarcely meeting) exhibits portions of the person which are ordinarily never exhibited, but the tattooing, which is liberally distributed all over the body, gives a half impression of clothing.

I noticed that one figure often merges into another, in which the positions of the dancers are reversed. It is difficult to follow and record all the various movements, but I received the impression that if one could become familiar with the various figures one would find that there is a regular and fairly logical sequence of figures in each of the sets of dances.

There is a dance-leader, or master of ceremonies, and when he gives the signal the drums are rapidly beaten many times in succession to show that set is finished. The character of the dancing was quite similar to that we saw at Babaka, but it is entirely different from the dancing in Torres Straits and the neighbouring coast of British New Guinea. In the west, according to my experience, men and women never dance the same dance together; the single exception known to me was in the case of a particular war dance, kawaladi, at Mabuiag, after a successful foray. Only one or two drums are beaten, and that, so far as I saw, never by those actually engaged in dancing; indeed, the drum-men sit down to beat their drums. Further, only certain people have the right to beat drums, whereas in this part of New Guinea every male dancer may have a drum, which he holds in his hand and often flourishes about when he is dancing.

Although probably every religious ceremony has its appropriate dance or dances, I do not believe that all dancing has a magical or religious significance. I think it would be impossible to prove whether all dances arose from magical or religious dancing; if it be so, this must have been hundreds, or perhaps thousands of years ago; and all record, or even all suspicion of their origin must in some cases have long since disappeared. Here, as in Torres Straits, there are certainly play or secular dances—dances for pure amusement and without any ulterior design.

Some of the men looked very effective with their lithe figures and supple limbs of a bright, warm brown, almost copper-coloured skin, with shell and bead frontlets and a tall stick of scarlet and orange feathers starting up from their dark, bushy hair. Some had shell nose-skewers, most painted their faces in various devices with black paint; round their necks were bead and shell necklaces, sometimes with a pendant boar’s tusk, and armlets and leglets decorated the limbs. The sole article of dress, in the usual acceptance of the term, is a narrow, yellow waist-belt, which also passes between the legs; streamers of a whitish leaf fluttered from various portions of the body.

The girls in these ordinary dances were not specially decorated, at all events in comparison with the men.

During our stay at Bulaa, Ray gave several phonograph demonstrations and recorded some of the local songs. The natives were never tired of listening to the machine, and fully appreciated singing into it, and were very delighted at hearing their songs repeated by it. Altogether we had a very pleasant and profitable trip to this district.

We left Bulaa on June 15th about 9 a.m., and had a fine sail to Kăpăkăpă, arriving there at 12.30. All of us went to call on Dr. and Mrs. Lawes at Vatorata in the afternoon, and received, as before, a kindly welcome. Had afternoon tea, and then on to a small neighbouring Ikoro village of Tagama Keketo, but there was not much to be done there. We saw here a tame white cockatoo, fastened by the leg to a ring chipped out of a coconut which slid along a horizontal pole; subsequently we found this was frequently done in New Guinea. As I have previously stated, the natives are very fond of decorating themselves with feathers, and they wear great bunches of white cockatoo feathers in their hair when dancing. These unfortunate tame cockatoos are periodically plucked to supply feathers for these occasions. After dinner, Ray exhibited the phonograph in the schoolhouse to the students, and continued his philological studies.

We got up early next morning, and Seligmann, Wilkin, and I went to breakfast with Mr. English. We saw his station, which is placed on a hill, and all around are thriving plantations of economic plants that he has introduced into the district, such as coffee, sisal agave, and rubber; the makimaki rubber has been named Ficus rigo by Mr. Bailey, the Queensland botanist.

Then we walked to Gomoridobo, where Wilkin took some photographs, one of which was of a man carving a post for their new dubu. We bought a few things, and I obtained two samples of hair; even here the wavy hair occasionally occurs, and there is a yellowish and brownish tinge in the hair at its tips, especially in young children. The wavy hair proves that there has been racial mixture at least five miles from the coast, or more probably a mingling with coast people, who must have been of mixed origin when they arrived.

Got back to Vatorata at 11.15, and shortly afterwards Dr. Lawes drove us down to Kăpăkăpă, and after a pleasant sail we reached Port Moresby at sunset.