Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

Q^6 ABORIGINES COROBBERY DANCE. Mavcll called * Cocotu/ had lately arrived from a distance, and as the residents wished to conciliate them, a ' corobbery ' was pro- posed, and Mf. Darwin ensured the compliance of all the savages by providing an immense mess of boiled rice, with sugar, for their entertainment. About two hours after dark the affair began. Nearly all the settlers, and their visitors, had assembled on a level place just outside the village, while the native men belong- ing to both tribes were painting, or rather daubing and spotting their soot-coloured bodies with a white pigment, as they clustered round blazing fires. When all was ready — the fires burning brightly — the gloom at a little distance intense, by contrast, and the spectators collected together — a heavy tramp shook the ground, and a hundred pran- cing demon-like figures emerged from the darkness, bran- dishing their weapons, stamping together in exact accordance, and making hoarse guttural sounds at each exertion. It was a fiendish sight, almost too disagreeable to be interesting. What pains savage man takes — in all parts of the world where he is found — to degrade his nature ; that beautiful combina- tion which is capable of so much intelligence and noble exer- tion when civiHzed and educated. While watching the vaga- ries of these performers, I could not but think of our impru- dence in putting ourselves so completely into their power about thirty unarmed men being intermixed with a hundred armed natives. The dancers were all men ; a short kangaroo- skin" cloak was thrown about their hips, and white feathers were stuck round their heads : many were not painted, but those who were had similar figures on their breasts ; some a cross, others something like a heart. Many had spears, and all had the ' throwing-stick' ; and a kind of hatchet,* in a girdle round the waist. Much of the dancing was monotonous enough, after the first appearance, reminding me of persons working in a treadmill ; but their imitation of snakes, and • This hatchet is made of two pieces of stone, joined together by a lump of gum, almost as hard as tlie stone : it is used for notching trees, that the men may climb after opossums.