At nights, dances or plays are performed by the different tribes in turn, the figures and scenes of which are extensively varied, but all are accompanied by songs, and a rude kind of music produced by beating two sticks together, or by the action of the hand upon a cloak of skins rolled tightly together, so as to imitate the sound of a drum.  In some of the dances only are the women allowed to take a part; but they have dances of their own, in which the men do not join.  At all times they are the chief musicians, vocal and instrumental.  Sometimes, however, they have an old man to lead the band and pitch the tunes; and at others they are assisted by the old and young men indiscriminately.

The natives have not any war-dance, properly so called, though sometimes they are decorated in all the pomp and circumstance of war.  Being excellent mimies, they imitate in many of their dances the habits and movements of animals.  They also represent the mode of hunting, fighting, love-making, etc.  New figures and new songs are constantly introduced, and are as much applauded and encored, as more refined productions of a similar kind in civilized communities; being sometimes passed from tribe to tribe for a considerable distance.  I have often seen dances performed to songs with which I was acquainted, and which I knew to belong to distant parts of the country where a different dialect was spoken, and which consequently could not be understood where I heard them.  Many of the natives cannot even give an interpretation of the songs of their own districts [Note 65 at end of para.], and most of the explanations they do give are, I am inclined to think, generally very imperfect, as the measures or quantities of the syllables appear to be more attended to than the sense.

[Note 65:  “Not one in ten of the young men who are dancing and singing it, know the meaning of the song they are chaunting over.”—­Catlin, vol. 1. p. 126.  Also the case in New Zealand, with respect to some of the songs.—­Vide Dieffenbach, vol. 2. p. 57.]

Of these amusements the natives are passionately fond; and when once they have so far overcome their naturally indolent disposition as to be induced to engage in them there is no knowing when they will give over.  Dances are sometimes held during the day, but these are of rare occurrence, and seem to be in some way connected with their ceremonial observances or superstitions, since rude figures, and lofty branches of trees, decorated with tufts of feathers, emu plumes, swan’s down and red ochre, occupy a prominent part in the exhibition, although never met with in the dances by night.