Читать книгу The City of the Sacred Well онлайн
25 страница из 66
They are very dissolute in getting drunk, from which follow many evils such as murder, arson, rape and incest.... They are fond of recreation, especially of dances and of plays containing many jokes and witticisms. They sometimes become servants for a time in a Spanish household just to absorb the conversation and customs and these are later artfully represented in native plays.
Their musical instruments are small kettle-drums played with the hand and another drum made of hollow wood, played with a wooden stick containing on the end a ball made of the milk of a certain tree [rubber]. They have long, slender trumpets fashioned from hollow sticks with gourds fastened at one end. Another instrument is made from a whole turtle-shell, which is played with the palm of the hand and emits a melancholy sound. They have whistles and flutes of reed or bones of the deer and from large snail-shells. These instruments are played for their war-dances. One of these dances is called co-lom-che, meaning reed. A large circle of men is formed. Two go into the center. One has a handful of darts and while dancing in an upright position he casts the darts with all his strength at the second dancer, who dances in a squatting position, from which he deftly catches each dart with a small stick. After the darts are all thrown, these two dancers return to their original places in the circle and two new dancers advance to the center and repeat the dart-throwing. There is another war-dance in which about eight hundred men take part. They carry flags and the tempo is slow. They dance the whole day without stopping and during the whole day not one man gets out of step. In no case do the men dance with the women.