A word may well be expended on the subject of the organisation of the laughing propensity into regular amusements among savage tribes. One of the things which a white man can learn from these much-misunderstood peoples is the art of social entertainment. Without luxurious salons, without plate and rare wines, without the theatre and the concert hall, they manage to obtain a good deal of genuine, unpretentious conviviality. When, writes one traveller, they are relieved of the presence of strangers they have much easy social conversation. Round their own fires they sing and chat, and older men lie and brag about feats in war and chase. “Jokes pass freely and the laugh is long if not loud.”[204] A standard dish in these social entertainments is taking off the peculiarities of other tribes and of Europeans. Mimicry, the basis of the actor’s art, is often carried to a high degree of perfection among these uncouth savages; and it is highly prized. When, writes a missionary of the tribes of the remote part of Victoria, a native is able to imitate the peculiarities of some absent member of the tribe, it is very common to hear all in the camp convulsed with laughter.[205] The Indians of Brazil hold the peculiarities, _e.g._, the beard, of other tribes up to laughter by means {248} of a lively pantomime.[206] This mimicry, as might be expected, embraces the odd ways of the white man. The natives of New South Wales used to be so skilful in this art that one wrote of them: “Their mimicking of the oddities, dress, walk, gait and looks of all the Europeans whom they have seen from the time of Governor Phillips downwards, is so exact as to be a kind of historic register of their several actions and characters”.[207] The same authority tells us that the Tahitians are acute observers of the manners, actions, and even looks of strangers; and if they have any singular imperfections or oddities, they will not fail to make themselves merry at their expense.[208] Another traveller certifies to the fact that the aborigines of Victoria were splendid mimics, and would, after attending the white man’s church, “take a book and with much success imitate the clergyman in his manner, laughing and enjoying the applause which they received”.[209] A turn for mimicry is found also among the North American Indians. The Californian Indians gave to the American whites the name “Wo’hah,” formed from “whoa-haw,” the sound they heard the early emigrants produce when they drove their oxen. “Let an Indian see an American coming up the road, and cry out to his fellows: ‘There comes a wo’hah,’ at the same time swinging his arm as if driving oxen, and it will produce convulsive laughter.”[210] Along with this skill in mimicry, savages show considerable readiness in the verbal arts of descriptive caricature, witty sayings and repartee. In practising these, we are told, they make ample use of the instrument of irony.