Suddenly a change came over the scene. The tom-toms sounded a series of sharp insistent strokes. The moon, emerging from friendly clouds, shed a brilliant light upon the place where we had hitherto remained hidden in shadow, and the crowd, grown aware of our presence, began to scatter. We withdrew with all possible speed since nothing further was to be learnt by delay. After our departure the mystic dance began once more and continued, as could be heard from the far-away drumming, almost till the first rays of dawn. On 26th July chance led us to pass by Chief Eleche’s compound while a ceremony connected with the Aya-Eke cult was in progress. Under the Obiri shed, a band of various drums, together with a particularly sweet-toned xylophone formed of cork-wood slabs laid upon fresh-cut plantain stems, was playing. To the sound of this music danced the chief of Elele Aliminni (Ale by the water) with his three principal wives. Two points were specially noticeable in the performance; first, the intense solemnity of the dancers, and, secondly, the way in which their oneness of purpose was emphasised by gesture. This is the only West African dance witnessed by us in which the performers continually linked arms, or twined these round one another’s shoulders and waists. When Chief Eleche was questioned as to the meaning of the ceremony, he said that it was performed in order to draw down the blessing of the great Juju Aya-Eke on the chief of Elele Aliminni, his family and crops, before beginning to dig the first yams of the year. A few weeks later came one of the greatest disappointments of our tour. By means of much planning it had been made possible, though with considerable difficulty, to arrive at Elele on the day before that fixed for the great yam festival, which we were anxious to witness. As ill fortune would have it, however, a runner came in in the late afternoon to bring tidings of trouble which was thought likely to break out in a far-off corner and to prevent which the presence of the white man was needed. To hesitate under such circumstances was of course naturally impossible. So the crowning ceremony of the year, the Aya-Eke harvest festival, was perforce missed. IX ALE AND THE ANCESTORS