One of the most curious of primitive dances is the Corroberie Dance of the natives of Australia. It is thus described by Carl Engel: 'Twenty or more men paint their naked dark bodies to represent skeletons, which they accomplish by drawing white lines across the body with pipe-clay to correspond with the ribs, and broader ones on the arms, legs, and the head. Thus prepared they perform the Corroberie at night before a fire. The spectators, placed at some distance from them, see only the white skeletons, which vanish and reappear whenever the dancers turn around. The wild and ghastly action of the skeletons is accompanied by vocal effusions and some rhythmical noise which a number of hidden bystanders produce by beating their shields in regular time.’ Here is the melody of one of these Corroberie dances. This melody is from New South Wales and has been noted with slight variations by Wilkes, Field, and Freycinet. The version of Field is given: [Illustration: Music] A-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, gum-be-ry jah! 'jin gum re-lah’ gum-be-ry jah! 'jin gum re-lah’ a bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang, a-bang. But it is, perhaps, among the American Indians, of all savage peoples, that the dance assumes its greatest importance. The very term 'dance’ often means a ceremony covering several days; the whole consisting of many individual dances, recitations, and songs, and forming a ritual of a quasi-religious or pantheistic character. Their ceremonies are usually appeals to the gods for rain, abundant crops, luck in hunting, or good fortune in war. Thus there is the Great Rain Dance of the Junis; the Sun Dance of the Cheyennes; and the Snake Dance of the Hopis. The Snake Dance is an elaborate ceremony of several days’ duration, during which live rattlesnakes are on occasion carried in the hands and even held between the teeth while a dignified and 'stamping’ sort of dance goes forward. It is primarily an invocation to the gods for rain. Two melodies used in the Snake Dance are here given, as noted by Benjamin Ives Gilman: [Illustration: N.º 1.] [Illustration: N.º 2.]