CHAPTER X.

AMUSEMENTS.


Under the head of _amusements_, dancing, wrestling, boxing, fencing,
and a variety of games and sports, call for description, and to these
we shall briefly advert.

_Dancing_ was a common entertainment on festive occasions, such as a
marriage. Some of their dances were in the daytime, and, like
dress-balls of other countries, were accompanied with a display of
fancy mats and other Samoan finery. At the night assemblies the men
dressed in their short leaf aprons. Sometimes only the men danced, at
other times women, and occasionally the parties were mixed. They
danced in parties of two, three, and upwards, on either side. If the
one party moved in one direction, the other party took the opposite.
They had also various gesticulations, which they practised with some
regularity. If, for example, the one party moved along with the right
arm raised, the other did precisely the same. It was posturing rather
than saltation.

Singing, clapping the hands, beating time on the floor-mats, and
drumming, were the usual musical accompaniments. Their music, on these
occasions, was a monotonous chant of a line or two, repeated over and
over again, with no variety beyond two or three notes. They sought
variety rather in _time_. They began slow, and gradually increased
until, at the end of ten or twenty minutes, they were full of