Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1887 — Soudanese Marriage Dance. [ARTICLE]

Soudanese Marriage Dance.

The festivities that accompany a marriage in the Soudan have much of the character of a public entertainment, but most especially in the terpsichorean department of the same. As in more civilized communities, the ladies take a special delight in moving their feet to the sound of music, but the music in these equatorial regions is very harsh to the European ear, as might be expected, consisting as it does of “tumming” on a drum (kid-skin stretched over a copper vessel) and a few twanging notes on a harp-like instrument, more pleasing to the eye than to the ear, as it is decorated with bands of beads and with feathers. Time being all-important to the dancers, this is made more marked by one of the latter, who wears a girdle from which innumerable cowrie shells are suspended, and which clash together violently as the man sways his body from side to side. Men and women both chant a few monotonous bars, the ladies occasionally varying the sound with a shrill screeching. The dancing is also of the simplest description, the performers stamping the ground with their feet and clapping their hands, the women being arranged together in ranks, whilst the men, of whom only three or four dance together at the same time, caper about in a small open space left for them. Endurance seems to be the object of all, but more especially on the part of the men, who also attempt to outvie each other in saying funny things, in which no d'oubfc some of them succeed, judging by the laughter they create amongst on-lookers and performers alike. Under the hot desert sun one can easily imagine that the perspiration is free, and the atmosphere in the small circle not exceedingly wholesome, nevertheless there is a woman (sometimes more than one) with her garments drawn over her head, who, kneeling on the heated earth in the humblest posture, sways backward and forward, with her face apparently resting in the dust. I was told this was the wife, but I think that is doubtful, from what is generally related of the seclusive habits of the Arabs, but it is, at any rate, truly symbolical of the position of the female slave, styled a wife, amongst these fanatical savages* Before starting into improve others let us improve ourselvos.—Pomercw’4 Democrat.