Corroboree

Curious Procession Creates
Interest
Darwin residents were amazed on
Sunday to find aborigines, hideously
bedaubed with mud and ochre and
armed with bundles of spears, con
ducting a corroboree in the main
street. The natives chanted, shouted,
and danced down the street, to the ac
companiment of yells of delight from
a crowd of blacks clad in cast-off Euro
pean garments, until they reached the
corner of the aboriginal compound.
There they began a corroooree and
took possession of the whole road, but
the superintendent of the compound
(Mr. L. Samut) tactfully induced them
to gointo the compound and to con
clude their tribal ceremonies on the
compound beach.
The corroboree was part of a cere
mony conducted by natives who re
cently came from Bathurst Island.
There are considerable numbers of
aborigines in Darwin. They have
come in for the shelter afforded at the
compound during the wet season.
Tlie procession in the street
was a curious one. The. abo
rigines conducting the proceedings
were In then' wildest state, probably
the same as they were before white
men settled the country, but others
were dressed in odd particles of cloth
Ing. A few even wore collars and ties,
while the procession was followed by
several blacks riding push bikes.
When -the corroboree in the com
pound 'was finished, the blacks con
ducted a game of Australian football,
at which they are expert.