ad, the knees a little bent, left foot in front, body
slightly forward on the hips, left arm out in front, hand upstretched
with fingers joined, right arm akimbo, with hand behind right hip. The
musicians kneel, stick the forked-stick handle of the _gansa_ in their
gee-strings, with the _gansa_ convex side up on their thighs, and
use both hands, the right sounding the note with a downward stroke,
the left serving to damp the sound. The step is a very dignified,
slow shuffle, accompanied by slow turns and twists of the left hand,
and a peculiar and rapid up-and-down motion of the right.
True to what had been said the day before, a particularly large circle
was formed, and Cootes and I were invited to join, which we did; if
any conclusion may be drawn from the applause we got (for the Ifugaos
clap hands), why, modesty apart, we upheld the honor of the Service.
Every now and then the orators had their turn, for a resounding
"Whoo-o-ee!" would silence the multitudes, and some speaker would
mount the tribune and give vent to an impassioned discourse. One of
these bore on the killing of the prisoner that morning: the orator
declared that he was a bad man, and that he had met with a just end,
that the people must understand that they must behave themselves
properly, and so on. I forget how many speeches were made; but the
tribune was never long unoccupied. Another performance of the day
was the distribution of strips of white onion-skin paper. On one
of his previous trips Mr. Worcester had noticed that the people
had taken an old newspaper he had brought with him, cut it up into
strips, and tied them to the hair by way of ornament. Acting on
this hint, it is his habit to take with him on his trips to this
country thousands of strips, and everybody gets a share according
to rank, a chief five, his wife four, an ordinary person three, and
little children two. Accordingly, he spent hours this day handing
out these strips, for this was a duty that could not be delegated:
the strips must come from the hands of the "Commission" himself. By
afternoon, every man, woman, and child--and there were thousands of
them all told--was flying these white streamers from the head, the
combined resulting effect being pleasing and graceful. Meanwhile the
people kept on coming from their _rancherias_, one arrival creating
something of a stir, being that of the _Princesa_, wife of the orator
who had welcomed us the day before. She came in state,
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