Word: tapa
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Hulas call for words as well as music. The dancer sings them, is free to improvise or repeat. She gives the accompanying musicians their cues, establishes the time with her swaying hips. Different dances require different costumes. Huapala wore grass skirts, tapa gowns, the Mother Hubbard cloak introduced by missionaries. She described in words and gestures the districts of Hawaii, the torments of despised loves, the varieties of Hawaiian fish. Connoisseurs were interested in her seated dances wherein she swayed from the waist, wriggled sinuous arms, clicked a pair of pebbles called ili ili. Mikel Hanapi, dressed in a cape...
Films used in Professor Dixon's course on Oceanica depict the intimate lives and habits of the Polynesians, Melanesians, and inhabitants of the East Indies. Tribal dances and customs such as fire walking in the Fiji Islands, and tatooing and tapa making in Samoa, are shown in detail...