3-077-723 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in the island of Formosa: quaint performance at a savage entertainment, 1890. '[our correspondent] Mr. Edmund Hornby Grimani... met with a tribe of aboriginal savages; and the Sketches now presented give a lively notion of their looks and manners..."One afternoon, I witnessed a curious performance in our courtyard. Two Chinese were dressed up to represent a dragon; the head being managed by a man, and the agile tail by a youth, while a long strip of cotton cloth, joining them, made a respectable though rather limp sort of a body. The head snapped its great jaws, viciously or playfully, at the tail, the latter dodging about to avoid being bitten by the head; their combined contortions producing a ludicrous effect. All the time, a body of Pepuhuans kept up an accompaniment with clanging cymbals. The audience consisted of savages, some of whom appreciated the performance intensely, while one elderly chief, unable to restrain his emotions, leapt into the air and executed a pas seul, he was so charmed with the music of the cymbals".' From "Illustrated London News", 1890.