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At ten o'clock there was a sudden confusion which brought us all out running. There on the slope between our water (106) point and the village the entire strength of both morungs was embroiled. It had started over the pig-catching - A, of one morung, had bumped or bored B - and somewhere in the middle of the melee were the two original combatants, each with hands locked in the other's thick shock of hair and tugging away till they were almost on the ground. Round them, in one reeling, kicking, struggling, punching, hair- pulling rugger-scrum, were all the friends who had gone to their assistance, the friends who had gone to the aid of the friends, and every other boy or buck able to kick, scratch, or bite; while round the outskirts danced the village elders, screeching shrilly and waving scrawny brown arms - not in any attempt to stop the battle, but shrieking abuse at the enemy and encouragement to their respective grandsons. The cook tiptoed out barefoot, long, lean and timid, took one look, screamed like a rabbit, and ran back to the cookhouse, sobbing aloud and stumbling in his skirt-like 'lungi,' and there had an attack of the vapours in Paodekumba's arms. |
