latter could attend to directly, and the fact that natives sometimes took up the tune and sang back was an additional, but perhaps unexpected, benefit.
Two recent historical works have focused on other elements of the colonial repertoire: dancing (Clendinnen 2005) and shaking hands (Shellam 2009). At Sydney Cove, 29 January 1788, three days after landfall, Lieutenant William Bradley “had his first meeting with the Australians. It was a remarkably friendly encounter, the British party being welcomed ashore by unarmed men who pointed out a good landing place ‘in the most cheerful manner, shouting and dancing’ ” (Clendinnen 2005:8). Then, Bradley says, “ ‘these people mixed with ours and all hands danced together.’ The next day at Spring Cove there was another impromptu dance party when about a dozen of the local men came paddling in soon after the British landed, left their spears in their canoes as a sign of friendship, and all proceeded to more ‘dancing and otherwise amusing themselves’ ” (ibid., 8).
With reference to this dancing reproduced on the cover of her book Dancing with Strangers, Inga Clendinnen (2005:9) comments: “What [Bradley] shows us is the British and the Australians dancing hand in hand like children at a picnic: that is, dancing in the British style…. Furthermore, the pairs are scattered over the whole foreground, with none of the local preference for formation dancing, which reinforces my suspicion that it was the British who took the initiative.” I share Clendinnen’s suspicion: that the English took the initiative in this combined English-Aboriginal dancing, as they did in producing music. (There is evidence of Aborigines dancing by themselves and at a distance, perhaps not in welcome but self-protectively or to induce outsiders to approach; see, e.g., Bradley 1969:66; Baudin 1974:322.)
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