Historical records by the colonials conveyed a sense of alienation, judgment, and a failure to comprehend the ceremony’s deeper cultural significance. A common reaction was one of disappointment or boredom, judging the Corroboree purely as a form of entertainment.
Anthony Trollope, after witnessing a performance in the Rottnest prison, which was “the best I saw,” concluded that “there was not much to delight.” Similarly, May Vivienne, after watching a Corroboree in Wiluna, wrote, “it was a novel and weird sight, but a little of it sufficed me.”
R.N. Richard Sadleir described a war dance as presenting a “wild, unearthly, and apparently demoniacal scene.” He elaborates on the “rolling eyes and gleaming teeth, the stamping, beating, brandishing of weapons, and wild excitement, like demons.”
This perception of something sinister is echoed in the account from “The Narrinyeri,” which describes the “dark row of seated women, with rolling eyes and gleaming teeth” and the “eager, swaying forms of the men,” creating a scene that was “indescribably wild.” The observer notes that the sound of a great corroboree heard for the first time would be “appalling or expressive of utter savagely.”
Marcus Clarke, described the Corroboree held for him as a scene where “the women beat skin-drums until they fainted, and the men hacked themselves with knives until they bled.”