hair. She wears a perforated leather apron,
rather like a Masonic apron. A Garuda head finishes her belt behind
and a long strip of leather like a wide, curved tongue, hangs over
each thigh. She wears a loose check coat, like an old-fashioned bed
jacket, and gloves with hairy fingers and very long semi-transparent
nails, such as are worn also by Djaoek dancers. These long trembling
nails are the first thing one sees of Rangda when she issues from
between her umbrellas, covered in the white cloth of invisibility,
painted with magic symbols and figures, which quells her foes when
she waves it against them. This magic, cloth and these magic nails
are an inseparable adjunct of the Rangda mask even when it does not
cover the dread person of the Widow. Equally indispensable are the
tall curved slender banners (oemboel-oemboels), which when held down
with their points crossed in front of her symbolize her flight through
the air; her hoarse, crowing laughter, and the defiant exultation
with which she flings herself backwards and forwards, till her tresses
sweep the ground behind and before.
One remembers Rangda marching forward, covered in a grey figured cloth,
under a green-fringed white umbrella; and beginning to dance, fingering
her banners with her long-nailed black furry paws, uncovering her
grey hair flung frivolously with blossoms, and tottering blindly round,
her tresses streaming; then retiring in a slow prance, till she stands
again immobile beneath her banners in meditation, her back turned
to the dance-floor. One remembers her hung with entrails, her great
breasts swinging as she gallops up |
