During ceremonies, dancing is their vehicle to enter the spiritual world. Following the rhythm of bamboo and python snake skin drums and bells, the sikeireis perform below the hanging skulls of monkeys and boars. Knees always kept slightly flexed and apart and trunks deflected in imitation of animal positions. Sometimes, their feet stay in place, and only their bodies swing up and down. At other times their feet frenetically and strongly stroke the wood floor following the rhythm of the drums.
Dancers move their bodies from one side to the other , first slowly then quickly, imitating birds.
From deep throaty chants like those of the American plains Indians to sounds imitating the cries of animals, the songs vary greatly. In this intensely charged atmosphere some of the dancers enter a trance, a spiritual communication transporting them to a different world. Carried away by this local magic, I too entered another world where nothing made any sense. The life I knew, the village, the jungle surrounding us, all this didn't exist anymore. The combined energy of the dancers in my presence was absorbing all my thoughts and feelings.