Of the people of Torres Straits Haddon states (Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 222):  “It was during the secular dance, or Kap, that the girls usually lost their hearts to the young men.  A young man who was a good dancer would find favor in the sight of the girls.  This can be readily understood by anyone who has seen the active, skilful, and fatiguing dances of these people.  A young man who could acquit himself well in these dances must be possessed of no mean strength and agility, qualities which everywhere appeal to the opposite sex.  Further, he was decorated, according to local custom, with all that would render him more imposing in the eyes of the spectators.  As the former chief of Mabuiag put it, ’In England if a man has plenty of money, women want to marry him; so here, if a man dances well they too want him.’  In olden days the war-dance, which was performed after a successful foray, would be the most powerful excitement to a marriageable girl, especially if a young man had distinguished himself sufficiently to bring home the head of someone he had killed.”

Among the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, New Guinea, “when a boy admires a girl, he will not look at her, speak to her, or go near her.  He, however, shows his love by athletic bounds, posing, and pursuit, and by the spearing of imaginary enemies, etc., before her, to attract her attention.  If the girl reciprocates his love she will employ a small girl to give to him an ugauga gauna, or love invitation, consisting of an areca-nut whose skin has been marked with different designs, significant of her wish to ugauga.  After dark he is apprised of the place where the girl awaits him; repairing thither, he seats himself beside her as close as possible, and they mutually share in the consumption of the betel-nut.”  This constitutes betrothal; henceforth he is free to visit the girl’s house and sleep there.  Marriages usually take place at the most important festival of the year, the kapa, preparations for which are made during the three previous months, so that there may be a bountiful and unfailing supply of bananas.  Much dancing takes place among the unmarried girls, who, also, are tattooed at this time over the whole of the front of the body, special attention being paid to the lower parts, as a girl who is not properly tattooed there possesses no attraction in the eyes of young men.  Married women and widows and divorced women are not forbidden to take part in these dances, but it would be considered ridiculous for them to do so. (R.E.  Guise, “On the Tribes of the Wanigela River,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, new series, vol. i, 1899, pp. 209, 214 et seq.)

In the island of Nias in the Malay Archipelago, Modigliani (mainly on the excellent authority of Sundermann, the missionary) states, at a wedding “dancing and singing go on throughout the day.