The gathering crowd of costumed villagers, one by one, soon began to respond with slow movements of their arms, legs, and bodies, then faster and faster, until almost everyone had joined the dancing.
Kunta had seen such ceremonies for many plantings and harvests, for men leaving to hunt, for weddings, births and deaths, but the dancing had never moved him--in a way he niether understood nor was able to resist--as it did now. Every adult in the village seemed to be saying with his body something that was in his or her mind alone.
Then Kunta's eyes widened as he caught sight of his own father. Omoro's knees were churning high, his feet stomping up dust. With ripping cries, he reared backward, muscles trembling, then lunged forward, hammering at his chest, and went leaping and twisting in the air, landing with heavy grunts.
The pounding heart beat of the drums seemed to throb not only in Kunta's ears but also in his limbs. Almost without his knowing it, as if it were a dream, he felt his body begin to quiver and him arms to flail, and soon he was springing and shouting along with the others, whom he had ceased to notice. Finally he stumbled and fell, exhausted.
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