WHO WOMEN OF SURREY

Evening Star, Issue 19619, 27 July 1927, Page 10

WHO WOMEN OF SURREY

mii KIBIIO KIFT KINDIIED. You. will look in vain for Cynstoko on the map, but I may tell you that it is a, fold' in the Surrey Hills, England, at present peopled by a tribe of Wild Women, among whom 1 am the only male (says a writer in flip ‘London Daily Nows’). “ Wc have named the place Cynsloke in our own language,” said tho larmailteach, the bond woman, “so that it will not bo found out by crowds ol other people.” We arc sitting round Iho camp lire, with tho full moon and the evening star looking down upon us over tho tree-tops. Behind, the semi-circle ot tents gleam in the moonlight, and the painted totem-pole in flic centre of tho circle catches the glow of the flaming faggots. Some of the women are crooning songs full of strange, archaic Saxonsounding words. A group of maidens in green, grey, and brown go solemnly through a. series of ritualistic movements, which, Soangetahn, the deputy head-woman, tells me, represent the mummery of a play called ‘The Castle.’ It is about a king's daughter who was immured in a dungeon because she loved against Her father's wishes. To conic to earth. 1 am spending the evening with the women members of tho Kibbo Kift Kindred, who are having their blaster “hike.'' To-mor-row these hardy, healthy English girls, who are “ wild” only in tho sense Hint they love the wild life of tho woods, will creep out of their tents at 6 o’clock.

They will do a sort ol “daily dozen ” of old English country dances, then each kinswoman will make her own breakfast, pack her tout in her haversack, clear all rubbish, and set out on the march again cross-country to join tho men folk of' the fraternity who have been camping elsewhere. There is nothing these self-reliant maidens do not know about the art ot subduing Nature to tho needs of femininity. The, pack they carry on their valiant shoulders would take the crimp out of a Guardsman’s bearing.

There is nothing “cranky” about them. They arc modern enough to smoko cigarettes and to enjoy a nice “ juicy ” "steak, as one of them confessed. And even in Hie remotest depths of the wild they remember (heir pocket minors. wouldn't, he without my mirror fur anything.” said I,a mini I teach. “ tbe wind blows one's hair all over Hie place.” When 1 left the camp the kinswomen stood in a, eirrlc on Hie firelight and solemnly raised their right, anus in a sort of .Fascist salute.