These beliefs and customs among the Indians have made it possible to preserve their songs without change from one generation to another. Many curious and interesting proofs of accuracy of transmittal have come to my knowledge during the past twenty years, while studying these primitive melodies.

Indian singing was always in unison; and, as the natural soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass moved along in octaves, the different qualities of tone in the voices brought out the overtones and produced harmonic effects. When listening to chorals sung by two or three hundred voices, as I have many times heard them in ceremonials, it has been difficult to realise that all were singing in unison.

Close and continued observation has revealed that the Indian, when he sings, is not concerned with the making of a musical presentation to his audience. He is simply pouring out his feelings, regardless of artistic effects. To him music is subjective: it is the vehicle of communication between him and the object of his desire.

Certain peculiarities in the Indian's mode of singing make it difficult for one of our race to intelligently hear their songs or to truthfully transcribe them.

There is no uniform key for any given song, for the Indians have no mechanical device for determining pitch to create a standard by which to train the ear. This, however, does not affect the song; for, whatever the starting note, the intervals bear the same relation to each other, so that the melody itself suffers no change with the change of pitch.

Again, the continual slurring of the voice from one tone to another produces upon us the impression of out-of-tune singing. Then, the custom of singing out of doors, to the accompaniment of the drum, and against the various noises of the camp, and the ever-restless wind, tending to strain the voice and robbing it of sweetness, increases the difficulty of distinguishing the music concealed within the noise,—a difficulty still further aggravated by the habit of pulsating the voice, creating a rhythm within the rhythm of the song.

Emotion also affects the rendering of Indian music. This is especially noticeable in solos, as love-songs, where the singer quite unconsciously varies from a quarter to a whole tone from the true pitch. On the contrary, emphasis sharps the tone. If, however, these peculiarities are imitated to him, the Indian immediately detects, and declares them to be wrong, thus betraying his unconsciousness of his own inaccuracies in endeavouring to strike a plain diatonic interval.

Our difficulty in hearing the music of the Indian is equalled by the trouble he has with our instruments. His attention is engaged by the mechanism. He hears the thud of the hammer, "the drum inside" the piano, the twanging of the metal strings, and the abrupt, disconnected tones. Until he is able to ignore these noises he cannot recognise the most familiar tune. Even then, if his songs are played as an unsupported aria, they are unsatisfactory to him. His ear misses something it heard in the unison singing of his people, and which the addition of a simple harmonic accompaniment supplies, making the melody, as he says, "sound natural." The discovery of the Indian's preference in the rendition of his songs upon the piano led to many experiments, in which Professor Fillmore took part, and that brought to light many interesting facts. Among these facts may be mentioned the complexity of rhythms, one played against the other; the modulation implied in some of the melodies; the preference for a major chord in closing a minor song; and the use of certain harmonic relations which have been deemed peculiar to the modern romantic school.

As these melodies are the spontaneous utterances of a people without any theory of music or even a musical notation, they throw light upon the structure, development, and freedom of natural expression in music.



THE RELATION OF STORY AND SONG.

The rise of our music and poetry is lost in an irrevocable past; but, as the operation of psychical laws is universal, it may be that some of the influences that have been operative in the growth of these arts can be discovered through the study of native American story and song, born of a race living in a state of culture antecedent to that in which our earliest literature and music flourished.

Within a generation diligent search has begun among some of the Indian tribes, to ascertain, through a sympathetic study of rites, ceremonies, and customs, what were the red man's ideals, what his beliefs, and what his actual attainments. Already this labour is bearing fruit. Scholars are recognising that the aboriginal conditions on this continent throw light on the slow development of human society and its institutions; and the time seems not distant when students of man's culture will turn hither for evidence needed to fill gaps or to explain phases in the development of art,—art in form, in colour, and in melody,—for, it has been well said, America is the "fossil bed" where are preserved stages of progress unrecorded in written history.

In Indian story and song we come upon a time where poetry is not yet differentiated from story and story not yet set free from song. We note that the song clasps the story as a part of its being, and the story itself is not fully told without the cadence of the song. Yet in even the most primitive examples a line of demarcation can be discerned; and when this line has deepened, and differentiation has begun, we are able to trace the formative influence exerted by story upon song and by song upon story, and can observe what appear to be the beginnings of musical and poetical structure.

The brevity of Indian songs at once arrests attention. They begin without introduction, almost abruptly, breaking out upon us as though surcharged. This peculiarity arises from the relation of the song to the story. The story is always founded upon a dramatic circumstance, in which at some point the emotion is forced to find a means of expression beyond the limitation of words alone; and the song is the result. This dramatic circumstance may be a danger confronted or averted, a valorous deed achieved or a difficulty surmounted, a religious experience or an ardent craving for supernatural aid. The Omaha tribal prayer will serve as an illustration, where the cry to Wa-kon-da is the climatic voicing of the youth's desire in the midst of his weary vigil and fasting. His long preparation for the rite, the solitude of his surroundings, the suffering of mind and body as alone he faces nature and the supernatural,—all these conditions make the story, and, to the Indian, form the true setting of the song.

The motive of a song and its distinctive rhythm were determined by the emotion evoked by the dramatic circumstance. The simplest resultant of this directive emotion in music is a pulsating rhythm on a single tone. Such songs are not random shoutings, but have a definite meaning for those who sing and for those who listen, as in this Navaho ritual song.

[Music]

From this extremely simple expression the growth of the musical motive can be traced in these Indian songs through the use of two or more tones up to the employment of the full complement of the octave.[12]

[Footnote 12: A careful analysis of hundreds of aboriginal songs, gathered from the arctic seas to the tropics, shows that in every instance the line taken by these tones is a chord-line where the tones are harmonically related to each other. Out of these related tones the untutored savage has built his simple melodies. The demonstration of the interesting fact that "the line of least resistance" in music is a harmonic line was made by my late associate, Professor John Comfort Fillmore.]

[Music: A PRAYER FOR RAIN.

Mexico. Tarahumare.

From DR. CARL LUMHOLTZ.]

[Music: SONG.

British Columbia. Kwakiutl.

PROF. J.C. FILLMORE.]

The creation of that which we know as musical form seems also to be due to the influence of story upon song. We have already noted how the directive emotion started the distinctive rhythm and determined the order of the related tones, and so constructed the motive or theme. But neither the rhythm nor the simple motive could express the movement of the dramatic story: hence we find this expressed by the repetition, modification, and variation of the motive, the growth of the phrase, the formation of the clause, and the grouping of clauses into a period,—in fact, the outline of the form upon which all our culture music is built. Culture music, however, shows an intellectual control of emotion, a power of musical thinking, the enlarging and embellishing of musical form,—a form, nevertheless, which we find outlined, more or less clearly, in the songs of the untutored red man. The difference between these spontaneous Indian melodies and the compositions of the modern masters would seem to be not one of kind, but one of degree.

As these songs are from a race practically without musical instruments,—for the drum and rattle were used only to accentuate rhythm,—they are representative of the period when the human voice was the sole means of musical expression,—a period which antedated the invention of instruments by an immeasurable time. They prove, therefore, that musical form was not developed, as has sometimes been stated, by the use of instruments, but that it took its rise in a mental necessity similar to that which gave structure to language.

The influence of song upon story is seen in the attempt to bend prose to a poetic form.

Many Indian songs have no words at all, vocables only being used to float the voice. On classifying these wordless songs, we discover that those which are expressive of the gentle emotions have flowing, breathing vocables, but, where warlike feelings dominate the song, the vocables are aspirate and explosive. In this determinate use of vocables we happen upon what seems to represent the most primitive attempt yet discovered to give intellectual definition in verbal form to an emotion voiced in rhythm and melody.

In songs where words are employed, we also find vocables which are in accord with the spirit of the song, used to make the words conform to the musical phrase. These vocables are either appended to the word or else inserted between its syllables, to give length or added euphony. We also note a desire for rhyming, since vocables similar in sound frequently occur at the end of each musical phrase.

It would lead into too many details to present the various devices discernible in this aboriginal material by which the Indian sought euphony and measure. Nor can it be easily illustrated how words of many different languages were bent by elisions or stretched by vocables, that they might conform to the musical phrase. There is abundant evidence that the ear, accustomed to the pleasure of the rhythmic cadence of the song, was beginning to demand a corresponding metrical use of words in expressing the poetic thought involved in the dramatic story which gave birth to the music.

The art of poetry is here in its infancy, giving even less sign of its future development than music, which had already acquired the outline of that form which has since crystallised into the art of music. Notwithstanding, we find that words were chosen for their descriptive power, and that they were made rhythmical to fit the melody. Like the swelling buds on the bare branch, which hint the approach of summer's wealth, so these little vocables and rhythmic devices whisper the coming of the poets.

THE END