[124] W. Bogoras, Publications of Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol.
VIII, Chukchee Texts, p. 133.
“I call Raven. My abdomen I make into a bay. The bay is frozen.
Icebound rubbish is there. All this rubbish is frozen in the ice of
the bay. It is the disease of my stomach. Oh, you my stomach, you are
full of pain. I make you into a frozen bay, into an old ice floe,
into a bad ice floe.
“Oh, Oh! I call to Raven. You Raven travel around from very remote
times. I want your assistance. What are you going to do with this bay
that is frozen? Mischievous people made it freeze; you have a strong
beak, what are you going to do?”
Sometimes these parts of tales are in an archaic form, or in a
foreign language, so that they may be quite unintelligible. Their
impressiveness rests on the form and the general emotional trend of the
passages in which they occur.
When such passages are discourse they are probably the best material
for the study of literary style.
From these remarks let us turn to a few general characteristics
of literary style, first of all to a consideration of rhythm and
repetition.
The investigation of primitive narrative as well as of poetry proves
that repetition, particularly rhythmic repetition, is one of its
fundamental, esthetic traits.
It is not easy to form a just opinion regarding the rhythmic character
of formal prose; in part because the rhythmic sense of primitive people
is much more highly developed than our own. The simplification of the
rhythm of modern folk song, and of poetry intended to appeal to popular
taste, has dulled our feeling for rhythmic form. I have referred to
this question before when discussing the complexity of rhythm in
decorative art. It requires careful study to understand the structure
of primitive rhythm, more so in prose than in song, because in this
case the help of the melodic pattern is lacking.
Rhythmic repetition of contents and form is found commonly in
primitive narrative. For example, the tales of the Chinook Indians
are often so constructed that five brothers, one after another, have
the same adventure. The four elder ones perish while the youngest
one emerges safe and successful. The tale is repeated verbatim for
all the brothers, and its length, which to our ear and to our taste
is intolerable, probably gives pleasure by the repeated form.[125]
Conditions are quite similar in European fairy tales relating to the
fates of three brothers, two of whom perish or fail in their tasks,
while the youngest one succeeds. Similar repetitions are found in the
German tale of Redridinghood, in the widely spread European story of
the rooster who goes to bury his mate, or in the story of the three
bears. In Oriental tales the incidents of the tale are sometimes
repeated verbatim being retold by one of the heroes.
[125] Franz Boas, Chinook Texts, Bull. Bur. of Ethnol. Washington D.
C., (1894), pp. 9 et seq.
A few additional examples taken from the narratives of foreign people
will illustrate the general occurrence of the tendency to repetition.
In the Basuto tale called Kumonngoe a man leads his daughter into
the wilderness where she is to be devoured by a cannibal. On the way
he meets three animals and the son of a chief. In each case the same
conversation ensues. “Where are you leading your daughter?”—“Ask
herself, she is grown up.” She replies:
“I have given to Hlabakoane, Kumonngoe,[126]
To the herd of our cattle Kumonngoe
I thought our cattle were going to stay in the kraal, Kumonngoe,
And so I gave him my father’s Kumonngoe.”
[126] The girl had a brother named Hlabakoane, to whom she had given a
magical food, called Kumonngoe, that belonged to her father and that
the girl had been forbidden to touch. E. Jacottet, The Treasury of
Basuto Lore, Vol. 1, (1908), p. 114.
In an Omaha tale[127] of a Snake-Man it is related that a man flees
from a serpent. Three helpers in succession give him moccasins which,
on the following morning return of their own accord to their owners,
and every time the same conversation is repeated. When the serpent goes
in pursuit it asks every animal for information in exactly the same
words. In a tradition of the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island the same
formula is repeated forty times together with the description of the
same ceremonial. In the tales of the Pueblo Indians the same incident
is repeated four times as happening to four sisters; the yellow, red,
blue, and white girls. In a Siberian tale of the Hare we hear that a
hunter hides under the branches of a fallen willow tree. One hare after
another appears in order to browse, espies the hunter and runs away.
In a Papua tale from New Guinea the birds come one after another and
try to peck open the stomach of a drowned person so as to let run out
the water that he has swallowed. Still more markedly appears this type
of repetition in a tale from New Ireland. The birds try to throw the
casuary off from the branch of a tree on which he is perched. In order
to accomplish this, one after another alights on the same branch next
to the casuary but nearer the trunk. Thus he is compelled to move out
farther and farther until finally he drops down.
[127] James Owen Dorsey, The Thegiha Language, Contributions to North
American Ethnology, Vol. VI, (1890), Washington D. C., p. 284.
Much more striking are the rhythmic repetitions in songs. Polynesian
genealogies offer an excellent example. Thus we find in Hawaii the
following song:[128]
Lii-ku-honua, the man,
Ola-ku-honua, the woman,
Kumo-honua, the man,
Lalo-honua, the woman,
and so on through sixteen pairs.
[128] Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore. Mem.
Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Vol. VI, Honolulu, (1919), p. 365.