The Savage Makes His Music
Fortunately for our story there live groups of people today still in the
early stages of civilization who show us the manners and customs of
primitive man, because they are primitive men themselves.
We are going to learn how music grew from the American Indian and the
African. We are using these two as examples for two reasons: because
they are close enough to us to have influenced our own American music,
and because all savage music has similar traits. The American Indian and
the African show us the steps from the primitive state of music to the
beginning of music as an art. In other words, these people are a bridge
between prehistoric music and that of the civilized world.
In Chapter I about prehistoric man, we spoke of the two roots of
music—movement and sound. Hereafter when we speak of rhythm it will mean
movement either in tones or in gestures. Rhythm expressed in tones makes
music; rhythm expressed in gestures makes the dance. The reason we like
dance music and marches is that we feel the rhythm, the thing that makes
us want to mark the beat of the music with our feet, or hands, or with
head bobbings. This love of the beat is strong in the savage, and upon
this he builds his music.
Our American Jazz is the result of our desire for strong rhythms and
shows that we, for all our culture, have something in us of the savage’s
feeling for movement.
AMERICAN INDIANS
We have a name for everything, but the American Indian has a name and a
song for everything. He has a song for his moccasins, for his head-gear,
for his teepee, the fire in it, the forest around him, the lakes and
rivers in which he fishes and paddles, for his canoe, for the fish he
catches, for his gods, his friends, his family, his enemies, the animal
he hunts, the maiden he woos, the stars, the sun, and the moon, in fact
for everything imaginable. The following little story will explain the
Indians’ idea of the use of their songs:
An American visitor who was making a collection of Indian songs, asked
an old Ojibway song-leader to sing a hunting song. The old Indian looked
at him in surprise and left him. A little later the son-in-law of the
Indian appeared and with apologies told the American that “the old
gentleman” could not sing a hunting song because it was not the hunting
season.
The next time the old Indian came, the American asked him for a love
song, but he politely refused, saying that it was not dignified for a
man of his age to sing love songs. However, the old warrior suddenly
decided that as he was making a call, it was quite proper for him to
sing Visiting Songs, which he did, to his host’s delight.
This old man had been taught to sing when he was a very little boy, as
the Indian boy learns the history of his tribe through the songs. He is
carefully trained by the old men and women so that no song of the tribe
or family should be forgotten. These songs are handed down from one
family to another, and no one knows how many hundreds of years old they
may be. So, you see, these songs become history and the young Indians
learn their history this way, not as we do, from text books.
“What new songs did you learn?” is the question that one Indian will ask
of another who has been away on a visit, and like the announcer at the
radio broadcasting station, the Indian answers:
“My friends, I will now sing you a song of—” and he fully describes the
song. Then he sings it. After he finishes, he says, “My friends, I have
sung you the song of—” and repeats the name of the song!
So great a part of an Indian’s life is music, that he has no word
meaning poetry in his language. Poetry to the Indian is always song. In
fact an Indian puts new words to an old tune and thinks he has invented
a new song.
WHAT IS INDIAN MUSIC?
When the Indian sings, he starts on the highest tone he can reach and
gradually drops to the lowest, so that many of his songs cover almost
two octaves. He does not know that he sings in a scale of five tones.
For some reason which we cannot explain, most primitive races have used
this same scale. It is like our five black keys on the piano, starting
with F sharp. This is called the pentatonic scale, (penta, Greek word
for five, tonic meaning tones). This scale is a most amazing traveler,
for we meet it in our musical journeys in China, Japan, Arabia,
Scotland, Africa, Ireland, ancient Peru and Mexico, Greece and many
other places. The reason we find these five tones popular must be
because they are natural for the human throat. At any rate we know that
it is difficult for the Indian to sing our scale. He does not seem to
want the two notes that we use between the two groups of black keys
which make our familiar major scale.
It is very difficult to put down an Indian song in our musical writing,
because, the Indians sing in a natural scale that has not been changed
by centuries of musical learning. They sing in a rhythm that seems
complicated to our ears in spite of all our musical knowledge, and this,
too, is difficult to write down. Another thing which makes it hard to
set down and to imitate Indian music, is that they beat the drum in
different time from the song which they sing. They seldom strike the
drum and sing a tone at the same time. In fact, the drum and the voice
seem to race with each other. At the beginning of a song, for example,
the drum beat is slower than the voice. Gradually the drum catches up
with the voice and for a few measures they run along together. The drum
gains and wins the race, because it is played faster than the voice
sings. The curious part of it is, that this is not an accident, but
every time they sing the same song, the race is run the same way. We are
trained to count the beats and sing beat for beat, measure for measure
with the drum. Try to beat on a drum and sing, and see how hard it is
not to keep time with it.
The Indian slides from tone to tone; he scoops with his voice, somewhat
like the jazz trombone player.
INDIAN INSTRUMENTS
The Indian’s orchestra is made up of the rattle and the drum. The white
man cannot understand the Indian’s love of his drum. However, when he
lives among them he also learns to love it. When Indians travel, they
carry with them a drum which is hidden from the eyes of the strange
white man. When night comes, they have song contests accompanied by the
drum which is taken out of its hiding place.
These contests are very real to the Indians and they are similar to the
tournaments held in Germany in the Middle Ages.
The drummer, who is also the singer, is called the leading voice and is
so important that he ranks next to the chief. His rank is high, because
through knowing the songs he is the historian of his tribe.
The drum is made of a wooden frame across which is stretched the skin of
an animal, usually a deer. Sometimes it is only a few inches across, and
sometimes it is two feet in diameter. When it has two surfaces of skins,
they are separated four to six inches from each other. It is held in the
left hand by a leather strap attached to the drum frame, and beaten with
a short stick. (Figure 1.)
The Sioux Indian sets his drum on the ground; it is about the size of a
wash tub and has only one surface. Two or more players pound this drum
at the same time and the noise is often deafening. The Ojibway drum
always has two surfaces and is usually decorated with gay designs in
color. (Sioux drum, Figure 2.)
The drum makes a good weather bureau! The Indian often forecasts the
weather by the way his drum answers to his pounding. If the sound is
dull, he knows there is rain in the air, if it is clear and sharp and
the skin is tight, he can have out-door dances without fear of a
wetting. You could almost become a weather prophet yourself by watching
the strings of your tennis racket, which act very much like the drum
skin.
Another instrument beloved of all Indians is the rattle. There are many
different sizes and shapes of rattles made of gourds, horns of animals
and tiny drums filled with pebbles and shot. Some of them are carved out
of wood in the shape of birds and animal heads. (Figure 3.)
The Indians also have the flute, and although there is no special music
for it, it is of great importance in their lives. No two flutes are made
to play exactly the same tones, that is, they are not drawn to scale.
They are like home-whittled whistles made of wood in which holes are
burned. (Figure 4.)
The flute is never used in the festivals or in the dance but it is the
lover’s instrument. A young man who is too bashful to ask his sweetheart
to marry him, hides among the bushes near her teepee, close to the
spring where she goes every morning for water. When he sees her, he
plays a little tune that he makes up just for her. Being a well brought
up little Indian maid, she pretends not to notice it, but very soon
tries to find out who played to her. If she likes him, she gives him a
sign and he comes out of his hiding place, but if she does not wish to
marry him, she lets him go on playing every morning until he gets tired
and discouraged and returns no more to the loved spring near her teepee
in the early morning.
And this is the reason the Indian love songs so often refer to sunrise,
spring and fountains, and why we use the melancholy flute when we write
Indian love songs.
Because of the ceaseless beating of the drum, the constant repetition of
their scale of five tones, and the rambling effect of the music like
unpunctuated sentences, we find the Indian music very monotonous. But
they return the compliment and find our music monotonous, probably,
because it is too well punctuated. Mr. Frederick Burton in his book on
Primitive American Music, tells of having given to two Indian friends
tickets for a recital in Carnegie Hall, in New York City, where they
heard songs by Schubert and Schumann. When he asked them how they
enjoyed the music they politely said, “It is undoubtedly very fine, it
was a beautiful hall and the man had a great voice, but it seemed to us
as though he sang the song over, over and over again, only sometimes he
made it long and sometimes short.”
INDIAN SOCIETIES
The Indian is a great club man; every Indian belongs to some society.
The society which he joins is decided by what he dreams. If he dreams of
a bear, he joins the Bear Society; if he dreams of a Buffalo, he joins
the Buffalo Society. Other names of clubs are: Thunder-bird, Elks and
Wolves.
Dreams play a great part in the Indian’s life. If he dreams of a small
round stone, a sacred thing to him, he is supposed to have the power to
cure sickness, to foretell future events, to tell where objects are
which cannot be seen.
Every one of the societies or clubs has its own special songs. The
Indians also have songs of games, dances, songs of war and of the hunt,
songs celebrating the deeds of chiefs, conquering warriors, war-path and
council songs.
In the first chapter we spoke of primitive man imitating animals and
here we find that the Indians, in their societies named for animals,
imitate the acts of the clubs’ namesakes.
They have a dance called the grass dance, in which they decorate their
belts with long tufts of grass, a reminder of the days when they wore
scalps on their belts after they had been on the “war-path.” In this
dance they imitate the motions of the eagle and other birds. Even the
feathers used in their head-dress is a part of their custom of imitating
animals and birds. Some of these head-dresses are like the comb, and the
Indian who wears this will imitate the cries of the bird to which the
comb belongs. His actions always correspond with his costume.
The Indians have lullabies and children’s game-songs,—the moccasin game,
in which they search for sticks hidden in a moccasin. Then too, there is
the Rain Dance of the Junis and the Snake Dance of the Hopis, in which
they carry rattlesnakes, sometimes holding them between the teeth.
Dance often means a ceremony lasting several days. The Indians are
worshippers of the Sun, and have a festival, which lasts several days,
called the Sun Dance. This festival took place particularly among the
Indians of the plains: the Cheyennes, the Chippewas and others. The last
Sun Dance took place in 1882. In this the Indian offered to the “Great
Spirit” what was strongest in his nature and training,—the ability to
stand pain. Self inflicted pain was a part of the ceremony and seemed
noble to the Indian, but to the white man it was barbarous and
heathenish and he put a stop to it.
THE MEDICINE MAN
Have you ever heard of the medicine man? He is doctor, lawyer, priest,
philosopher, botanist, and musician all in one. The society of “Grand
Medicine” is the religion of the Chippewas. It teaches that one must be
good to live long. The chief aims of the society are to bring good
health and long life to its followers, and music is as important in the
healing as medicine.
Every member of the society carries a bag of herbs, the use of which he
has learned, and if called upon to heal the sick, he works the cure by
singing the right song before giving the medicine. The medicine is not
usually swallowed in proper fashion as a child takes a dose, but it is
carried by the sick person, or is placed among his belongings, or a
little wooden figure is carved roughly by the Medicine Man and must be
carried around with the herbs to heal the patient. But the song, and it
must be the right song for the occasion, counts as much as the medicine.
Wouldn’t you like to be an Indian?
Often the Medicine Man is called upon for a love-charm, for which there
is a song. There are also songs of cursing which are supposed to work an
evil charm when used with a certain kind of cursing herbs.
Both men and women may become members of the Great Medicine Society, and
they must go through eight degrees or stages in which they are taught
the use of the medicines and the songs. Each member of the society has
his own set of songs, some of which he has composed himself and others
he has had to buy for large sums of money or goods. No man is allowed to
sing another man’s song unless he has bought the right to it. With the
sale of a song goes the herb to be used with that particular song. The
ceremony is very elaborate. It lasts for several days, and sounds very
much like a story book.
The Chippewa Indians have had a written picture language by means of
which they read the different songs. These pictures were usually drawn
on white birch-bark. Here are a few samples:
[Illustration:
INDIAN SONG PICTURE
In form like a bird it appears.
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN SONG PICTURE
On my arm behold my pan of food.
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN SONG PICTURE
Wavy lines indicate “the song.”
Straight lines indicate “strength.”
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN SONG PICTURE
I have shot straight.
]
[Illustration:
INDIAN SONG PICTURE
The sound of flowing water comes toward my home.
]
When we tell you about American music we will speak again of the Indian
and how we have used in our own music what he has given us.
THE NEGRO AND HIS MUSIC
The place of the negro in the world of music has been the cause of many
questions:
Is his music that of a primitive man?
Is it American?
Is it American Folk Music?
As we tell you the story of music we shall have to speak of the negro
music from all these different sides. But, for you to understand why
there is a question about it, we must tell you where the negro came from
and what he brought from his primitive home.
When the English first came to Virginia and founded Jamestown in 1607
they started to grow tobacco on great plantations, and for this they
needed cheap labor. They tried to use Indians, but as the work killed so
many of them, they had negroes sent over from Africa to do it. A year
before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, negroes were
already being sold as slaves in Virginia. Until 1808 these negroes were
brought over from Africa; they were not all of one tribe, nor were they
of one race. There were Malays from Madagascar, Movis from northern
Africa, red skins and yellow skins as well as black.
These people were primitive and they all used song and dance in their
religion, their work and their games. They brought from Africa a great
love for music and ears that heard and remembered more than many a
trained musician. A well-known writer has said that wherever the African
negro has gone, he has left traces in the music of that country. The
Spanish Habanera, which we have danced by the name of Tango came from
Africa; even the name is African, “tangara,” and was a vulgar dance
unfit for civilized people. The rhythm of the African dance and of our
tango is the same.
Like other savages, the African negro loved rhythm better than melody.
His songs were monotonous and were made up of a few tones and short
repeated phrases. They used the scale, of five tones (called
pentatonic), the same as the Indian’s.
The African negro was a master at drumming. The Indian drumming was
regular like the clock or pulse, but the negro played most difficult and
complicated rhythms, almost impossible for a trained musician, to
imitate. He had drums of all sizes and kinds.
These savages sang groups of tones which we call chords, which were not
used by any of the ancient civilized people. By means of different
rhythms they had hundreds of ways of combining the three tones of a
chord as C-E-G. It is curious that these primitive people should have
used methods more like our own than many of the races that had reached a
much higher degree of civilization.
The Africans had an original telegraph system in which they did not use
the Morse code, but sent their messages by means of drums that were
heard many miles away. They had a special drum language which the
natives understood; and the American Indians flashed _their_ messages
over long distances by means of the reflection of the sun on metal.
It is only a little more than a hundred years ago since we stopped
bringing these primitive people into America and making slaves of them.
Their children have become thoroughly Americanized now, from having
lived alongside of the white people all this time and some have
forgotten their African forefathers. But in the same way that the
children of Italian, German, French or Russian parents remember the
songs of their forefathers and often show traces of these songs in the
music they make, so the negro without knowing it has kept some of the
primitive traits of African music.
Later, we will tell you how this grew into two kinds of music, the
beautiful religious song called the Negro Spiritual, and the dance which
has grown into our popular ragtime and jazz.
If we were to study in detail the music of many savage tribes of
different periods from prehistoric day to the uncivilized people living
today, we should find certain points in common. They all have festival
songs, songs for religious ceremonials, for games, work songs, war
songs, hunting songs and love songs. In fact it is a beautiful habit for
primitive people to put into song everything they do and everything they
wish to remember. With them music has not been a frill or a luxury, but
a daily need and a natural means for expressing themselves.
Another thing alike among these early peoples, is that all of them had
drums and rattles of some kind and a roughly made instrument that
resembles our pipes. But they had no stringed instruments and for their
beginnings you will have to journey on with us in this,—your book.
Since giving this book to the public, we have come in direct contact
with some remarkable songs of the Nootka (Canadian) Indians and of the
Eskimos. Juliette Gaultier de la Verendry, a young French Canadian, has
sung them in New York in the original dialect. They have been given to
her by D. Jenness, an anthropologist who lived among the Eskimos for
several years, studying their traits and at the same time he took the
opportunity of writing down their songs. They are truly savage music and
have the characteristics of which we have spoken in the use of
intervals, drums, and in the type of songs, such as weather and healing
incantations (medicine songs), work songs, and dances.