Darwin's theory that music had its origin "in the sounds
made by the half-human progenitors of man during the season
of courtship" seems for many reasons to be inadequate and
untenable. A much more plausible explanation, it seems to me, is
to be found in the theory of Theophrastus, in which the origin
of music is attributed to the whole range of human emotion.
When an animal utters a cry of joy or pain it expresses its
emotions in more or less definite tones; and at some remote
period of the earth's history all primeval mankind must have
expressed its emotions in much the same manner. When this
inarticulate speech developed into the use of certain sounds as
symbols for emotions--emotions that otherwise would have been
expressed by the natural sounds occasioned by them--then we have
the beginnings of speech as distinguished from music, which
is still the universal language. In other words, intellectual
development begins with articulate speech, leaving music for
the expression of the emotions.
To symbolize the sounds used to express emotion, if I may so
put it, is to weaken that expression, and it would naturally
be the strongest emotion that would first feel the inadequacy
of the new-found speech. Now what is mankind's strongest
emotion? Even in the nineteenth century Goethe could say, "'Tis
fear that constitutes the god-like in man." Certainly before
the Christian era the soul of mankind had its roots in fear.
In our superstition we were like children beneath a great tree
of which the upper part was as a vague and fascinating mystery,
but the roots holding it firmly to the ground were tangible,
palpable facts. We feared--we knew not what. Love was human,
all the other emotions were human; fear alone was indefinable.
The primeval savage, looking at the world subjectively, was
merely part of it. He might love, hate, threaten, kill, if he
willed; every other creature could do the same. But the wind
was a great spirit to him; lightning and thunder threatened him
as they did the rest of the world; the flood would destroy him
as ruthlessly as it tore the trees asunder. The elements were
animate powers that had nothing in common with him; for what
the intellect cannot explain the imagination magnifies.
Fear, then, was the strongest emotion. Therefore auxiliary aids
to express and cause fear were necessary when the speech symbols
for fear, drifting further and further away from expressing the
actual thing, became words, and words were inadequate to express
and cause fear. In that vague groping for sound symbols which
would cause and express fear far better than mere words, we
have the beginning of what is gradually to develop into music.
We all know that savage nations accompany their dances by
striking one object with another, sometimes by a clanking of
stones, the pounding of wood, or perhaps the clashing of stone
spearheads against wooden shields (a custom which extended until
the time when shields and spears were discarded), meaning thus
to express something that words cannot. This meaning changed
naturally from its original one of being the simple expression
of fear to that of welcoming a chieftain; and, if one wishes
to push the theory to excess, we may still see a shadowy
reminiscence of it in the manner in which the violinists of
an orchestra applaud an honoured guest--perchance some famous
virtuoso--at one of our symphony concerts by striking the
backs of their violins with their bows.
To go back to the savages. While this clashing of one object
against another could not be called the beginning of music, and
while it could not be said to originate a musical instrument,
it did, nevertheless, bring into existence music's greatest
prop, rhythm, an ally without which music would seem to be
impossible. It is hardly necessary to go into this point in
detail. Suffice it to say that the sense of rhythm is highly
developed even among those savage tribes which stand the
lowest in the scale of civilization to-day, for instance,
the Andaman Islanders, of whom I shall speak later; the same
may be said of the Tierra del Fuegians and the now extinct
aborigines of Tasmania; it is the same with the Semangs of
the Malay Peninsula, the Ajitas of the Philippines, and the
savages inhabiting the interior of Borneo.
As I have said, this more or less rhythmic clanking of stones
together, the striking of wooden paddles against the side of
a canoe, or the clashing of stone spearheads against wooden
shields, could not constitute the first musical instrument. But
when some savage first struck a hollow tree and found that
it gave forth a sound peculiar to itself, when he found a
hollow log and filled up the open ends, first with wood,
and then--possibly getting the idea from his hide-covered
shield--stretched skins across the two open ends, then he had
completed the first musical instrument known to man, namely,
the drum. And such as it was then, so is it now, with but
few modifications.
Up to this point it is reasonable to assume that primeval man
looked upon the world purely subjectively. He considered himself
merely a unit in the world, and felt on a plane with the other
creatures inhabiting it. But from the moment he had invented the
first musical instrument, the drum, he had created something
outside of nature, a voice that to himself and to all other
living creatures was intangible, an idol that spoke when it
was touched, something that he could call into life, something
that shared the supernatural in common with the elements. A
God had come to live with man, and thus was unfolded the
first leaf in that noble tree of life which we call religion.
Man now began to feel himself something apart from the world,
and to look at it objectively instead of subjectively.
To treat primitive mankind as a type, to put it under one head,
to make one theorem cover all mankind, as it were, seems almost
an unwarranted boldness. But I think it is warranted when we
consider that, aside from language, music is the very first
sign of the dawn of civilization. There is even the most
convincingly direct testimony in its favour. For instance:
In the Bay of Bengal, about six hundred miles from the Hoogly
mouth of the Ganges, lie the Andaman Islands. The savages
inhabiting these islands have the unenviable reputation
of being, in common with several other tribes, the nearest
approach to primeval man in existence. These islands and their
inhabitants have been known and feared since time immemorial;
our old friend Sinbad the Sailor, of "Arabian Nights" fame,
undoubtedly touched there on one of his voyages. These savages
have no religion whatever, except the vaguest superstition,
in other words, fear, and they have no musical instruments
of any kind. They have reached only the _rhythm_ stage, and
accompany such dances as they have by clapping their hands
or by stamping on the ground. Let us now look to Patagonia,
some thousands of miles distant. The Tierra del Fuegians have
precisely the same characteristics, no religion, and no musical
instruments of any kind. Retracing our steps to the Antipodes
we find among the Weddahs or "wild hunters" of Ceylon exactly
the same state of things. The same description applies without
distinction equally well to the natives in the interior of
Borneo, to the Semangs of the Malay Peninsula, and to the now
extinct aborigines of Tasmania. According to Virchow their
dance is demon worship of a purely anthropomorphic character;
no musical instrument of any kind was known to them. Even
the simple expression of emotions by the voice, which we have
seen is its most primitive medium, has not been replaced to
any extent among these races since their discovery of speech,
for the Tierra del Fuegians, Andamans, and Weddahs have but
one sound to represent emotion, namely, a cry to express joy;
having no other means for the expression of sorrow, they paint
themselves when mourning.
It is granted that all this, in itself, is not conclusive;
but it will be found that no matter in what wilderness one
may hear of a savage beating a drum, there also will be a
well-defined religion.
Proofs of the theory that the drum antedates all other musical
instruments are to be found on every hand. For wherever in the
anthropological history of the world we hear of the trumpet,
horn, flute, or other instrument of the pipe species, it will
be found that the drum and its derivatives were already well
known. The same may be said of the lyre species of instrument,
the forerunner of our guitar (_kithara_), _tebuni_ or Egyptian
harp, and generally all stringed instruments, with this
difference, namely, that wherever the lyre species was known,
both pipe and drum had preceded it. We never find the lyre
without the drum, or the pipe without the drum; neither do we
find the lyre and the drum without the pipe. On the other hand,
we often find the drum alone, or the drum and pipe without
the lyre. This certainly proves the antiquity of the drum and
its derivatives.
I have spoken of the purely rhythmical nature of the pre-drum
period, and pointed out, in contrast, the musical quality of
the drum. This may seem somewhat strange, accustomed as we are
to think of the drum as a purely rhythmical instrument. The
sounds given out by it seem at best vague in tone and more
or less uniform in quality. We forget that all instruments
of percussion, as they are called, are direct descendants of
the drum. The bells that hang in our church towers are but
modifications of the drum; for what is a bell but a metal drum
with one end left open and the drum stick hung inside?
Strange to say, as showing the marvellous potency of primeval
instincts, bells placed in church towers were supposed to
have much of the supernatural power that the savage in his
wilderness ascribed to the drum. We all know something of the
bell legends of the Middle Ages, how the tolling of a bell was
supposed to clear the air of the plague, to calm the storm, and
to shed a blessing on all who heard it. And this superstition
was to a certain extent ratified by the religious ceremonies
attending the casting of church bells and the inscriptions
moulded in them. For instance, the mid-day bell of Strasburg,
taken down during the French Revolution, bore the motto
"I am the voice of life."
Another one in Strasburg:
"I ring out the bad, ring in the good."