American Indian love lyrics, and other verse, from the songs of the North American Indians
General
American Indian love lyrics, and other verse, from the songs of the North American Indians
Indians of North America -- Poetry
Other distinct influences over the varying patterns of the stanza are
the mystic numbers and the dramatic element in the ceremonials, the
former more often determining the length of the stanzas and the number
of such divisions in a song. The ritualistic use of the numbers two,
three, four, five, six, seven, and occasionally of multiples of these
numbers, determines the number of stanzas and repetitions in ritualistic
songs. It is rather unusual to find distinct tribal preferences in the
number of song divisions; although the Taos Pueblo uses two parts and the
Blackfoot tribe often seven. Orientation to the world quarters has almost
universally established some use of four stanzas and four repetitions in
religious songs. Dramatic influence emphasizes the fourfold division,
especially in the ritual.
The length of the stanza at no point appears as fixed as the number of
stanzas and repetitions. The stanzaic pattern repeats itself exactly more
often in a ritual song than in a secular. Many of the odes have extremely
long stanzas, some units of thought reaching to one hundred lines, as the
_Prayer of the First Dancers_ in the Navaho _Night Chant_. The length of
the stanza in other songs may range from the distich to the sixteen line
unit, although little stanzas of three to six lines appear to be the most
pleasing to the Indian poet. The longer stanzas commonly employ preludes
and refrains and at times resort to repetition of matter.
The oral lyric makes certain special demands of the composer. There must
be devices for marking off the stanzas. In addition to certain formal
patterns of repetition, these devices include tag endings, such as
conclude the scenes in Elizabethan drama, endings with a sharp contrast
in pitch and care in enunciation. The drop in pitch appears at the
close of the unit of music corresponding to the unit of verse. There
may occur, also, a complete change of rhythm and a distinct change in
thought from stanza to stanza. Cycles of short songs, or song-sequences
with fixed repetitions in the ceremonials, give the effect of stanzaic
divisions. We must conclude that the lack of written or printed forms
appears no hindrance to the development of stanzaic patterns.
The question of rhyme schemes invites more attention than some other
markers of the stanza. It is, to be sure, a relatively unimportant
factor in Indian rhythms: although the wide use of assonance commonly
approximates rhyme, and elaborate schemes of repetition serve a like
purpose. Various schemes of rhyme are used in the songs of _The Night
Chant_, particularly in the internal and end rhymes. In the _Song of the
Meal Rubbing_[1] the second element in the internal rhyme scheme binds
the lines together:
Bĭtsísi ...
Estsanatléhisi ...
Alkaíye ...
Bikenagádbe ...
Bitalataibe ...
Bĭdatóʿbe ...
Biselataíbe ...
Bĭthadĭtínbe ...
Bĭdetsébe ...
Sána-nogaíbe ...
Biké-hozóbe ...
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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