Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
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Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
The totemic age may be said to include only the first few advances
beyond the simple emotions already expressed in the dance.
Nevertheless, there are ethnological differences that register in a
very characteristic way those specific musical talents of the various
races which are obscured on higher levels of culture because of the
increasing complexity of international relations. Thus, Africa is
apparently the chief centre, if not the original home, of instruments
of concussion and of the great variety of stringed instruments that
develop from them. America, on the other hand, is the region in which
wind instruments, in particular their original form, the flute, have
attained their chief development. The flute of the American Indians is
not, of course, like our own; it is blown, not with the lips, but with
the mouth. It therefore resembles a shawm or a clarinet. As regards
production of tone, however, it is a flute, for the tone is produced
by the extension of one lip over the other in a manner similar to that
of the flute-pipes of our organs. That which distinguishes the sound
of the flute and of its shorter form, the fife, from that of stringed
instruments is primarily the greater intensity and the longer duration
of the tone. Corresponding to the difference in musical instruments
is that of the noise instruments which characterize the two regions.
Africa possesses the drum. This it employs not only for purposes of
accompaniment in cult ceremonies, but also as a means of signalling,
since it renders distant communication possible by use of the so-called
drum-language. In America, we find the rattle. Though this, of course,
is not entirely lacking in Africa, it nevertheless occurs primarily
within the cultural realm of the North American Indians. Here it
is employed as an instrument of noise and magic, similarly to the
bull-roarer of the Australians. As between the rattle and the drum, the
difference is again one of the longer duration of sound in the case of
the American instrument.
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