Indian Story and Song, from North America — John Shaqi
Indian Story and Song, from North AmericaFletcher, Alice C. (Alice Cunningham)
History
Indian Story and Song, from North America
Fletcher, Alice C. (Alice Cunningham)
Indians of North America -- Folklore; Indians of North America -- Music
In songs where words are employed, we also find vocables which are in
accord with the spirit of the song, used to make the words conform to
the musical phrase. These vocables are either appended to the word or
else inserted between its syllables, to give length or added euphony.
We also note a desire for rhyming, since vocables similar in sound
frequently occur at the end of each musical phrase.
It would lead into too many details to present the various devices
discernible in this aboriginal material by which the Indian sought
euphony and measure. Nor can it be easily illustrated how words of
many different languages were bent by elisions or stretched by
vocables, that they might conform to the musical phrase. There is
abundant evidence that the ear, accustomed to the pleasure of the
rhythmic cadence of the song, was beginning to demand a corresponding
metrical use of words in expressing the poetic thought involved in the
dramatic story which gave birth to the music.
The art of poetry is here in its infancy, giving even less sign of its
future development than music, which had already acquired the outline
of that form which has since crystallised into the art of music.
Notwithstanding, we find that words were chosen for their descriptive
power, and that they were made rhythmical to fit the melody. Like the
swelling buds on the bare branch, which hint the approach of summer's
wealth, so these little vocables and rhythmic devices whisper the
coming of the poets.
End of Project Gutenberg's Indian Story and Song, by Alice C. Fletcher
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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