Part 3 (1/2)

Man, remarks Wilhelm von Humboldt, belongs to the singing species of animals. True it is, that wherever found, he has some notion of music, cultivates the accord of sounds by some sort of instrument, and gives expression to his most acute emotions in modulations of vocal tone.

The earliest and simplest poetry is nothing more than such modulated sounds; it is not in definite words, and hence, is not capable of translation; it is but the expression of feeling through the voice, as is the wail of the infant, the rippling laughter of youth, the crooning of senility, the groans of pain or sorrow.

Perhaps this first is also the highest expression of the aesthetic sense. The most admired cantatrices of to-day drown the words in a wealth of vocalization, and the meaning is lost, even were the language one known to their hearers, which it usually is not. I have heard a living poet, himself of no mean eminence, maintain that the harmony of versification is a far higher test of true poetic power than the ideas conveyed.

These principles must be borne in mind when we apply the canons of criticism to the poetry of the ruder races. It is not composed to be read, or even recited, but to be sung; its aim is, not to awaken thought or convey information, but solely to excite emotion. It can have a meaning only when heard, and only in the surroundings which gave it birth.

Hence it is, that the notices of the poetry of American nations are so scant and unsatisfactory. While all travelers agree that the tribes have songs and chants, war songs, peace songs, love songs, and others, few satisfactory specimens have been recorded. Those who have examined the subject most accurately have found that many so-called songs are mere repet.i.tions of a few words, or even of simple interjections, over and over again, with an endless iteration, in a chanting voice. The Dakota songs which have been preserved by Riggs, the Chippeway songs obtained from the interpreter Tanner, and the numerous specimens of native Californian chants recorded by Powers, as well as many others of this cla.s.s which might be mentioned, are mainly of this character.

Consequently, they show very poorly in a translation, and are apt to convey an unjustly depreciatory notion of the nations which produce them. To estimate them aright, the meter and the music must be taken into consideration, and also their suitability to the minds to which they were addressed.[69]

But the anthology of America is not limited to specimens of this kind.

In the Iroquois _Book of Rites_ there are funeral dirges of considerable length, expressive and touching in meaning; and in the Algonkin a few have been preserved in the original, which are authentic and pleasing. Here, for instance, is a nearly literal version of a Chippeway love song:--

”I will walk into somebody's dwelling, Into somebody's dwelling will I walk.

To thy dwelling, my dearly beloved, Some night will I walk, will I walk.

Some night in the winter, my beloved, To thy dwelling will I walk, will I walk.

This very night, my beloved, To thy dwelling will I walk, will I walk.”[70]

Much more striking, and to me strangely so, are the songs of the Taensa, a small tribe who dwelt on the banks of the lower Mississippi. They are now extinct, but a very curious account of their language, by a Spanish missionary, has been preserved and recently published. The early travelers speak of them as an unusually cultivated people, but one cannot but be surprised to find them capable of composing an epithalamium like the following:--

”Tikaens, thou buildest a house, thou bringest thy wife to live in it.

”Thou art married, Tikaens, thou art married.

”Thou wilt become famous; thy children will name thee among the elders.

Think of Tikaens as an old man!

”By what name is thy bride known? Is she beautiful? Are her eyes soft as the light of the moon? Is she a strong woman? Didst thou understand her signs during the dance?

”I know not whether thou lovest her, Tikaens.

”What said the old man, her father, when thou askedst for his pretty daughter?

”What betrothal presents didst thou give?

”Rejoice, Tikaens! be glad, be happy!

”Build thyself a happy home.

”This is the song of its building!”

Some of the songs of war and death are quite Ossianic in style, and yet they appear to be accurate translations.[71]

The comparatively elevated style of such poems need not cast doubt upon them. The first European who wrote about the songs of the natives of America, who was none other than the witty and learned Montaigne, paid a high tribute to their true poetic spirit. Montaigne knew a man who had lived among the Tupis of Brazil for ten or twelve years, and had learned their language and customs. He remembered several of their songs of war and love, and translated them to gratify the insatiable thirst for knowledge of the famous essayist. The refrain of one of them, supposed to be addressed to one of those beautiful serpents of the tropical forests, ran thus:--