The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 34

The works of Newell (313), Bolton (187), Gomme (243), amply reveal the riot of childish variation and invention in games and plays. Mr. Newell observes: "It would be strange if children who exhibit so much inventive talent [in language] did not contrive new games; and we find accordingly that in many families a great part of the amus.e.m.e.nts of the children are of their own devising. The earliest age of which the writer has authentic record of such ingenuity is two and a half years" (313. 25).

And among the primitive peoples the child is not without like invention; some, indeed, of the games our children play, were invented by the savage young ones, whose fathers have been long forgotten in the mist of prehistoric ages--the sports of their children alone surviving as memorials of their existence.

Theal tells us that the Kaffir children, when not engaged in active exercise, "amuse themselves by moulding clay into little images of cattle, or by making puzzles with strings. Some of them are skilful in forming knots with thongs and pieces of wood, which it taxes the ingenuity of the others to undo. The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize" (543. 221). The distinguished naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace, while on his visit to the Malay Archipelago, thought to show the Dyak boys of Borneo something new in the way of the "cat's cradle," but found that he was the one who needed to learn, for the little brown aborigines were able to show him several new tricks (377. 25).

Miklucho-Maclay notes that among the Papuans of north-eastern New Guinea, while the women showed no tendency to ornament pottery, young boys "found pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick a sort of ornamental border on some of the pots" (42. 317).

Paola Lombroso, daughter of Professor Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated criminologist, in her recent study of child psychology, observes: "Games (and plays) are the most original creation of the child, who has been able to create them, adapt them to his needs, making of them a sort of gymnastics which enables him to develop himself without becoming fatigued, and we, with the aid of memory, can hardly now lay hold of that feeling of infinite, intense pleasure." Moreover, these popular traditional plays and games, handed down from one generation to another of children, "show how instinctive are these forms of muscular activity and imitative expression, which have their roots in a true physiological and psychic necessity, being a species of tirocinium for the experience of childhood" (301. 136).

The _magnum opus_, perhaps, of the child as inventor, is the lyre, the discovery of which, cla.s.sical mythology attributes to the infant Mercury or Hermes. Four hours after his birth the baby G.o.d is said to have found the sh.e.l.l of a tortoise, through the opposite edges of which he bored holes, and, inserting into these cords of linen, made the first stringed instrument. The English poet, Aubrey de Vere, singing of an Athenian girl, thus refers to the quaint myth:--

"She loves to pace the wild sea-sh.o.r.e-- Or drop her wandering fingers o'er The bosom of some chorded sh.e.l.l: Her touch will make it speak as well As infant Hermes made That tortoise in its own despite Thenceforth in Heaven a shape star-bright."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHILD AS POET, MUSICIAN, ETC.

Poeta nascitur, non fit.--_Latin Proverb_.

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.--_Pope_.

_The Child and Music_.

"Music," said quaint old Thomas Puller, "is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune," and Wallaschek, in his recent volume on _Primitive Music_, has shown how every nation under heaven, even the most savage and barbarous of peoples, have had a share in the work of civilization. Music has been called "the language of the G.o.ds," "the universal speech of mankind," and, early in the golden age of childhood, the heaven of infancy, is man made captive by "music's golden tongue."

As Wallaschek has said of the race, Tracy says of the individual, "no healthy, normal child is entirely lacking in musical 'ear.'" The children of primitive races enjoy music, as well as their fellows in civilized communities. The lullaby, that _quod semper ubique et ab omnibus_ of vocal art, early engages and entrances the infantile ear, and from the musical demonstrations of his elders, the child is not always or everywhere excluded. Indeed, the infant is often ushered into the world amid the din and clamour of music and song which serve to drown the mother's cries of pain, or to express the joy of the family or the community at the successful arrival of the little stranger.

Education in music and the dance begins very early with many peoples. At the school of midwifery at Abu-Zabel in Egypt, according to Clot-Bey, in cases of difficult childbirth, a child is made to hop and dance about between the legs of the mother in order to induce the foetus to imitate it (125. II. 159).

As understudies and a.s.sistants to shamans, "medicine-men," and "doctors," children among many primitive peoples soon become acquainted with dance and song.

In Ashanti, boy musicians, singers, and dancers figure in the processions of welcome of the chiefs and kings, and young girls are engaged in the service of the fetiches (438. 258). At a funeral dance of the Latuka, an African tribe, "the women remained outside the row of dancers dancing a slow, stupid step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant, whilst boys and girls in another row beat time with their feet." Burch.e.l.l, while _en route_ for the Kaffir country, found among certain tribes that "in the evening a whole army of boys would come to his hut and listen with manifest pleasure to the tones of his violin, and would repeat the melodies he played with surprising accuracy" (546. 3, 199). The _meke-meke_, a dance of the Fiji Islanders, "is performed by boys and girls for whom an old musician plays"; at Tahiti the children "are early taught the 'ubus,' songs referring to the legends or achievements of the G.o.ds," and "Europeans have at times found pleasure in the pretty, plaintive songs of the children as they sit in groups on the sea-sh.o.r.e" (546. 35, 180, 208). In some of the Polynesian Islands, young girls are "brought up to dance the timorodea, a most lascivious dance, and to accompany it with obscene songs" (100. 62). At Tongatabu, according to Labillardiere, a young girl "sang a song, the simple theme of which she repeated for half-an-hour"

(546. 31). Wallaschek calls attention to the importance of the child in song in the following words (546. 75):--

"In some places the children, separated from the adults, sing choruses among themselves, and under certain circ.u.mstances they are the chief support of the practice of singing. On Hawaii, Ellis found boys and girls singing in chorus, with an accompaniment of seven drums, a song in honour of a quondam celebrated chief. Even during supper with the Governor, table-music was performed by a juvenile bard of some twelve or fourteen summers, who sang a monotonous song to the accompaniment of a small drum.... In Fiji a man of position deems it beneath him to sing, and he leaves it to his wife and children, so that women sing with women only, and children with children."

Speaking of the natives of Australia, with whom he came into contact, Beckler says "the octaves of the women and children at the performance he attended were perfectly in tune, as one rarely hears in a modern opera chorus, they were in exact accord." In the Kuri dance, witnessed by Angas, a number of boys take part (546. 37, 223).

In New Guinea "the Tongala-up, a stick with a string whirled in the air, is played by women and children." Among the Tagals of the Philippines, Volliner found (with perhaps a little Spanish influence) "a chorus was performed in a truly charming manner by twelve young girls formed in a circle, one girl standing in the middle to direct." In the Andaman Islands, where the men only, as a rule, sing, "the boys were far the best performers" (546.24, 27, 75).

Among the Apache Indians of Arizona and Mexico, "old matrons and small children dance until no longer able to stand, and stop for very exhaustion" (546. 46).

_The Child as Poet_.

Victor Hugo, in one of his rhapsodies, exclaims: "The most sublime psalm that can be heard on this earth is the lisping of a human soul from the lips of childhood," and the rhythm within whose circle of influence the infant early finds himself, often leads him precociously into the realm of song. Emerson has said, "Every word was once a poem," and Andrew Lang, in his facetious _Ballade of Primitive Man_, credits our Aryan ancestors with speaking not in prose, but "in a strain that would scan." In the statement of the philosopher there is a good nugget of truth, and just a few grains of it in the words of the wit.

The a.n.a.logy between the place and effect of rhythm, music, and poetry in the life of the child and in the life of the savage has been frequently noted. In his recent study of _Rhythm_ (405 a), Dr. Bolton has touched up some aspects of the subject. With children "the habit of rhyming is almost instinctive" and universal. Almost every one can remember some little sing-song or nonsense-verse of his own invention, some rhyming pun, or rhythmic adaptation. The enormous range of variation in the wording of counting-out rhymes, game-songs, and play-verses, is evidence enough of the fertility of invention of child-poets and child-poetesses. Of the familiar counting-out formula _Eeny, meeny, miny, mo_, the variants are simply legion.

The well-known lines of Pope:--

"As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came,"

receive abundant ill.u.s.tration from the lives of the great geniuses of song.

Among primitive peoples, if anywhere, _poeta nascitur, non fit_. In her article on _Indian Songs_, Miss Alice C. Fletcher says: "Children make songs for themselves, which are occasionally handed down to other generations. These juvenile efforts sometimes haunt the memory in maturer years. An exemplary old man once sang to me a composition of his childhood, wherein he had exalted the pleasures of disobedience; but he took particular care that his children should not hear this performance. Young men sing in guessing-games, as they gambol with their companions, tossing from hand to hand a minute ball of buffalo hair or a small pebble, moving their arms to the rhythm of the music." This, and the following statement made of the Omaha Indians, will hold for not a few other savage and barbarous tribes: "Children compose ditties for their games, and young men add music to give zest to their sports"

(445).

Dr. F. Boas says of the Eskimo of Baffin Land (402. 572): "Children tell one another fables and sing short songs, especially comic and satirical ones." The heroes of the Basque legend of Aquelarre are thus described by Miss Monteiro (505. 22):--

"Izar and Lanoa were two orphan children; the first was seven years of age, and the latter nine. These poor children, true wandering bards, frequented the mountains, earning a livelihood by singing ballads and national airs in sweet, infantile voices, in return for a bed of straw and a cupful of meal. Throughout the district these children were known and loved on account of their sad state, as well as for their graceful forms and winning ways."

Mr. Chatelain, in his recent work on African folk-tales, says of the natives of Angola: "No Angola child finds difficulty at any time in producing extemporaneous song."

Dr. Gatschet, in his study of the Klamath Indians, gives examples of many songs composed and sung by young people, especially girls; and many other Indian tribes, Algonkian, Iroquois, etc., possess such as well.

When Darwin reached Tahiti, his arrival was "sung by a young girl in four improvised strophes, which her fellow-maidens accompanied in a pretty chorus"; and among the song-loving people of the islands of the South Sea, the poetic talent develops quite early in both s.e.xes. Among the aborigines of Peake River, in Australia, when a youth--at p.u.b.erty--has undergone the ceremony of tattooing, and, his wounds having healed, is about to return to his fellows, "a young girl selected for the purpose, sings in her own way a song which she has composed, and, amid dancing, merriment, and feasting, the youth is welcomed back to his family and his kin" (326. 11. 241). Throughout the Orient woman is a dancer and a singer. India has her bayaderes and nautch-girls, whose dancing and singing talents are world-known.

The Gypsies, too, that wander-folk of the world, are famed for their love-songs and fortune-telling rhymes, which the youth and girlhood among them so often know how to make and use. Crawford, who has translated the Kalevala, the great epic of the Finns, tells us, "The natural speech of this people is poetry. The young men and maidens, the old men and matrons, in their interchange of ideas unwittingly fall into verse" (423. I. xxvi.). Among the young herdsmen and shepherdesses of the pastoral peoples of Europe and Asia, the same precocity of song prevails. With songs of youth and maiden, the hills and valleys of Greece and Italy resound as of old. In his essay on the _Popular Songs of Tuscany_, Mr. J. A. Symonds observes (540. 600, 602): "Signor Tigri records by name a little girl called Cherubina, who made _Rispetti_ by the dozen, as she watched her sheep upon the hills."

When Signor Tigri asked her to dictate to him some of her songs, she replied: "Oh Signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! ... ma ora ...

bisognerebbe averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono,--Oh Sir! I say so many, when I sing ... but now ... one must have them all before one's mind ... if not, they do not come properly."

World-applicable as the boy grows out of childhood--with some little change of season with the varying clime--are the words of Tennyson:--

"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,"

and everywhere, if poetry and song be not indeed the very offspring of love, they are at least twin-born with it.

Lombroso, in his discussion of the man of genius, gives many examples of precocious poetical and musical talent: Dante (who at nine years of age wrote sonnets), Ta.s.so (wrote at ten years of age), Wieland (who wrote an epic at 16), Lope de Vega (who wrote verses at 12), Calderoii (at 13), Metastasio (who composed at 10), Handel (who wrote a ma.s.s at 13, and was director of opera at 19), Eichhorn, Mozart, and Eibler (all three of whom gave concerts at 6), Beethoven (who wrote sonatas at 13), Weber (who wrote his first opera at 14), Cherubini (who wrote a ma.s.s at 15), etc. (300.15).

Among English poets whose precocity was marked, we find the most noteworthy to be Robert Browning, whose first poetic effusion is ascribed to his fourth year. It is now known, however, that poetry is much more common among children than was at first supposed, and early compositions are not to be expected from geniuses alone, but often from the scions of the ruder commonalty.

In her interesting study of individual psychology, Dr. Caroline Miles informs us that out of ninety-seven answers to the question, "Did you express yourself in any art-form before eighteen years of age?" fourteen stated that the person replying used verses alone, fourteen used stories and poetry, three used poetry and drawing or painting, two used poetry and painting. Dr. Miles notes that "those who replied 'no' seemed to take pride in the fact that they had been guilty of no such youthful folly." This is in line with the belief parents sometimes express that the son or daughter who poetizes early is "loony." Some who were not ashamed of these child-expressions volunteered information concerning them, and we learn: "Most interesting was one who wrote a tragedy at ten, which was acted on a little stage for the benefit of her friends; from ten to thirteen, an epic; at thirteen, sentimental and religious poems" (310. 552, 553).

Dr. H. H. Donaldson, in his essay on the _Education of the Nervous System_, cites the fact that of the musicians whose biographies were examined by Sully, 95% gave promise before twenty years of age, and 100% produced some work before reaching thirty; of the poets, 75% showed promise before twenty, and 92% produced before they were thirty years of age (216. 118). Precocity and genius seem to go together.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CHILD AS TEACHER AND WISEACRE.