Western Scenes and Reminiscences Part 22

The birds of the brave take a flight round the sky, They cross the enemy's line, Full happy am I--that my body should fall, Where brave men love to die.

Very little effort in the collocation and expansion of some of their sentiments, would impart to these bold and unfettered rhapsodies, an attractive form, among polished war songs.

The strain in which these measures are sung, is generally slow and grave in its commencement and progress, and terminates in the highest note.

While the words admit of change, and are marked by all the fluctuation of extempore composition, the air and the chorus appear to be permanent, consisting not only of a graduated succession of fixed sounds, but, always exact in their enunciation, their quant.i.ty, and their wild and startling musical expression. It has always appeared to me that the Indian music is marked by a nationality, above many other traits, and it is a subject inviting future attention. It is certain that the Indian ear is exact in noting musical sounds, and in marking and beating time.

But little observation at their dances, will be sufficient to establish this fact. Nor is it less certain, by attention to the philology of their language, that they are exact in their laws of euphony, and syllabical quant.i.ty. How this remark may consist with the use of unmeasured and fluctuating poetry in their songs, it may require studied attention to answer. It is to be observed, however, that these songs are rather _recited_, or _chanted_, than sung. Increments of the chorus are not unfrequently interspersed, in the body of the line, which would otherwise appear deficient in quant.i.ty; and perhaps rules of metre may be found, by subsequent research, which are not obvious, or have been concealed by the scantiness of the materials, on this head, which have been examined. To determine the airs and choruses and the character of the music, will prove one of the greatest facilities to this inquiry.

Most of the graver pieces, which have been written out, are arranged in metres of sixes, sevens, and eights. The lighter chants are in threes or fours, and consist of iambics and trochees irregularly. Those who have translated hymns into the various languages, have followed the English metres, not always without the necessity of elision, or employing constrained or crampt modes of expression. A worse system could not have been adopted to show Indian sentiment. The music in all these cases has been like fetters to the free, wild thoughts of the native singer. As a general criticism upon these translations, it may be remarked that they are often far from being literal, and often omit parts of the original.

On the other hand, by throwing away adjectives, in a great degree, and dropping all incidental or side thoughts, and confining the Indian to the leading thought or sentiment, they are, sometimes, rendered more simple, appropriate, and effective. Finally, whatever cultivated minds among the Indians, or their descendants may have done, it is quite evident to me, from the attention I have been able to give the subject, that the native compositions were without metre. The natives appear to have sung a sufficient number of syllables to comply with the air, and effected the necessary pauses, for sense or sound, by either slurring over, and thus shortening, or by throwing in floating particles of the language, to eke out the quant.i.ty, taken either from the chorus, or from the general auxiliary forms of the vocabulary.

Rhyme is permitted by the similarity of the sounds from which the vocabulary is formed, but the structure of the language does not appear to admit of its being successfully developed in this manner. Its forms are too c.u.mbrous for regularly recurring expressions, subjected at once to the laws of metre and rhyme. The instances of rhyme that have been observed in the native songs are few, and appear to be the result of the fortuitous positions of words, rather than of art. The following juvenile see-saw is one of the most perfect specimens noticed, being exact in both particulars:

Ne osh im aun Ne way be naun.

These are expressions uttered on sliding a carved stick down snow banks, or over a glazed surface of ice, in the appropriate season; and they may be rendered with nearly literal exactness, thus:

My sliding stick I send quick--quick.

Not less accurate in the rhyme, but at lines of six and eight feet, which might perhaps be exhibited unbroken, is the following couplet of a war song:

Au pit she Mon e tog Ne mud wa wa wau we ne gog.

The Spirit on high, Repeats my warlike name.

In the translation of hymns, made during the modern period of missionary effort, there has been no general attempt to secure rhyme; and as these translations are generally due to educated natives, under the inspection and with the critical aid of the missionary, they have evinced a true conception of the genius of the language, by the omission of this accident. Eliot, who translated the psalms of David into the Ma.s.sachusetts language, which were first printed in 1661, appears to have deemed it important enough to aim at its attainment: but an examination of the work, now before us, gives but little encouragement to others to follow his example, at least while the languages remain in their present rude and uncultivated state. The following is the XXIII Psalm from this version:

1. Mar teag nukquenaabikoo shepse nanaauk G.o.d.

Nussepsinwahik ashkoshqut nuttinuk ohtopaG.o.d

2. Nagum nukketeahog kounoh wutomohkinuh wonk Nutuss [oo]unuk ut sampoi may newutch [oo]wesnonk.

3. Wutonkauhtamut pomushaon mupp[oo]onk [oo]nauhkoe Woskehettuonk mo nukqueh tam[oo]

newutch k[oo]wetomah:

4. Kuppogkomunk kutanwohon nish n[oo]nenehikquog K[oo]noch[oo] hkah anquabhett.i.t wame nummatwomog

5. Kussussequnum nuppuhkuk weetepummee nashpea Wonk woi G.o.d n[oo]tallamwaitch pomponetupohs hau

6. [OO]niyeuonk monaneteonk nutasukkonkqunash Tohsohke pomantam wekit G.o.d michem nuttain pish[20].

This appears to have been rendered from the version of the psalms appended to an old edition of King James' Bible of 1611, and not from the versification of Watts. By comparing it with this, as exhibited below, there will be found the same metre, eights and sixes, the same syllabical quant.i.ty, (if the notation be rightly conceived,) and the same coincidence of rhyme at the second and fourth lines of each verse; although it required an additional verse to express the entire psalm. It could therefore be sung to the ordinary tunes in use in Eliot's time, and, taken in connection with his entire version, including the Old and New Testament, evinces a degree of patient a.s.siduity on the part of that eminent missionary, which is truly astonishing:

The Lord is my shepherd, I'll not want; 2. He makes me down to lie In pastures green: he leadeth me the quiet waters by.

3. My soul he doth restore again and me to walk doth make Within the paths of righteousness E'en for his own name's sake.

4. Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale, yet will I fear none ill; For thou art with me and thy rod and staff me comfort still.

5. My table thou hast furnished in presence of my foes; My head thou dost with oil annoint, and my cup overflows.

6. Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me; And in G.o.d's house forevermore my dwelling place shall be.

The harmony of numbers has always detracted from the plain sense, and the piety of thought, of the scriptures, which is the probable cause of so many failures on the subject. In the instance of this Psalm, it will be observed, by a comparison, that Watts, who has so generally succeeded, does not come up, in any respect, to the full literal meaning of the original, which is well preserved, with the requisite harmony, in the old version.

There is one species of oral composition existing among all the tribes, which, from its peculiarities, deserves to be separately mentioned. I allude to the hieratic chants, choruses and incantations of their professed prophets, medicine men and jugglers--const.i.tuting, as these men do, a distinct order in Indian society, who are ent.i.tled by their supposed skill, wisdom or sanct.i.ty, to exercise the offices of a priesthood. Affecting mystery in the discharge of their functions, their songs and choruses are couched in language which is studiously obscure, oftentimes cabalistic, and generally not well understood by any but professed initiates.

Nothing, however, in this department of my inquiries, has opened a more pleasing view of society, exposed to the bitter vicissitudes of Indian life, than the little domestic chants of mothers, and the poetic see-saws of children, of which specimens are furnished. These show the universality of the sentiments of natural affection, and supply another proof, were any wanting, to demonstrate that it is only ignorance, indolence and poverty, that sink the human character, and create the leading distinctions among the races of men. Were these affections cultivated, and children early taught the principles of virtue and rect.i.tude, and the maxims of industry, order and cleanliness, there is no doubt that the ma.s.s of Indian society would be meliorated in a comparatively short period; and by a continuance of efforts soon exalted from that state of degradation, of which the want of letters and religion have been the princ.i.p.al causes.

In presenting these specimens of songs, gathered among the recesses of the forest, it is hoped it will not be overlooked, by the reader, that they are submitted _as facts_ or _materials_, in the mental condition of the tribes, and not as evidences of attainment in the arts of metre and melody, which will bear to be admitted or even criticised by the side of the refined poetry of civilized nations. And above all, not as efforts to turn Indian sentiments to account, in original composition.

No such idea is entertained. If materials be supplied from which some judgment may be formed of the actual state of these songs and rude oral compositions, or improvisations, the extent of the object will have been attained. But even here, there is less, with the exception of a single department, i.e. versification and composition by cultivated natives, than it was hoped to furnish. And this little, has been the result of a species of labour, in the collection, quite disproportionate to the result. It is hoped at least, that it may indicate the mode in which such collections may be made, among the tribes, and become the means of eliciting materials more worthy of attention.

This much seemed necessary to be said in introducing the following specimens, that there might not appear, to the reader, to be an undue estimate placed on the literary value of these contributions, and translations, while the main object is, to exhibit them in the series, as ill.u.s.trations of the mental peculiarities of the tribes. To dismiss them, however, with a bare, frigid word for word translation, such as is required for the purposes of philological comparison, would by no means do justice to them, nor convey, in any tolerable degree, the actual sentiments in the minds of the Indians. That the opposite error might not, at the same time, be run into, and the reader be deprived altogether of this means of comparison, a number of the pieces are left with literal prose translations, word for word as near as the two languages will permit. Others exhibit both a literal, and a versified translation.

All the North American Indians know that there is a G.o.d; but their priests teach them that the devil is a G.o.d, and as he is believed to be very malignant, it is the great object of their ceremonies and sacrifices, to appease him.

The Indians formerly worshipped the Sun, as the symbol of divine intelligence.

Fire is an unexplained mystery to the Indian; he regards it as a connecting link between the natural and spiritual world. His traditionary lore denotes this.

Zoroaster says: "When you behold secret fire, without form, shining flashingly through the depths of the whole world--hear the voice of fire." One might suppose this to have been uttered by a North American Indian.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Eliot employed the figure 8, set horizontally, to express a peculiar sound, otherwise he used the English alphabet in its ordinary powers.

CHANT TO THE FIRE-FLY.

In the hot summer evenings, the children of the Chippewa Algonquins, along the sh.o.r.es of the upper lakes, and in the northern lat.i.tudes, frequently a.s.semble before their parents' lodges, and amuse themselves by little chants of various kinds, with shouts and wild dancing.

Attracted by such shouts of merriment and gambols, I walked out one evening, to a green lawn skirting the edge of the St. Mary's river, with the fall in full view, to get hold of the meaning of some of these chants. The air and the plain were literally sparkling with the phosph.o.r.escent light of the fire-fly. By dint of attention, repeated on one or two occasions, the following succession of words was caught. They were addressed to this insect:

Wau wau tay see!

Wau wau tay see!

E mow e shin Tshe bwau ne baun-e wee!

Be eghaun--be eghaun--ewee!

Wa Wau tay see!

Wa wau tay see!

Was sa koon ain je gun Was sa koon ain je gun.