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.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In the Indian words and vocables the vowels have the continental sound. G is hard, as in go; dh is like th in the; th, as in thin; n as in French en.
[2] The translation given is by my collaborator, Mr. Francis La Flesche.
[3] An old priest of the rite gave me the story and song through Mr. James R. Murie, an educated Pawnee, and they are here for the first time made public.
[4] The translation of the story is by Mr. Francis La Flesche.
[5] To be the first to touch the body of an enemy counts as a war honour.