The modern Maya lends itself very readily both to rhyme and rhythm, and I have in my possession some quite neat specimens of versification in it, from the pen of the Yucatecan historian, Apolinar Garcia y Garcia.
When we reach Peru we find a race not less poetical in temperament than the cultured Mexicans. Nothing but their ignorance of an alphabet, and the indifference or fanatical hatred of the early explorers for the productions of the native intellect, prevented the perpetuation of a Qquichua literature, both extensive and noble. As it is, we may expect many valuable examples of it when the learned Peruvian scholar, Senor Gavino Pacheco Zegarra, shall publish his long promised Tresor de la Langue des Incas. Among them he has announced the first appearance of a number of Yaravis, or elegiac chants, composed by the Indians themselves, and sung in memory of their departed friends.
We know, from the testimony of Garcillaso de la Vega, that the Inca bards formed a separate and highly respected class, and that in their hands the supple Qquichua tongue had been brought under well recognized rules of prosody. He mentions the different classes and subjects of their poems, compares them to similar compositions in Spanish, and even gives specimens of two short ones, of undoubted antiquity, and adds that, when a boy, he knew many others. "What would not one now give," exclaims Mr. Markham, "for those precious relics of Inca civilization, which the half-caste lad allowed to slip from his memory."[78] All that Mr. Markham could collect, in his extensive journeys in Peru, were not above twenty songs of ancient date, and I regret to say that these have not yet been published.
Of those charming Tupi songs, to which I have already referred, I fear that we have but very few preserved in the original tongue. Not that there is any lack of poems in the lingoa geral, or "common language" of Brazil, as the ordinary and corrupt Tupi there spoken is called. It is a melodious idiom, lending itself easily to rhyme and rhythm, and several Brazilian writers of European blood have gained reputation by their compositions in it. But of genuine aboriginal productions, there are not many.
The entertaining old voyager, Jean de Lery, who visited Brazil with Villegagnon in 1557, has recorded a few simple airs, which appear to be merely choruses or refrains of songs, the delivery of which was, however, so effective, that to hear them carried him out of himself; and ever, when his memory recalled them, his heart beat, and it seemed that he heard the wild cadence once again resounding in his ears through the tropical forests.[79]
Some strange old poetic invocations in archaic Tupi addressed to the moon and to the god of love, Ruda, who dwells in the clouds, have been collected and printed by Dr. Couto de Magalhaes, a writer whose studies on Tupi poetry, its character and development, merit high praise.[80] Both the songs and music of the modern natives of that country attracted the attention of the learned Von Martius, and in his volumes of Travels in Brazil an appendix is devoted to their discussion.[81] Many excellent hints for preparing a Tupi anthology are also contained in an erudite note of Ferdinand Denis to his description of the visit of fifty native Tupis to France, in 1550.[82]
Section 7. Dramatic Literature.
The development of the dramatic art can be clearly traced in the American nations. When the Spaniards first explored the West Indian Islands they found the inhabitants much given to festivals which combined dancing with chanting, and the introduction of figures with peculiar costumes. The native name of these representations was adopted by the Spaniards, and applied to such performances elsewhere. The word is areytos, and is derived from the Arawack verb, aririn, to rehearse, recite.[83]
Such dramatic recitations were found among most of the tribes of North and South America, and have been frequently described by travelers. Often they were of a religious nature, having something to do with devotional exercises; but not seldom they were simply for amusement. Occasionally they were mere pantomimes, where the actors appeared in costume and masks, and went through some ludicrous scene. Thus, to quote one example out of many, Lieutenant Timberlake saw some among the Cherokees, about the middle of the last century, which he speaks of as "very diverting," where some of the actors dressed in the skins of wild animals, and the simulated contest between these pretended beasts and the men who hunted them, were the motives of the entertainment.[84]
From the solemn religious representations on the one hand and these diverting masquerades on the other, arose the two forms of tragedy and comedy, both of which were widely popular among the American aborigines.[85] The effete notion that they were either unimaginative or insusceptible to humor is, to be sure, still retained by a few writers, who are either ignorant or prejudiced; but it has been refuted so often that I need not stop to attack it. In fact, so many tribes were of a gay and frolicsome disposition, so much given to joking, to playing on words, and to noticing the humorous aspect of occurrences, that they have not unfrequently been charged by the whites best acquainted with them, the missionaries, with levity and a frivolous temperament.