Indo-China and its primitive people

by Henry Baudesson

It sometimes happened that when we had broken up our encampment and were advancing to a new site some particularly well-inclined Chief dispatched a warrior-herald before us to announce our arrival by means of a notched stick. The contents of the message were such that before we had appeared the rice necessary for our escort and the paddy for our horses had all been prepared.

I must add that I speak of exceptional occurrences. The rule was that no herald preceded us, or if he did his message was of very different tenor. In such cases, the great majority, we could do nothing but seize by force of arms what ought to have been conceded with good grace.

The Moï regarded our written characters as a species of magical invention. Accordingly the powers thus attributed to the letters themselves were speedily extended to the paper on which they were written. They began to furnish themselves with a "Sra," or sheet of paper, whenever they set out on a journey, in the belief that it would guarantee them against delay or mishap en route. A courier would always carry an envelope, generally empty and unaddressed. Armed with this talisman he was secured against the attacks of tigers and evil spirits and freed from all anxiety as regards what La Fontaine has described as "bon souper, bon gîte, et ... le reste."

This use of notches as written symbols is also found among certain peoples of southern China. Father Crabouillet tells us something of this in his writings. In the course of his missionary work he discovered that the natives are able to represent by these means not only concrete objects but also abstract ideas. They were familiar with the ideographic characters of the Chinese, yet they preferred to use their own enigmatic system for the transaction of business.

We can only conclude that their object is to keep their affairs private from their neighbours the Celestials, whom they have particular reason to distrust.

The literary evolution of primitive peoples follows soon after their musical evolution, to which I have already referred. In the first stages, poetry, song and dance are inextricably associated. The spoken word plays a quite subordinate part in this æsthetic trinity. It serves to explain the meaning of the rhythmical movements but cannot be dissociated from them. The form of this rudimentary poetry is frequently a simple exclamation, a cry or imitative call. The interjectional refrains which we find to-day among savage tribes are only the relics of those wordless romances which preceded spoken verse in the first stage.

Metre is none other than the outcome of man's natural leaning to measured sounds. The verse of primitive folk is accordingly distinguished by the shortness of its lines. There is no rhyme except that which results from the combination of assonances. The length of a line may be used as a test of the standard of civilization to which a people has attained, for it only reaches appreciable dimensions when rules of metre and prosody have been formulated and enforced.

In China there is a mass of documentary evidence which throws light on this process of evolution. The line in that country was originally of four feet only, and did not attain to seven feet for a very considerable period. In India the Sanscrit line is very short in the Rig-Veda and gradually lengthens in the Epics, concluding with the dimensions of fifteen syllables divided by a hemistich, the relic of an earlier period in which the line was very short.

At the peril of seeming paradoxical I have lingered over the sense of rhythm among primitive peoples because so many travellers have expressed surprise at the immense impression which can be produced on a savage by uttering a poetic phrase or merely inserting a line of verse in ordinary conversation.