The American Indians / Their History, Condition and Prospects, from Original Notes and Manuscripts

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

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.

PO-CA-HON-TAS.

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 quantity, 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 quantity. 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 quantity; 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 quantity, 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 cumbrous 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: