CHAPTER III.
Music and poetry of the Indians.
Here, it must be acknowledged, we enter a barren field, offering little to excite industry, or to reward inquiry. Without literature to give perpetuity to the creations of genius, or to bear to succeeding times the record of remarkable events, the Americans have no store house of ancient learning to open to the curiosity of the European race. They have probably never thought like the Arabs, that the cultivation of their language was an object of importance; and though the orator must at times have experienced the effect of a happy choice of expression, he must always have been confined to a narrow range, by the necessity of keeping within the comprehension of his hearers. Hence their public speakers appear to depend more on a certain vehemence and earnestness of manner, which is intelligible without words, than upon any elegance of thought, or refinement of diction.
Their songs, whether of war or devotion, consist, for the most, of a few words or short phrases many times repeated; and in their speeches, they dwell long and vehemently on the same idea. One who hears an Indian orator without comprehending his language, would confidently suppose that his discourse abounded with meaning; but these speeches, like their tedious and monotonous chants, when clearly understood, appear so poor and jejune, that few white men would listen to either, were it not with the hope of extracting information, of which the speaker, or the singer himself, must be wholly unconscious. But after all is heard and explained, and carefully examined in all its bearings, it must be principally the business of a quick and fertile imagination, to find in them moral instruction or historical information. If we find among the American Indians traditional items, bearing manifest and strong resemblance to those of the great Asiatic family, from whom we have adopted many of our religious opinions, this can only be considered as indicating what needed no proof; namely: That this people, as well as ourselves, have descended from that primeval stock, which, planted somewhere upon the mountains of Asia, has sent forth its branches into all parts of the earth. Thither, we are taught by the most ancient human records, and by the concurrent deductions of all sound philosophy, and honest inquiry, to look for the great fountain of the human race: and if some of the streams, in descending thence, have been concealed in swamps, or sunk beneath sands, we ought not therefore to doubt that their origin is to be thence deduced. But that existing or retrieveable monuments or resemblances, will ever enable the curious satisfactorily to trace the American branch to its origin, need not now be expected. Nevertheless, this part of the subject may have interest for those who love to trace the human character through all situations and exposures, and to contemplate the effect of revolutions in external circumstances, on manners, language, and metaphysical opinions.
Sufficient evidence probably exists, to convince many, that the natives of the central regions of North America, whatever diversities of dialect may now exist, are essentially of the same race with the Peruvians, the Mexicans, and the Natchez; between whom and the ancient inhabitants of Greece and Italy, and that portion of the present population of India who worship Brama, Boudd, Ganesa, Iswara, etc. a near relationship has already been ascertained. In the metamorphoses which the Indian traditions assign to many trees, plants, animals, and other things, we are strongly reminded of the similar superstitions preserved by the Roman poets. We find, also, in the American traditions, distinct allusions to a general deluge, and to several other particulars which we are accustomed to consider as resting solely on the authority of the Mosaic history. But when we reflect on the almost universal distribution of these opinions, in some shape or other, among all known races of men, we may admit a doubt whether they have been derived from the historical books of the Hebrews, or whether they are not rather the glimmerings of that primitive light, which, at the first great division after the flood, into the families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and more recently at the dispersion of Babel, must have been in possession of all mankind. We find in the Mosaic history, written, as it was, long after the period here spoken of, abundant evidence, not only that traditional remembrance of the deluge, and other great events in the early history of mankind, was still preserved; but that direct revelations of the mind and will of the Creator had been, and were still made to men, at sundry times, and in divers places. Within two or three hundred years of the deluge, some knowledge of the mechanic arts, at least ship building and masonry, must have remained, or so many men would not have been found ready to undertake the erection of a tower whose top should reach unto Heaven. At this time, Noah, the second father of mankind, and his three sons, who, as well as himself, had known the “world before the flood,” were still alive. Any branch, therefore, of the family of either of the three sons of Noah, removed at this time to “the isles of the gentiles,” or to whatever remote part of the earth their knowledge of navigation and other arts might enable them to reach, would retain at least a traditional cosmogony and theogony, which, after ever so many years, or ever so wide and devious a wandering, must probably have preserved resemblance, in some particulars, to the originals. Hence it will, we think, be evident, that although we may find a strong resemblance between some of the observances of the Indians and the Hebrews, we are by no means to infer, that one of these races must have descended from the other. All that they have in common, will probably be found to have grown out of similarity of circumstances; or may be traced to times long previous to the calling of Abraham.
But let us leave this profitless discussion, which has long since received more attention than it deserves, and return to the subject before us.
The poetry of the Indians, if they can properly be said to have any, is the language of excitement, and the expression of passion; and if whatever has this character, and is at the same time raised above the tone and style of ordinary conversation, and is or may be sung to music, is poetry, it cannot be denied that they have among them poetry and poets in abundance. Excitement of whatever kind, calls forth a peculiar manner of expression; and though measure and rhythm, polished and artificial structure, equally balanced and harmonious periods, may be wanting, they commonly accompany the utterance of their words by some modulation of the voice, like what we call singing. In all their religious feasts and solemnities, they address their prayers and praises to superior beings in song. In all times of distress and danger, or when suffering under the apprehension of immediate starvation, or awaiting the approach of death in some more horrid form, the Indian expresses his anxiety, offers up his petition, or perhaps recalls some favourite and cherished idea, his boast in life, and his consolation in death, by a measured and monotonous chant, in which the ear of the stranger distinguishes principally the frequent repetition of the same word.
Nor is it on the serious and momentous occasions of life only, that we witness these rude efforts at poetry and music. Love, in its disappointment, or in its success; sorrow, hope, and intoxication, choose the same method of utterance. When in a state of intoxication, as they often are, the men, and more particularly the women of some tribes, are heard by night, and often almost throughout the night, singing in a plaintive and melancholy tone of the death of their friends, or of other misfortunes. One who listens to these lamentations, while darkness and distance interpose to conceal the too often disgusting objects who utter them, and to soften down and mellow the tone of high pitched voices, will often find something affecting in their honest and unpremeditated complaints. Their voices are often fine, and the sentences they utter, are the language, most commonly, of real suffering, devested of affectation or art. From the great frequency with which these melancholy chantings, and the profuse flow of tears occur, as the consequences of intoxication among them, one might infer, either that their condition has in it a greater share of sorrow and of suffering than that of some other races, or that the excitement of strong drink affects them in a different manner. A fair inference, at least, is, that in their sober moments, they, like other men, wear a mask. Indeed, those who best know the Indians, are best acquainted with the constant efforts they make at concealment, and how well they at length teach the outward aspect to conceal or misrepresent the internal emotions. But for these unpremeditated effusions, particularly for the whining and drivelling of intoxication, the most enthusiastic admirer of the Indians will not claim the appellation of poetry. If any thing among them deserves this name, we must search for it among those traditionary songs which descend from father to son, and are transferred from man to man by purchase, to be used in their feasts, in the administration of remedies to the sick, and above all, in medicine hunting. That some of the songs thus preserved have considerable antiquity, we do not doubt; that they have much merit as poetical compositions, we are not disposed to assert. The poetry of the Indians, like their eloquence, requires the assistance of able translators, and those not too scrupulous to draw only from the materials of the original.
The method of delineation, by which they aid the memory in retaining the recalling, on occasion, these compositions, exhibits, perhaps, one of the earliest steps towards a written language. Yet, from its existence among them, in the present form, one would not hastily infer, that they had never been intruded upon by men of another race, learning or arts would finally have flourished among them. There are but too many evidences, that the aboriginal Americans are, by temperament, by some peculiarity of physical structure, or moral propensity, a more sluggish race, than the European; consequently, destined to a slow advance, or, perhaps, like most of the Asiatics, to be for ages stationary, or retrogradent, in the journey of improvement. We would not risk the assertion, that the Americans are an inferior race; the barrier to their improvement appears to be that indolence which is not less a habit of their minds than of their bodies, and which disqualifies them for spontaneous and long continued and laborious thinking. Hunger may, and does, overcome the habit of bodily indolence, or, at least, sometimes interrupts it; but, in the Indian character, the tendency is always to quiescence. Instances are infinitely rare, among them, of that restlessness of mind so common in the European race, which is ever in quest of something beyond the complete gratification of the wants of the body, and which has been the true source of so many great and ennobling actions. The past history of this race of men, is not wanting in instances of the manifestation of that inherent sluggishness of disposition, which has kept them back from the knowledge, the improvements, and the civilization, which have been so long urged upon them. Let it be granted, as doubtless it should be, that the Jesuits, and, to some extent, at least the Moravian, and other protestant missionaries, commenced their labours where they should have ended them, by offering to the benighted minds of the Indians, the stupendous, and, to them, totally incomprehensible doctrines of the christian religion; and that they, in a great measure, neglected to teach them those arts, which, by ensuring an abundance of means for the sustenance of life, might enable them, first of all, to fix in settled habitations, and afterwards gradually to adopt those habits and opinions which have ever been found indispensable in preparing the wilderness for the reception of the good seed. Yet, must we not acknowledge, that the descendants of those who were early received into intimate association with the whites, and learned from them the mechanical, and all the common arts of life, are, at this time, lamentably deficient in the virtues, as well as the knowledge we might have expected from them?