FIG. 68.—“Sansá” or “Zimba,” a musical box of the Negroes,
placed on or in a calabash; played with the fingers.
(After Wood.)
The harp of the Kafirs and the gora give forth only feeble sounds, and serve chiefly to satisfy the musical taste of the performer; they are scarcely heard by the others. This fact, like others, proves that music is a less powerful means of socialisation than dancing; it affords joys more intimate, more individual, except when it is reduced to what is its least musical element so to speak—rhythm; then the part it plays is a considerable one, especially in warlike manifestations. No army has been able to do without music.
FIG. 69.—“Marimba,” the Negro xylophone.
(After Wood.)
Poetry.—Singing and poetry are indistinguishable during the early stages of civilisation. The poetic productions of uncultured peoples have as yet been very little studied,[234] but from what is known about them it appears that the earliest creations of this kind are repeated rhythmical phrases, expressing the most common sensations, and concerned chiefly with the digestive functions: complaint in regard to hunger, the pleasure experienced after feasting, or a desire for certain articles of food as expressed in this song of the Australian—
“The peas that the white men eat are good—
I should like some, I should like some.”
Afterwards come the emotions of hunting: the jubilation at having killed an animal, recitatives after the manner of the following:—