The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe!
It is to be hoped that the following notes will be carefully considered. Inflections are most subtle indications of interpretation, and their meaning none too well apprehended. Time spent in such an analysis as that herein undertaken should solve all the ordinary difficulties of the class-room.
l. 1.—Incomplete, hence rising inflection[15] on Prairie.
l. 2.—The same inflection on Quarry.
l. 3-5.—(a) Gitche Manito is the central idea; hence there will be more force on those words. (b) Note that descending is separated from the next line by a comma. This is a good illustration of the function of punctuation; for if the comma were not inserted we should read, descending On the red crags of the quarry, and should not learn of our mistake until we came to the next line.
l. 6.—Nations: falling inflection. A good illustration of the principle that punctuation does not determine inflection: the sense is complete, and the falling inflection instinctively denotes that fact. The whole paragraph is pointing forward to the main statement, called the nations. There might be some reason in the use of a falling inflection on erect, but perhaps the other interpretation is to be preferred.
l. 8-9.—Falling inflections on river and on morning.
l. 10.—Rising inflection on downward. There is likelihood of misinterpretation here. Paraphrased, lines 10 and 11 are equivalent to, And the river, plunging downward over the precipice, gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
l. 11.—Falling inflection on Ishkoodah, because the river did not gleam like the comet Ishkoodah, but like Ishkoodah, which is the Indian name for comet.