Densmore points out that among the Iriquois[22] the word orenda is used to designate the universal indwelling spirit. Nothing was regarded by the Indian as supernatural, in our use of the term, but many Indians desired an orenda stronger than their own. When a medicine man began to treat a sick person the result depended upon the power of his orenda. Orenda could be put forth in song. Those who possessed orenda strong enough to do wonderful things were called medicine men. They were consecrated to their work, and the safety, success and health of their people depended on their efforts.
In completing her analysis of Indian medicine songs, Densmore concludes that they suggest “the confidence which the medicine man felt in his own power, and which he wished to impress on the mind of his patients.”
Wallaschek[79] lists many examples of the healing use of music among primitive tribes. Among the Wasambara in East Africa, the doctor arrives with a small bell in his hand which he rings from time to time. The patient sits before him on the ground and the doctor begins speaking in a singing tone: “Dabre, dabre.” He repeats this several times and the patient sings a simple response. In Australia, Wallaschek found a tribal doctor shaking a bundle of reeds, an action otherwise used during a song to mark time. In Borneo, the natives perform recitatives and songs in order to catch the soul of the patient which is supposed to have run away before the evil spirit. The Wallawalla Indians in this country believe that song influences the cure of a patient, and all the convalescents are directed to sing for several hours daily. In British Columbia the doctor sings when he visits the patient, while a chorus of people intones a song outside the house.
With the dawn of civilization, intellectual activity became more progressive but folkways die hard.
“The ancient Egyptians called music ‘physic for the soul,’ and had faith in its remedial virtues. We may presume that the incantations presented in the medical papyri were likewise to be emitted with the proper voice and therefore contain an element of music. The Persians regarded music as an expression of the good principle Ahura-Mazda and are said to have cured various maladies by the sound of the lute”[24]. “The Lacedemonians agreed with the Egyptians and confined the possessors of music to one family, and their priests like those of Egypt were taught medicine and music, and initiated into religious mysteries”[28].
The martial and moral values of music were appreciated by most of the early civilizations. Both Confucius and Plato believed that music was the most certain means of reforming public mores and sustaining them at a high level.[25] Although many histories on effects of music quote the scripture as evidence of the Hebrew use of music in healing, the passage quoted[63] is subject to various interpretations. It simply says that after listening to David play on the harp, Saul was “refreshed and well,” this could refer more to loss of fatigue than cure of a disease.
The great poets have always sung the praises of their beloved sister muse. In Homer there is a story relating how the flow of blood from Ulysses’s wound was stopped, charmed by the use of music.[13] Now it is very possible that the blood of the famed warrior coagulated in its wound during a musical interlude, but then, all wounds except those involving a large artery will cease bleeding in about twenty minutes. Homer also stressed good music and song as a means of elevating the spirit and of overcoming depression of the soul or mind, agony, anguish, anger and sorrow. He gives as an example the story in which Chiron heals the sick with melody.[57] Cato[13] spoke of luxated joints which were eased by the harmony of sound. We cannot be sure of the diagnostic acumen of the observer, but for active people the most common traumatic joint trouble is a “locked” knee. Most knees which contain disturbed cartilage will unlock after a relatively short period of rest. In each of these instances, music was an environmental coincidence. Such observations would only begin to assume scientific medical value if they could be repeated many times under identical or similar conditions. They were not.
We may now return to the episodes related by Burney in his commentary. Martianus Capella, an ancient author on music, assures us that “I have often cured disorders of the mind as well as the body with music”[58]. He also claimed that the Aesclepiades, the state-recognized priests of medicine, cured deafness by the sound of the trumpet. “Wonderful, indeed!”, says Burney, “that the same noise which would occasion deafness in some should be a specific for it in another.” In Plutarch’s book De Musica it is related that Thaletas the Cretan delivered the Lacedemonians from the pestilence by the sweetness of his lyre.
“Thaletas, a famous lyric poet, appeared by command of an oracle and all the songs he sang were prayers to the Gods. The disease probably reached its highest pitch of malignity before he came, and began to subside with his coming; but its disappearance was attributed to the music of Thaletas.”
Many other cures are cited. Xenocrates employed the sound of instruments in the cure of maniacs; and Appolonius Dyscolos claimed that music was a sovereign remedy for dejection of the spirits and a disordered mind, and that the sound of a flute would cure epilepsy and sciatic gout. Athenaeus rendered the cure for gout more certain by playing music in the Phrygian mode, while Aulus Gellius insisted that the music be soft and gentle, the opposite of the furious Phrygian. Coelius Aurelianus introduced a concept which reappeared at several widely separated times. He called it loca dolentia decantare, or enchanting the disordered places. He claimed that the pain was relieved by causing a vibration in the fibres of the affected part. There is little doubt that music causes a physical vibration of the air, but the force that such vibrations could have on most tissues is negligible. Other writers recommended that the instrument be held against the part to be treated for direct transmission of the vibrations, but if physical excitement is desired this can be accomplished more uniformly by applications known as manipulation or massage. Such manipulations are known to be helpful in some conditions, but not curative in painful conditions such as sciatica.