In countless song-poems, however, the compactness of thought and swift unity of impression have evolved stanzas with complex and studied patterns of thought-rhythm.
Other distinct influences over the varying patterns of the stanza are the mystic numbers and the dramatic element in the ceremonials, the former more often determining the length of the stanzas and the number of such divisions in a song. The ritualistic use of the numbers two, three, four, five, six, seven, and occasionally of multiples of these numbers, determines the number of stanzas and repetitions in ritualistic songs. It is rather unusual to find distinct tribal preferences in the number of song divisions; although the Taos Pueblo uses two parts and the Blackfoot tribe often seven. Orientation to the world quarters has almost universally established some use of four stanzas and four repetitions in religious songs. Dramatic influence emphasizes the fourfold division, especially in the ritual.
The length of the stanza at no point appears as fixed as the number of stanzas and repetitions. The stanzaic pattern repeats itself exactly more often in a ritual song than in a secular. Many of the odes have extremely long stanzas, some units of thought reaching to one hundred lines, as the Prayer of the First Dancers in the Navaho Night Chant. The length of the stanza in other songs may range from the distich to the sixteen line unit, although little stanzas of three to six lines appear to be the most pleasing to the Indian poet. The longer stanzas commonly employ preludes and refrains and at times resort to repetition of matter.
The oral lyric makes certain special demands of the composer. There must be devices for marking off the stanzas. In addition to certain formal patterns of repetition, these devices include tag endings, such as conclude the scenes in Elizabethan drama, endings with a sharp contrast in pitch and care in enunciation. The drop in pitch appears at the close of the unit of music corresponding to the unit of verse. There may occur, also, a complete change of rhythm and a distinct change in thought from stanza to stanza. Cycles of short songs, or song-sequences with fixed repetitions in the ceremonials, give the effect of stanzaic divisions. We must conclude that the lack of written or printed forms appears no hindrance to the development of stanzaic patterns.
The question of rhyme schemes invites more attention than some other markers of the stanza. It is, to be sure, a relatively unimportant factor in Indian rhythms: although the wide use of assonance commonly approximates rhyme, and elaborate schemes of repetition serve a like purpose. Various schemes of rhyme are used in the songs of The Night Chant, particularly in the internal and end rhymes. In the Song of the Meal Rubbing[1] the second element in the internal rhyme scheme binds the lines together:
Bĭtsísi ...
Estsanatléhisi ...
Alkaíye ...
Bikenagádbe ...
Bitalataibe ...