Since we have drawn the distinction between adapted and indigenous folk-song, the question naturally arises whether there exists in America a truly indigenous folk-song at all. It has been agreed that America, having been colonized by Europeans, possesses no native culture whatever, except such as the Indians may have had. The Indian, indeed, has the best claim to the name American, being indigenous, or at least so early a colonizer as to have constituted virtually a native race. But being the one element which has not been fused with the many elements of which the American nation is now composed, he is to-day in the anomalous position of an indigenous foreigner. For the American of to-day is predominantly European—of overseas origin—and the European conquerors have, in this case, not adopted the 'culture' of the vanquished, because that culture was inferior to their own.
The North American Indian has shown unquestioned evidences of art instincts—in his folk-lore, his handicrafts, and perhaps also in his music. But, with respect to the last, his impulses are so circumscribed by religious formulas and so little affected by a sense of proportion that they hardly achieve even the mildest form of artistic expression or design. Moreover, the idiom he employs is so foreign to us, so exotic in its nature, that either an unconscious or an impulsive use of it by American composers would be out of the question. What use has been made of Indian material has been with the conscious purpose of lending a savage character or local color to the music, as in the preëminent case of MacDowell's 'Indian Suite.' This is exactly analogous to the use of Oriental color by such composers as Saint-Saëns or Delibes. 'Arrangements,' or harmonizations, attempted upon the basis of our European scale have led to some pleasing results at the hands of Frederick R. Burton, Arthur Farwell and others, but at a total sacrifice of the original character of the tunes. What appeal such arrangements have to our ears depends entirely upon the harmonic texture or a readjustment of the melody according to European ideas, not upon its intrinsic value.
'Folk-songs are echoes of the heart-beats of the vast folk and in them are preserved feelings, beliefs and habits of vast antiquity. Not only in the words, which have almost monopolized folk-song study so far, but also in music and perhaps more truthfully in the music than in the words. Music cannot lie, for the reason that the things which are at its base, the things without which it could not be, are unconscious, involitional human products.'[61] It is evident that unless we understand or feel 'the things which are at its base' we cannot respond to the utterances that express them. If for no other reason, the songs of the Indian, because they express the emotions of man at a lower and totally foreign stage of culture, cannot enter into assimilation, with our own. They are therefore not significant to Americans as folk-songs and we have accordingly treated them under the heading of Primitive Music in Volume I (pp. 1 ff.).
With the Indian rejected as a source of folk-song where are we to find such sources? Folk-songs, according to a dictionary definition, are 'marked by certain peculiarities of rhythm, form, and melody, which are traceable, more or less clearly, to racial (or national) temperament, modes of life, climatic and political conditions, geographical environment and language.' The distinction of one kind of folk-song from another therefore depends upon a difference in these peculiarities, and we shall have to look for distinctive characteristics that belong to no other race if we are to find a truly indigenous folk-song. On the other hand, the conditions under which folk-song grows (for it does 'grow' while its sophisticated counterpart is 'built') are essentially the same. The proverbial dictum that 'sorrow is the mother of song' is true as a general rule. It is borne out by the fact that a great majority of the folk-songs of all nations carry a note of melancholy, and a great preponderance of all such songs is in the minor mode. But this is particularly so in Northern countries. No doubt the harsher climatic conditions impose a heavier burden of care. Mr. Krehbiel, who has examined many folk-songs with regard to the relative proportion of modes, remarks that nearly all of Russian song shows the minor predominance peculiar to Northern countries, and he concludes that political conditions have much the same effect as climatic ones.
Of course, the songs of happiness are many, too, but even these are in a measure the product of suffering, for man recognizes well-being very often only by contrast; continuous bliss he is apt to manifest by indifference. Hence we are not surprised that the strongest outbursts of joy, often wild and boisterous, are common to the nations whose dominant note is grief. But whatever the country, folk-song springs invariably from the poorest classes, and most often from the peasant, for, exposed to the phenomena of nature as well as to economic stress, his imagination is constantly stirred by the beauties of the earth, the mysteries and the tragedy of life.
In looking for analogous conditions in America we may think first of the pioneer, the early settler, who no doubt had hardships to endure and privations to suffer. But by peculiar circumstances he was unfitted for the creation of song. Springing largely from a notoriously unimaginative tradesman's class, inspired by the stern principles of a piety that deliberately suppressed impulsive expression as sinful, and almost constantly engaged in savage warfare, he may hardly be looked upon as an originator of poetic beauty. Moreover, his English culture clung to him for generations, while politically he considered himself an Englishman. The songs he sang, therefore, were the songs of his fathers, and precious little social opportunity he had for indulging in their charm. Isolation and lack of communication effectually precluded a current interchange of ideas.
In a great measure these conditions apply to the subsequent generations of all European races in America—the pioneers as well as the later immigrants. Their own traditions, whatever their nationality, are preserved for a generation or so to the exclusion of new influences; then the old songs die away and the memory of them becomes obliterated in the great stream of cosmopolitanism. Only in isolated spots, where a race, especially strong in tradition or racial peculiarities, or where a mere aggregation of people, united in a common mode of life, is sequestered, have these traditions survived or engendered new ones. Instances of this are the French Canadians, the Creoles of Louisiana, the Spanish-Americans of Mexico and California, and the mountaineers of Kentucky and Virginia. These people have a folk-song peculiar to themselves, which is founded, however, upon a traditional racial idiom, and may therefore be classed as 'adapted' or 'transformed' folk-song. For the indigenous American folk-song we shall have to look elsewhere.
The only caste in American history whose condition in any way resembled that of the peasant class in Europe was the negro slave of the South. Not only was he subjected to sufferings, hardships, and oppression, but, injected into a civilization in which he found himself an outcast, he was forced to create a racial existence for himself, which, while it adapted elements of the society that ruled him, nevertheless was bound to be distinctive because of a peculiar admixture of savage customs and superstitions, the imperfection of his understanding, and the extraordinary emotional makeup of his character. The negro in his uncivilized way was endowed with the ingenuousness of a child, and the susceptibility to impressions that goes with the untutored mind. He had a childlike, poetic nature, a natural gift of song, an emotionalism and a sentimentality that responded unfailingly to all the pangs of an unjust and cruel existence. The ruthless severing of family ties, the physical pains, the hardships of labor found a direct expression in his music, the idiom of which was partly innate and partly acquired. Add to this the intense religious excitement to which the negro is subject—an emotion which seems to have translated itself with all its elemental power from savage idolatry to Christian worship—and you have a combination which could not but produce a striking result. 'Nowhere save on the plantation of the South could the emotional life which is essential to the development of true folk-song be developed, nowhere else was there the necessary meeting of the spiritual cause and the simple agent and vehicle.'[62]
The peculiar fact that the one true indigenous class of American folk-song is the product of an African race is, as we have seen, due to circumstances alone. It is no reflection upon the capabilities of the other races for artistic expression. It simply demonstrates the fact that folk-song grows under certain conditions and no other. A nation that is prosperous, that is plunged headlong into the feverish activities of industrial progress, cannot be expected to bring forth melancholy 'complaints' or gems of contemplative lyricism. But there come even to such nations moments of national stress that give rise to unusual outbursts. While these are usually voiced by single individuals, they reproduce so vividly the spirit of the people that they often rank with folk-songs in spontaneity and directness. Such are the patriotic songs, whose creation accompanied every war and every revolution. Often they are mere adaptations of freshly composed words to old but stirring tunes, which thus take on a new significance—often these very tunes are 'captured' from the enemy and annexed to the country's flag. Such was the case in the War of the Revolution, in the War of 1812, and again in the Civil War. These songs—not strictly folk-songs—might better be described as 'songs in the folk manner,' a distinction indicated in German by the adjective volkstümlich or volksmässig.
Such songs in the folk manner follow in the wake of every considerable folk-song tradition. They have not failed to do so in America, and it is significant that the spirit which they reproduce or aim to reproduce is the spirit of the negro folk-song. The movement, or after-movement, started with the imitation of negro ditties by white composers in connection with the so-called negro minstrel troupes which, beginning about 1845, became a favorite form of amusement in the United States. Its culmination must be recognized in the work of such men as Stephen Foster and Henry Clay Work, whose works are part of the permanent stock of American lyrics. Beyond this the negro song has had an influence upon the so-called American popular song, a degenerate type which has appropriated, often in distorted form, some of the character of plantation song, notably the peculiar form of syncopation known as 'ragtime.'