It is only natural that the requirements of practical life should call into existence various kinds of mimic, pictorial, or literary information which have little whatever to do with art, even if this notion is conceived in its widest sense. There is no reason for us to delay our argument by enumerating pantomimics, gestures, or paintings which aim at communicating notices of trivial importance, such as directions about the way to be taken by travellers, warnings with regard to dangerous passages, etc.[197] Even as a purely technical product a work is of little interest as long as its subject is so poor and insignificant. We feel justified, therefore, in restricting our attention to such manifestations as present in their contents some degree of coherence and continuity.
The simplest examples of purely narrative art which fulfil the technical claims of a complete work will of course appear when the text of the narration consists of some real occurrence which is represented with all its episodes and incidents. Primitive life affords many inducements to such relation. The men who have returned from war, or from a hunting or a fishing expedition, will thus often repeat their experiences in a dramatic dance performed before the women and children at home. Although in many cases there is reason to suppose that even these performances may be executed to satisfy some superstitious or religious motive, they have undoubtedly, to a certain extent, been prompted by the desire to revive and communicate the memories of eventful days. Other incidents that have made a strong impression upon the minds of the people are in the same way displayed in pantomimic action. It is sufficient here to refer to the elaborate dramas “Coming from Town” performed by Macusi children, in which all the episodes of a journey are reproduced with the utmost possible exactness,[198] to the Corrobberrees in Queensland, in which incidents of individual or tribal interests, such as hunting or war adventures, but only those of recent occurrence, are enacted,[199] and to the performance in a Wanyoro village, where M. de Bellefond’s behaviour during a recent battle was closely imitated.[200] At the dramatic entertainment held before some members of Captain Cook’s expedition an elopement scene which had in reality taken place some time previously was performed in the presence of the runaway girl herself. The play is said to have made a very strong impression upon the poor girl, who could hardly refrain from tears when she saw her own escapade thus reproduced.[201] The imitation of the real action was in this case evidently designed as punishment for the guilty spectator; and as the piece concluded with a scene representing the girl’s return to her friends and the unfavourable reception she met with from them, it tended no doubt to exercise a salutary influence.
This naïve little interlude, with its satirical and moralising vein, naturally reminds us of those old farces which candidly defined themselves as adaptations of some “scandale du quartier.”
Là elle fut exécutée
Icy vous est representée.[202]
The wordless pantomimes and dramatic dances of the modern savages give us no information of this kind. But there is no doubt that a closer investigation would reveal that a great number of the comical and heroical episodes which, are described in ethnological literature have had their prototypes in some incidents of recent occurrence.
This opinion can only be corroborated by extending our investigation to the other departments of narrative art. Whatever other merits one might discover in primitive poetry, its strength does certainly not lie in invention. When the songs contain any narrative element at all, it refers to some simple experience of the day. Travel, hunting, and war afford the themes for the simplest epical poems as well as for the most primitive dramatic recitals.[203] And any event of unusual occurrence will of course be made use of by the poets. Travellers who have learned to understand the languages of the natives they sojourn with have often observed that their own persons have been described in impromptu songs.[204] Sometimes these songs have a satirical tendency;[205] sometimes they are composed as glorifications of the white man.[206] But there is no need to assume either of these tendencies in every case. The mere fact of his being a strange and new thing qualifies the European as a fitting subject for the primitive drama and poetry. And on the same grounds all the marvels of civilisation—the rifles, steamers and so on—will often be described in poetry.[207] In the savage mind these unknown facts will easily give rise to the most marvellous interpretations. For an instance of such apparently fantastic products of poetic imagination, which in reality have their origin in an unavoidable misconstruction of an unknown reality, we need only refer to the description of Captain Cook’s ships in the Hawaii song, which has been taken down by M. de Varigny. The ships themselves are spoken of as great islands, their masts are trees, the sailors are gods, who drink blood (i.e. claret), and eat fire and smoke through long tubes (i.e. pipes), and carry about things which they keep in holes in their flanks.[208] It is but natural to assume that—if researches on the origins of the subjects were possible—the seeming richness of invention in many similar poems could be accounted for by the deficient observation and the faults of memory in uneducated man. And by such researches the importance of actual experience would be substantiated even with regard to the art of barbaric nations. As to the songs of the lower savages, to which we have to restrict our attention at present, it is, as shown by the above adduced examples, unnecessary to appeal to this explanation.
Not less ephemeral than the literary subjects are the motives of primitive pictorial art. In Herr von den Steinen’s account of the Xingu tribes we can find some most typical examples of such explanatory designs by which the poetic and dramatic recitals of battles, travels, etc., are supplemented.[209] Owing to their fugitive character these simple manifestations can never be reduced to a scientific account. But there is reason to believe that in all parts of the world pictures have been drawn in the air or in the sand, of which there remain no more trace than of the gesture that is over or of the unwritten poem that is forgotten.
It is evident, however, that in some instances at least there have remained traces of these ephemeral narrations. The picture might have been drawn on some piece of bark or cloth instead of on the sand, the pantomime might have been repeated even after its subject had lost its actuality, or the text remembered after it had served its immediate purpose in the narration. The fugitive recital, whether pictorial, mimic, or oral, which lives only for the moment might in this way have become a permanent work, conveying the contents of the narrative to future times. One would think that as soon as such a means of preserving a record of past events had been, intentionally or accidentally, discovered, it would have immediately been turned to account. There is, after all, but one step between the impromptu dance or poem, which tells of a recent occurrence, and the work of art, which forwards the memory of the same occurrence to consecutive generations.
Ethnological science shows, however, that this distinction is by no means a theoretical one only. There are tribes amongst the lower savages in which the pantomimes and dances refer only to the most recent events. And if amongst these tribes some pictures or some dances have been preserved from older times, they appear to be quite isolated exceptions, the presence of which one is tempted to attribute to accident rather than design. It is only when we look to a higher degree of culture that we find a commemorative art, in the true sense of the word, appearing.