When the words of the work-songs refer to the action itself, the effect will be strengthened by verbal suggestion. It is true that many of the songs which are sung during the manufacture of weapons and utensils, during boat-building and such-like, are magical in their intention.[404] But there is no doubt that the ideas of poetical magic are to a great extent derived from a psychological experience of the suggestive power of words. Without committing ourselves to any superstition, we can easily believe that—in Polynesia as well as in ancient Finland—canoes were better built when the “boat-building” song was properly recited by the builder. Only we prefer to think that the magic operated on the workman and not on his material.
The psychological influence of the work dances is still easier to understand. Preliminary movements, even when undirected, always make the subsequent action more effective; witness a golfer’s flourish before driving. As Lagrange has pointed out, their effect will be to develop that amount of animal heat which is necessary for every muscular contraction.[405] When, moreover, they are fixed and differentiated in their form, the influence will of course be all the greater. By every attempt to execute a special movement, the idea of such movement is made more and more distinct. And as hereby the ideomotor force of this representation is increased, the final action must be executed with greater ease and greater efficacy. The validity of this law may be easily proved by experimental psychology. Féré has in his dynamometrical tests observed that the second pressure always attains a higher figure than the first one. “La première pression a pour effet de renforcer la représentation mentale du mouvement.”[406] Without any theoretical knowledge of these psychological facts, the common man has always been able to avail himself of the beneficial effects which are to be derived from preliminary imitations of any difficult movement. Hence the curious pantomimes of experimentation which we may always observe in the artisan who has to give a finishing touch to his work, or in the athlete who tries to perform a new and unaccustomed exercise.
The psychology of movement-perception, as we have described it in the foregoing, makes it evident that a similar prompting influence may be exercised by the actions of others.[407] This is an experience which must have occurred, we should imagine, to every one who has been coached in golf by a professional. When concentrating his attention upon each successive movement in the instructor’s model performance, the beginner in sports and gymnastics receives with his whole body, so to speak, an impression of the exercise he has to go through. The representation thus gains in distinctness as well as in motor force, and the subsequent movement is executed in an almost automatic way.
These familiar facts from the psychology of everyday life will explain why among the savage tribes we so often meet with the institution of the præsul. When any labour is to be performed which requires the co-operation of many hands, such as the harvest or rowing, the præsul demonstrates in dance or pantomime the sequence of movements which the others have to go through.[408] By the suggestive influence of his performance all the individual workers are stimulated in their exertions. More important, however, than this stimulation is the co-ordination of labour which is effected by the element of rhythm in song and dance.
We have in a previous chapter spoken at sufficient length of the incalculable æsthetic importance of rhythm as a means of producing emotional community between different individuals. In this connection we have still to point out that a fixed time-division must in the same way facilitate common activity. From the historical point of view this practical aspect is undoubtedly the more important. However fundamental and primordial the æsthetic function of the perception of rhythm may seem for the theorist, it is most probable that the development of this faculty has been chiefly furthered by its utilitarian advantages. There is no doubt that even the most primitive man may feel the want of associating his fellow-men in his emotions, and that for this purpose he may be able to give the expression of them a fixed rhythmical form. But the power of perceiving this time-division as a rhythm, and of obeying it closely in song and dance, would, as Dr. Wallaschek has shown, certainly not have attained so high a degree of development if this power had not, by facilitating common activity, been of such immense advantage for the maintenance of species.[409] It goes without saying that any work which necessitates the co-operation of several workers must be executed with greater efficiency the more closely the individuals follow to a common rhythm.
There is no doubt, therefore, that, as Spencer remarks, the incompetence of the Arab and Nubian boatmen on the Nile is chiefly a result of their inability to act together. As an Arab dragoman is reported to have said, a few Europeans would, by virtue only of their superior powers of co-operation, do in a few minutes what now occupies hundreds of men.[410] Such an incapacity for concerted action is, however, quite exceptional among the lower tribes of men. Some tribes, as e.g. the farmer Negroes in West Africa and the Malay and Polynesian boatmen, are even famous for the wonderful regularity of their work.[411] This regularity, on the other hand, has been explained by all travellers as a result of the rhythmical songs by which their work is accompanied.
It is significant that the most typical specimens of working songs and dances should be met with in the tribes of Oceania. The insular life, which even in other respects has been so favourable to the development of art, has necessitated a most intimate co-operation between individuals.[412] Hence the development of canoe dances and boating songs, by help of which the movements of the rowers are adjusted according to common and fixed rhythms.[413] The same necessity has of course produced similar results, in a greater or less degree, in every community where the type of life makes collective action needful. It has not given rise to any important manifestations of art among the pastoral tribes, in which individuals can do well enough without help from each other. In agricultural societies, on the other hand, it has called forth those sowing and harvest dances or songs which are so familiar in the folklore of the civilised nations.[414] And, more than any other of life’s occupations, war has required an active coherence between the individual members of the tribe. The influence of military institutions on art is, however, in more than one respect so important that its treatment must be reserved for a special chapter.
CHAPTER XIX
ART AND WAR
In the Principles of Sociology Mr. Spencer has devoted some of his most forcible paragraphs to a treatment of the social influences of war. By adducing and comparing with each other types of social life among different tribes, he has been able to show how military customs everywhere tend to reduce the individual liberty and strengthen the central power.[415] Many other writers on sociology have perceived and commented on the truism that the internal coherence of tribes has been chiefly produced by the need of combination for defensive purposes.[416] But perhaps sufficient attention has not been paid to the share which art has had in the development of those peculiarities which are common to all military nations. And yet as a means of facilitating tribal unity of action and feeling, music and dance must be of exceptional sociological importance in warlike communities.[417]
We shall therefore meet with highly developed choral dances in those nations in whose life war is a customary occurrence. The North American Indians,[418] as well as the Dahomeyans,[419] are noted for the soldier-like regularity of their dances. But nowhere among the lower tribes of mankind is the time-sense so refined as among the pre-eminently warlike Maori. Notwithstanding the furious movements in their war dances, the gesticulation of all the participants is always uniform and regular.[420] According to Cruise the very slightest motions of their fingers are simultaneous;[421] and, if we are to believe Mr. Bidwill, even their eyes all move together.[422] Highly accomplished dancers as are certain other Polynesian tribes[423] less warlike than the Maori, it will be admitted that such a pitch of more than Prussian precision would never have been attained if it were not for its military advantages. To the same cause one is also tempted to ascribe the regularity of the Kaffir dances,[424] which by their choral character stand in so marked a contrast to the amusements of the neighbour tribe, the peaceful Hottentots, among whom every dancer acts “separately for himself.”[425]