Mary Austin

“ The student of poetry in America enjoys an opportunity, such as has never been practicable for the European student, to come in contact with the source and mould of poetic form. For in Europe, the overlaying of all native activity by the sedulously cultivated Greek and Roman preferences, the deliberate turning of scholarly inquiry from what was self-sprung and indigenous toward what had been perfected in another environment and upon other roots, left the whole subject of the origin of form dangling in the atmosphere of theory and surmise. ”

“ Let the observer sit among the American Indians under a starlit sky in the far spaces of the desert, or with his horizon bound by native forests, where only blazed trails penetrate the shadows—wherever these people sing, encircling a quiet fire. ”

“ All the subtlety of charm and melody in the verse evades analysis in the study of rhythms; yet poetry is no less beautiful because we catch the grace of a flowing line and the play of assonance through open syllables, as in the Zuñi Sunset Song; the contrasting gaiety of light, [170] quick, staccato movement; or the faultless symmetry of antiphonals. It is extremely difficult to interpret in terms of occidental prosody the poetic genius which arose from an alien civilization. We must constantly return to our cultural backgrounds for explanation. ”

“ The poet can sing them indefinitely, as they fall into the rhythm of respiration. This syllabic group is the irreducible unit within the foot; if we eliminate the lengthening of a vowel, a device for the singer rather than for the poet.
The function of the vocable in the metrical design is nonessential from the intellectual viewpoint; but there is a clear value, from an æsthetic viewpoint, in the full rounded vowels of many syllables. They give tone color to the whole song, and enrich the metrical design.
The range in metrical patterns gives infinite variety and freedom to Indian verse. ”

“ Here in the United States we are, by a turn of fortune, undeserved and underappreciated, able to watch the evolution of poetic form from stages somewhat earlier than those recorded by Aristotle, going on as an indigenous type of human expression. We are face to face here with the evolution of lyric form out of the stanzaic act, ritualistically repeated; with the approach to the ode, along the path struck out by primitive man in the identification of himself with the sources of high states of being. ”

“ The interlacing design of thought is one of the most graceful as well as one of the most difficult. This pattern shows skill and delicacy in poetic construction, as the interlacing repetitions frequently carry from one stanza to another, as from first to third and second to fourth, found in The Morning Star and the New Born Dawn, from The Hako. This device carries the thought forward. It is, therefore, definitely related in purpose to the form which is universally the vehicle of the ballad—incremental repetition. The Indian poet uses this form both for narrative and for descriptive purposes. ”

“ For analysis, we must observe native singers and study phonographic records. The printed verse gives little opportunity for the study of meter except through musical accompaniment, when the phrases of the music and of the verse coincide, as few notable investigators have set down accent and quantity. Only phonographic records show the use of pitch in rhythm, an element most familiar to any one who has ever heard the Indians chant and sing. Two related arts explain the unique character of Indian lyric measures, the musical setting and the oral rendition of the poem. ”

“ Aside from its main use in the tag ending of verse or stanza when stress is not used for that purpose, effort in enunciation appears to be an accidental rhythmic element, depending upon the use of the high, close vowels, as e, and the aspirated, closed, and guttural consonants. It is, therefore, least useful when it coincides with the other devices of rhythm—lost, as it must be, in the use of stress. Indian poetry makes a sharp distinction, it must be observed, between accent and stress, the latter requiring definite bodily effort, even explosive enunciation. ”

“ If the original words have been lost, it is entirely possible that the new poem is perfectly adjusted to the music as a genuine re-expression of the rhythm and sweep of the melody. We have a notable instance in English in the poetry of Burns.
Indian lyric poetry has, we have noted, the qualities of oral verse. It employs a number of devices to mark off rhythmic units: stress, accent, range in pitch, quantity, and effort in enunciation. Stress and the higher pitch coincide almost universally. The dramatic and the musical influence require some use of quantity. ”

“ It is not an incidental play-motif that the Zuñi children sing in the Hymn to the Sun, “Listen, just listen,” as they hold spiral shells to their ears. Mr. Troyer wrote: “The primary aim seems to be to develop early in life, by mechanical aids, the perception of solar vibration, which later in life becomes a natural gift.” A critic whose hearing is less sensitive than that of the Red Man will remain wholly unaware of many delicate nuances.
These subtle changes in Indian lyrics can scarcely be said to follow metrical laws, yet cannot be thought accidental. ”

“ Many of us, however, cannot readily explore the remote places of aboriginal song. For such readers, fortunately, there is [152] an increasing number of printed studies and of records gathered by our great museums.
Even after wide observation and the close study of years, many questions will still remain to baffle us. To reconcile many apparent inconsistencies of Indian lyric verse forms, we must first understand the thought-movement of this body of poetry before we approach the whole subject of thought-rhythm, with the questions of repetition and of stanzaic and metrical structure. ”

“ Plant the perfect double corn-ear.
So the fields shall shine
With tassels white of perfect corn-ears.
Hither to them, hither come,
Rain that stands and cloud that rushes!
[69]
A RAIN SONG OF THE SNAKE SOCIETY—I (Sia)
Priests of tinia,
Let the white floating clouds,
The clouds like the plains,
The lightning, thunder, rainbow, and cloud peoples water the earth.
Let the people of the white floating clouds,
The people of the clouds like the plains,
The lightning, thunder, rainbow, and cloud peoples
Come and work for us and water the earth. ”

“ When a thousand songs have beaten their way into his pulse, the listener may hope to understand both the form and the spirit of this verse. Only this certain recognition acquired by personal knowledge can direct him to sound judgments of the current pseudo-Indian verse. It is the only safe basis for comparison when studies lead far afield into the song-literature of many tribes. ”

“ The [171] crest words or syllables in a line, particularly in the recessional movement and in descending pitch, may also shift the metrical emphasis. In the Zuñi song Lover’s Wooing, the crest words are most distinct: blanket, maiden, awaiting, alone, walk, come. The rhythm bends to them.
To one who has listened to countless Indian songs, there remains another logical influence over the exquisite variations of these lyrics—mimesis of elements of the natural world. The rhythms of nature float through the rhythms of Indian verse. ”

“ A Papago harvest song, for instance, balances high and low pitched measures in rising three syllabled rhythm, which suggests a dance with gesture or swaying of the body. In each phrase of the song, the foot of the higher pitch carries the heavier stress. This double use of pitch and stress, or accent, in phrases of two measures runs throughout the song, showing the regularity of metrical pattern to be expected where the lyric accompanies action or ritual observance. Such definite schemes of short measures do not appear as commonly as in English lyric poetry. ”

“ The Indian poet achieves this symmetry in structure by using varied patterns of thought-rhythm; that is, by means of infinitely modified forms of repetition which are as distinctively characteristic [155] of his genius as parallelism was of the ancient Hebrew or as the variations of rhyme and of stanzaic pattern are of the English lyric genius of the last four centuries. The subtle relationship of patterns of thought-rhythm to the whole movement of a poem is often so fugitive as to escape analysis. ”

“ The whole question turns again in his next song in which he faithfully sets the lilt of his verse to the corresponding rhythm of the music. Any first hand comparison of the word-rhythm and the melodic rhythm proceeds with the greatest difficulty. Since the Indian invariably sings the lyrics, often many times, before dictating the words, he tends to employ the melodic rhythm in speaking the lines. ”

“ So far as this study has proceeded, five characteristic patterns of thought-rhythm appear in Indian lyric poetry. The iterative rhythm appears in the simpler poems, of which the Navaho Mountain Song and The Omaha Tribal Prayer are particularly fine in spirit. The iteration is not always pleasing, sometimes beating with the steady monotony of a kettle drum; but, contrary to reasonable supposition, it does not necessarily indicate a dance song.
The alternating rhythm offers the Indian [156] poet some æsthetic relief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This sky and this earth you created.
Wing flapper (Thunder Bird) , you have existed from the first,
Your nation is half soldiers and half chiefs, so they say.
Lend me a good day; I borrow it.
Me, the Indian race, you have uplifted.
But now I am in despair;
Yet this good boy will renew the life of his people.
So, Great Mystery, look upon me; pity me,
That the nation may live—
Before the face of the North, the nation may live.
[132]
HOLY SONG (Dakota)
O ye people, be ye healed ”

“ The oral rendition of a poem brings us to some unexpected turns in versification. A scholar observes that one must have an Indian throat [167] to sing these songs. This physical control is two fold: unique control of the breathing and contraction or pulsation of the glottis, especially in measures of unusual length. In Indian verse, there is a lengthening of the metrical unit beyond the ordinary limits of European verse in feet of six, seven, eight, and nine syllables, with but one syllable prominent in stress, pitch, or quantity. ”

“ To this day the most that we know of the high forms of poesy in Europe is owed less to authentic tradition than to the scholastic rehumation of native remains in dance and ritual, of what was once, in the interest of the classic ideal, discarded and buried, or at the least, permitted to survive only among the unlettered folk. ”

“ The elemental two and three syllabled feet appear universally in Indian poetry, but commonly in phrases with the longer feet of five to nine syllables, as in the Pledge Song of the Chippewa: nín-da-ca-mi-gog | éya. Another pattern has the recurring metrical phrase of three, six, and five syllables: í e ba | bá-pi-ni-si-wa-gûn | gé-non-de-ci-nan. A rhythmic group of five and one may be varied by the substitution of a three syllabled and a two syllabled measure for that of five syllables. A song may carry a two syllabled rhythm consistently, even when all repetitions of line are disregarded ”

“ SONG OF THE MASKED DANCERS (Apache)
The day broke with slender rain.
The place which is called “lightning’s water stands,”
The place which is called “where the dawn strikes,”
Four places where it is called “it dawns with life,”
I landed there.
I went among the sky youths.
One came to me with long life.
When he talked over my body with the longest life,
The voice of the thunder spoke well four times,
He spoke four times to me with life.
Holy sky youth spoke to me four times.
When he talked to me my breath became.
[96]
A SONG OF THE MASKED DANCERS III (Apache)
The living sky black-spotted ”

“ It has a place in the vocational songs, as well as in the ritual songs of a tribe. There are many variants which employ alternating patterns of thought at the opening and close of a stanza, or with dramatic pose and gesture, as in the Zuñi Invocation to the Sun-God, in singing which the Indian mother appeals to the sun, moon, and stars to guide her sleeping infant. Mr. Troyer marks the values of pitch as heightening the rhythmic movements of this song.
Balanced forms of thought, that is, forms in parallel structure, do not appear commonly. ”

“ We must accept that explanation for the choicest lyrics: yet we cannot, in that way, account for some performances of remarkable ingenuity. A singer with the art of a counterpuntist may subordinate the iambic word-rhythm of his poem to an alternating three-four and two-four rhythm of the melody, while he dances [165] at the same moment to the unaccented rhythm of the drum. ”

“ This recessional movement is effective with its musical accompaniment, repeating the melody in a descending scale, and ending on a low note. Thus pitch and accent, as well as varying quantity, mark the repetitions and lessen their monotony.
As a modification of the recessional movement, there is the poem which opens with the motif and repeats it at regularly recurring points throughout, concluding abruptly without the refrain. There are some stanzaic units in this group. Whatever may be the gain in emphasis and in organization, there is a distinct loss in atmosphere. ”

“ In many Indian lyrics there is a tendency to avoid such emphatic rhythms—a tendency toward the free rhythms, though the sense of measure is never lost. On the whole, Indian lyric poetry is highly rhythmical in structure, although not closely metrical. ”