THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. 7 



unpremeditated. " A Samoan can hardly put his paddle in the 

 water without striking up some chant." A chief of the Kyans, 

 " Tamawan, jumped up and while standing burst out into an 

 extempore song, in which Sir James Brooke and myself, and last 

 not least the wonderful steamer, was mentioned with warm eulo- 

 gies." In East Africa " the fisherman will accompany his paddle, 

 the porter his trudge, and the housewife her task of rubbing down 

 grain, with song." In singing, the East African " contents him- 

 self with improvising a few words without sense or rhyme and 

 repeats them till they nauseate." Among the Dahonians any inci- 

 dent " from the arrival of a stranger to an earthquake " is turned 

 into a song. When rowing, the Coast-negroes sing " either a de- 

 scription of some love intrigue or the praise .of some woman cele- 

 brated for her beauty." In Loango " the women as they till the 

 field make it echo with their rustic songs." Park says of the Bam- 

 barran " they lightened their labors by songs, one of which was 

 composed extempore ; for I was myself the subject of it." " In 

 some parts of Africa nothing is done except to the sound of mu- 

 sic." " They are very expert in adapting the subjects of these 

 songs to current events." The Malays " amuse all their leisure 

 hours . . . with the repetition of songs, which are for the most part 

 proverbs illustrated. . . . Some that they rehearse in a kind of 

 recitative at their bimbangs or feasts are historical love-tales." A 

 Sumatran maiden will sometimes begin a tender song and be an- 

 swered by one of the young men. The ballads of the Kamtscha- 

 dales are " inspired apparently by grief, love, or domestic feel- 

 ing ; " and their music conveys " a sensation of sorrow and vague, 

 unavailing regret." Of their long-songs it is said " the women 

 generally compose them." A Kirghiz " singer sits on one knee 

 and sings in an unnatural tone of voice, his lay being usually of 

 an amorous character." Of the Yakuts we are told " their style 

 of singing is monotonous . . . their songs described the beauty of 

 the landscape in terms which appeared to me exaggerated." 



In these statements, which, omitting repetitions, are all which 

 the Descriptive Sociology contains relevant to the issue, several 

 striking facts are manifest. Among the lowest races the only 

 musical utterances named are those which refer to the incidents 

 of the moment, and seem prompted by feelings which those inci- 

 dents produce. The derivation of song or chant from emotional 

 speech in general, thus suggested, is similarly suggested by the 

 habits of many higher races ; for they, too, show us that the mu- 

 sically-expressed feelings relevant to the immediate occasion, or 

 to past occasions, are feelings of various kinds : now of simple 

 good spirits and now of joy or triumph now of surprise, praise, 

 admiration, and now of sorrow, melancholy, regret. Only among 

 certain of the more advanced races, as the semi-civilized Malays 



