MUSIC OF PEIMITIVE PEOPLES PASTOR. 681 



folk music. We only occasionally use hand clapping for emphasizing 

 the rhythm, while they employ it systematically for the dance. 

 Working songs dominate over a wide sphere of human activities. We 

 need think only of the boat songs, in which the oars are operated 

 precisely like a musical instrument. Bticher has collected much 

 valuable material in his "Arbeit und Rhythmus," in regard to this. 



But m such rhythmical values the significance of percussion mstru- 

 ments to the savages is by no means exhausted. Indeed, the deei:»er 

 we search the clearer it becomes that the whole of the purely rhyth-, 

 mical music of this kmd re])resents a second and later stratum which 

 we must remove if we would reach' the actual beginnings of liuman 

 music. 



I liave sliown how the orientals can get expression out of the mere 

 noise of ])ercussion-mstrument music. So do we also, m that we con- 

 stantly use our kettledrums in symphonies, for example, not only as 

 a purely rliythmical instrument but as one capable of great expres- 

 sion. Wlien we come to look closer we find that the savages also 

 knew very well the twofold character of percussion instruments and 

 that they were very mucli used. Even unmusical travelers have 

 noticed what a variety of jjitch there is in the percussion instruments 

 of native ])eoples and particularly in drums. They may be gigantic 

 instruments, whose sounding body is a single, hoUowed-out tree 

 trunk and whose sound hole is merely a narrow slit; or small portable 

 instruments covered with skins and hides, approaching the form of 

 our bass drums and kettledrums. A hypnotic power, such is the uni- 

 versal opinion, comes from such drum playing. The benumbing of the 

 senses arises in part from tlie sound quality of the vibrating instru- 

 ments, and in part from the peculiar metliod of execution. The roll 

 of the drum which is used in our military music is not characteristic. 

 Mucli more so is the monotonous succession of similar strokes, which 

 continue unceasingly initU the ear is entirely filled with the sounds 

 and the mind becomes confused. 



The enthralling cft'ect produced by the peculiar rhythm, and the 

 elemental character of the sound, explains the often rej)eated obser- 

 vation that in the mystic festivals of secret societies and in funeral 

 ceremonies the drums prove to be the most imj)ortant means of 

 expression. Often have we heard of the horror caused by the giant 

 drums of the Ashantis or on Tahiti, when they gave the sign for the 

 beginning of human sacrifice. Some drums are such sacred instru- 

 ments that their mere sound scatters the unprivileged, the women 

 and children. Thus in Africa the drum is often a fetish to which the 

 highest veneration is given. 



There is another group of instruments which equal the most vener- 

 ated drums in magical power — the whirring instruments. One of 

 these instruments, the Waldtevfel, we have all swung in our childhood. 



