MUSIC OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES PASTOR. 687 



the commonly accejited supposition that at first large intervals 

 (octaves, fifths, and fourths, especially) received most attention, 

 and that between these wide intervals smaller and- smaller ones 

 were gradually interpolated. This hypothesis is ethnologically 

 untenable. Ethnological observation shows, on the contrary, with 

 what caution the melodies of primitive peoples move upward and 

 downward in the smallest intervals. If we would understand the 

 oldest system of tones, w^e must hear songs like those of the Veddas 

 in Ceylon, which are sung almost wholly in seconds. Even smaller 

 intervals are distinguished with great certainty, though to our 

 anharmonic ear they no longer present differences. 



That there are quarter tones you become painfully aware in the 

 execution of every singer who sings off the key, and every good 

 violinist demonstrates it when in reacliing up for C-sharp he strikes 

 somewhat higher than he does when sliding down for D-flat, which 

 on the piano is identical with it. The Arabians make a distinction 

 even to-day between the anharmonic tones, so that their chromatic 

 scale, instead of 12 tones, contains 17. Since the phonograpii has 

 afforded us exact measurement, we know that these finest differences 

 are much more clearly distinguishable to the horizontal music per- 

 ception than to our vertical music perception. It is certain tliat 

 quarter tones are known among the Australians, the Maori, and the 

 inhabitants of Nukahiwa. One feels great respect for the perception 

 of absolute pitch among primitive peoples when one learns that in 

 Samoa the alarm drums of each island are tuned to a different pitch, 

 and that any of them can be identified by the neighbors of those 

 striking the alarm. Such delicacy of ear is with us not at all a trait 

 of every musician, and it explains to us the fact that for the develop- 

 ment of the most varied melodies the range of a minor third was 

 sufficient among primitive peoples. Karl Hagen describes incident- 

 ally how in an Australian battle-song the sudden transition to such 

 a minor tliird gives an eli'ect like the "overpowering expression of 

 pain " 



The Mincopie in the Andamans may, according to ]H'esent iufoi'ma- 

 tion, stand as the most perfect in this primitive art of })roducing 

 music. All their melodies move around one tone from which they 

 vary, to our ear, only a half tone upward and a half tone downward. 

 But both the minor seconds, into which the musician must condense 

 all liis ideas, appear richer in life than we would suppose. Portmann 

 has made a more precise study of this music, and he believes that 

 transitions even so slight as an eighth of a tone must be considcretl. 

 Thus there may be melodies here which our l^roader art perception 

 pays no attention to. The monotonous up-and-down movement 

 of these songs is rhythmically accompanied by hand clappings and 

 the striking of the pukuta, a simple slab, which lies on the ground 

 and is played with the heel. 



