﻿I20 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. "]"] 



The reply was : " He sang just what we told you . He sang how the 

 father gets the presents ready, the chief tells the people, the chief 

 musician makes a new flute to play at the wedding, and everybody 

 sings and dances just like we told you. He sings that in the song." 



The custom of singing to secure success in games is common among 

 the North American Indians but absent in the Tule. Descriptions 

 of five games were obtained but it was said that games were played 

 only by young boys. The Tule are a hard-working people, living on 

 the islands, or keys, and cultivating ground on the main land, going 

 thither in the early morning and returning at night. A man's wealth 

 depends on his efforts to push back the jungle and keep it back, thus 

 enabling trees to grow from which he can sell the fruit. 



The test of a song, as recorded among the North American Indians, 

 has been a comparison between records made at intervals by the 

 same or other individuals. In accordance with that method of work 

 the writer asked for a repetition of the song concerning the canoe 

 race, after a period of a few days. On comparing the two renditions 

 of the song there was found to be only a general resemblance in the 

 melodies. It may be recalled that, among the North American 

 Indians, the repetitions of a song by the same or another individual 

 often are absolutely exact, instances having been noted in which 

 renditions by one person at intervals of several months were identical 

 even in pitch and tempo. 



Tule songs are a form of primitive music that, it is believed, has 

 not hitherto been described. Vocal proficiency, among the Tule. con- 

 sists in improvising melodies instead of repeating them with exact- 

 ness, yet songs are " learned," and each song recorded has a distinc- 

 tive character. For instance, the song for relief of headache is a 

 soothing melody, and a song concerning eight articles has a recurrent 

 phrase when each, in turn, is mentioned. The general character of 

 the songs is gentle and pleasing. They have a compass of three to 

 six tones, though the melody is usually within a compass of five tones. 

 Nine songs have been transcribed, either wholly or in part. They con- 

 tain measures of two. three, five or seven beats, occurring in irregular 

 order and probably determined by the accented syllables of the 

 words. The songs bear no resemblance to chants but consist of 

 short melodic phrases of equal length, each concluding with a pro- 

 longed tone. The substance of the words is established but it seems 

 probable that the identical words are not repeated. This would be 

 exceedingly difficult in songs of such length, and, if done, would 



