ORATOR AND POET, ACTOR AND DRAMATIST. 219 



And, according to Ellis, the Tahitians furnish like facts. 

 Of their &quot; orators of battle &quot; he says 



&quot;The principal object of these Rautis was, to animate the troops 

 by recounting the deeds of their forefathers, the fame of their tribe 

 or island.&quot; 



The Negro races have commonly large endowments of 

 musical faculty. Among them, as we have seen, laudatory 

 orations assume a musical form; and, in doing so, neces 

 sarily become measured. For while spoken utterances may 

 be, and usually are, irregular, utterances which, being musi 

 cal, include the element of time, are thereby in some degree 

 regularized. On reading that among the Marutse, those 

 who &quot; screech out the king s praises &quot; do so &quot; to a muffled 

 accompaniment of their instruments/ we must infer that, 

 as the sounds of their instruments must have some rhyth 

 mical order, so too must their words. Similarly the Mon- 

 butto ballad-singers, whose function it is to glorify the king, 

 must fall into versified expression of their eulogies. The 

 &quot; troop of laureates or bards &quot; kept at the Dahoman court, 

 cannot utter their praises in chorus without having those 

 praises rhythmically arranged. So, too, in Ashanti and 

 among the Mandingos, the laudations shouted before their 

 chief men, having assumed the form of songs, must have 

 verged into speech more measured than usual. Other un 

 civilized peoples show us the official orator and poet giving 

 to his applause a musical form which must, by implication, 

 be rhythmical. Atkinson says 



The Sultan &quot; ordered his poet to sing for us. The man obeyed, 

 and chanted forth songs, describing the prowess and successful plun 

 dering expeditions of my host and his ancestors, which called forth 

 thunders of applause from the tribe.&quot; 



Among these African peoples, however, and the nomadic 

 people of Asia just named, eulogies of the living ruler, 

 whether or not with rhythmical words and musical utter 

 ance, are but little, or not at all, accompanied by eulogies 

 of the apotheosized ruler, having a kindred form but with 



