650 



THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



Human song is generally admitted to be the basis or 

 origin of instrumental music. As neither the enjoyment 

 nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties 

 of the least use to man in reference to his daily habits of 

 life, they must be ranked among the most mysterious with 

 which he is endowed. They are present, though in a very 

 rude condition, in men of all races, even the most savage; 

 but so different is the taste of the several races that our 

 music gives no pleasure to savages, and their music is to us 

 in most cases hideous and unmeaning. Dr. Seemann, in 

 some interesting remarks oif this subject,* " doubts 

 whether even among the nations of Western Europe, 

 intimately connected as they are by close and frequent 

 intercourse, the music of the one is interpreted in the same 

 sense by the others. By traveling eastward we find that 

 there is certainly a different language of music. Songs of 

 joy and dance accompaniments are no longer, as with us, 

 in the major keys, but always in the minor." Whether or 

 not the half-human progenitors of man possessed, like the 

 singing gibbons, the capacity of producing, and, therefore, 

 no doubt of appreciating, musical notes, we know that 

 man possessed these faculties at a very remote period. M. 

 Lartet has described two flutes made" out of the bones and 

 horns of the reindeer, found in caves together with flint 

 tools and the remains of extinct animals. The arts of 

 singing and of dancing are also very ancient, and are now 

 practiced by all or nearly all the lowest races of man. 

 Poetry, which may be considered as the offspring of song, 

 is likewise so ancient that many persons have felt astonished 

 that it should have arisen during the earliest ages of which 

 we have any record. 



We see that the musical faculties, which are not wholly 

 deficient in any race, are capable of prompt and high 

 development, for Hottentots and negroes have become 

 excellent musicians, although in their native countries 

 they rarely practice anything that we should consider 

 music. Schweinfurth, however, was pleased with some of 

 the simple melodies which he heard in the interior of 

 Africa. But there is nothing anomalous in the musical 



* "Journal of Anthropolog, Soc.," Oct., 1870, p. 155. See also the 

 several later chapters in Sir John Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," 

 second edition, 1869, which contain an admirable account of the 

 habits of savages. 



