ESKIMO MUSIC 



The additional songs I obtained not by direct question- 

 ing but by accidentally overhearing them and then making 

 them repeat. I would note down the first phrase, and ask 

 them to sing again. They would start from the beginning, 

 and when they had finished the next phrase I would stop 

 them and write down some four or six additional notes. 

 To start in the middle was generally beyond their power. 

 For this reason I was never able to record the long choral 

 song " Haya ya ya " completely, for having to go back to 

 the beginning after every four or six or eight notes written 

 down, they got confused and ran off into protean varia- 

 tions. This song, for that matter, has already been re- 

 corded by means of the graphophone. 



All the songs, except the choral one, were sung in a 

 curiously low tone, inaudible thirty feet away. If I sang 

 Ihem louder than that, they would tell me, " That is not the 

 way the Eskimo sing." It will be readily understood that 

 the ordinary musical notation does not give a perfectly life- 

 like picture of such music. In some cases, indeed, it is 

 accurate enough; in others, the notes indicate merely the 

 culminating points of a wave line. This, of course, is true 

 of nearly all singing unmodified by technical training. The 

 Eskimo songs were actually easier to imitate and record 

 than those of some of the Newfoundland sailors on board 

 the Windward. The " gout du terroir " cannot be con- 

 veyed by conventional symbols. The airs have here been 

 divided into bars, where the measure was conspicuous; in 

 other cases no bars are used, although some kind of meas- 

 ure was distinctly noticeable. 



The results of two years' collection were thirty-eight 

 songs. It is probable that the number might be at least 

 doubled under more favorable circumstances. For this 

 purpose, one would have to reside near one of their villages 

 continuously for at least two years, and question every indi- 

 vidual in the tribe, especially the old people. As before 

 noted, the words of the songs belong mostly to an archaic 

 language, so that the Eskimo themselves are generally un- 

 able to understand them. Such meanings as could be made 

 out are noted beneath the original. 



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