OCTOBEE 15, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



535 



identical with that of others from Java as to 

 suggest an ethnic or historical affinity between 

 their makers. This close identity between in- 

 struments of distant countries, discovered 

 after an interval of years, bears strong testi- 

 mony at once to native skill and to the accu- 

 racy of the methods employed in these studies 

 and to the competence of the students. 



To much non-European music the word 

 primitive is wholly inapplicable. An immense 

 development has led up to the isotonic octave. 

 The choice of seven steps is referred by Pro- 

 fessor Stumpf to mystic ideas of number; but 

 he also suggests that a diatonic scale, the re- 

 sult of tuning by a chain of fourths, may have 

 preceded the Siamese order. K so, the Euro- 

 pean scale, which still approximates such a 

 tuning, is the less developed of the two. That 

 of eastern Asia is a modification too radical 

 to have completed itself in less than ages of 

 progress. 



Besides its frequent high refinement and 

 artificiality, non-European music has an ar- 

 tistic rank of which it is hard for us to con- 

 vince ourselves. Rank to its makers, be it 

 added at once; and herein lies the widest les- 

 son of the whole inquiry. This may be de- 

 scribed in a phrase as the discovery of how 

 g:reat a part is played by the mind in appre- 

 hending a work of art; and how little of the 

 veritable creation can often be grasped by an 

 alien. Professor Stumpf cites a striking ex- 

 ample. Since c-e-g on our instruments is a 

 major chord and e-g-b a minor, the two sound 

 to us major and minor, respectively, on a Siam- 

 ese xylophone, where they are, nevertheless, 

 identical combinations. In like manner a 

 comparison of the tone-material in phono- 

 graphic records with the same melodies heard 

 currently makes it apparent that Europeans 

 apprehend aU music in the diatonic terms 

 familiar to their ears. From the first employ- 

 ment of the instnmient doubt began to be 

 thrown on the earlier notations by ear which 

 exhibited exotic music generally as a poor 

 relation of the European family. Psycholog- 

 ically, the value of these results as a notable 

 instance of the dependence of sense on fancy 

 is very great. As a discipline in liberal cul- 

 ture compelling us to seek for the standpoint 



of other minds, they will be invaluable to all 

 privileged to follow them. It is our own ears 

 that are oftenest at fault when we hear in 

 exotic music only a strident monotony or a 

 dismal uproar to be avoided and forgotten. 

 To most non-Europeans their music is as pas- 

 sionate and sacred as ours to us and among 

 many it is an equally elaborate and all-per- 

 vading art. 



The influence of European music becomes 

 every day more audible in the singing and 

 playing of non-European peoples. The time 

 seems not far off when the task of dissecting 

 out aboriginal elements will become impos- 

 sible. As the ornament in Queen Ti's tomb 

 fell to dust at the entry of the explorer, so 

 exotic music is already dying on the ears of 

 its discoverers. The life of the science has 

 inexorable limits, and if it is to yield what it 

 might, the number of those who pursue it and 

 the money at their command must at once be 

 greatly increased. The results of a few years' 

 work by a few students sufiSciently show the 

 absorbing interest and the wide-reaching value 

 of the study; and should bring out both ma- 

 terial and personal aid in plenty from lovers 

 of music, of ethnology and of the humanities. 

 What men of means or of science will offer 

 their fortunes or themselves for this impera- 

 tive labor? Benjamin Ives Gilman 



Museum of Fine Arts, 

 Boston 



the relationships of the eskimos of east 

 greenland 



Dr. "W. Thalbitzer describes in the " Med- 

 delelser om Gr0nland," Vol. XXVIII., the 

 Amdrup collection from east Greenland, 

 which comprises objects found between the 

 sixty-eighth and seventy-fifth degrees of north 

 latitude. The publication is of great inter- 

 est, because it brings out conclusively the 

 close relationship between the culture of the 

 northeast coast of Greenland and that of EUes- 

 mere Land, northern Baffin Land and the 

 northwestern part of Hudson Bay. The simi- 

 larities are so far-reaching that I do not hesi- 

 tate to express the opinion that the line of 

 migration and cultural connection between 

 northeast Greenland and the more southwest- 



