330 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



what died out, in early days they were passionately addicted to the 

 practice. In the ceremonies of welcome, of war and peace, of trade, 

 and of all the endless social gatherings of these exceedingly sociable 

 people, singing was the invariable accompaniment. Dixon (1787) says : 



Wheu tlie traffic of the d^y is pretty well over, they begin to sing and never leave 

 off till the approach of night ; thus beginning and ending the day in the same man- 

 ner. * * * It must be allowed that their songs are performed with regularity and 

 in good time, but they are entirely destitute of that pleasing modulation and har- 

 mony of cadence which we had usually been accustomed to hear in the songs at 

 other parts of the coast.* 



Marcband (1791) says that amongst the Haida, at fixed times morn- 

 ing and evening, they sing in chorus, in which every one takes part. 

 Poole says of their singing : " a peculiar plaintiveness of tone and a 

 quaint hitch of the voice at the end of each line redeems the so-called 

 singing from the charge of inflicting torture on human ears."t He 

 gives in this connection a Haida carroling song, which is a repetition of 

 the words given below like the note B in the Key of E. The notes to 

 the two upper lines are semi-breves, those to the under line crotchets, 

 thus: 



EquM — ah, ah, ah, ah, he, he he, andante. 

 Equal — ah, ah, ah, ah, he, he, he, crescendo. 

 Equal — ah, equal — ah, he, he, h^, decrescendo. 



Plate LVi is a trading song, sung by the Sitka Indians in 1787, as 

 reproduced in Dixon's Voyage, page 243, and described in Chapter viii 

 of this paper. Fig. 300 is a song of the Haida, used as an accompani- 

 ment to their ceremonial dances reproduced from Poole's Queen Char- 

 lotte Islands, page 322. 



-^TF- 



I, e, ua. I, e, ly-yah. Ha, oii, ha, la, I, ^e,. ha. 



Da Capo four times, fiuishing with Chorus. 

 Choeus 



S£?=^^=^ 



I, e, ha. I, e, ha. 



Fig. 300. 

 Song of the Haida. 



(From Poole.) 



m 



The dance songs in this region of the coast are accompanied by the 

 beating of drums and the spasmodic shaking of rattles. Amongst 

 the Tlingit the women rarely dance, but sit at some distance from the 

 dancers, " and sing a not inharmonious melody, which supplies the 

 place of music." | 



* Dixon, Voyage, p. 188. 



t Poole, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, p. 323. 



X Laugsdorff voyages, Pt. i, p. 114. 



