20 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



CHAPTER I.— COPPER ESKIMO DANCE SONGS 



According to the collector^ th£ songs of the Copper Eskimo are confined to 

 a few types, dance songs, weather incantations and magic songs, and children's 

 refrains. There are no labour songs, apparently there are no love songs, while 

 as for lullabies, "the only songs I have heard mothers sing to rock their babies 

 to sleep are the very same songs they sing while dancing. Babies are rocked to 

 sleep on the back, not in the arms, and the mother walks up and dowii, or sways 

 backward and forward as she sits, crooning her dance song, usually, I think, a 

 pmfc." 



The present collection was made almost entirely from the dance songs and 

 weather incantations. Only one example of a children's refrain was collected, 

 No. 86, which is c on record IV. C. 85. By far the most numerous are the dance 

 songs, chiefly from the Copper Eskimo, but there are a few from other surround- 

 ing regions which afford interesting material for comparison. Of these there 

 are two types among the Copper Eskimo, although, except for one instance,, 

 the dance songs of the other groups have not been differentiated by the inform- 

 ants or singers. 



The Copper Eskimo have the pisik and the aton, the differences between 

 which, at least at the present time, seem to be centered in the method of dancing, 

 which is not so much a matter of steps as of more abandon. In dancing the 

 pisik the dancer holds his own drum which he or she beats while dancing in the 

 ring, while with the aton, after the song is well started, the druin is given to 

 someone on the side, who beats it while the dancer is allowed the freedom of 

 wilder gesticulation and relief from the weight and swinging of the drum. So 

 far as the collector could determine these were about the only differences to be 

 detected in the two methods of dancing, and so obscure were the differences, 

 if any, in the musical structure of the two that it could not be defined without 

 more than ordinary acquaintance and even analysis. The people themselves 

 usually were able to say at once which type of song it was, but at times a man 

 would have to ask a companion, and generally the decision seemed to rest upon 

 the manner of dancing which had become associated with the tune and not upon 

 any structural differences in the song itself, such as metre, the beat upon which 

 the song began, the different parts of it, with possible changes in metre, the 

 speed, the repetitions, etc., all of which points are important considerations in 

 our own dance music. 



At an earlier time there may have been considerable difference in the two 

 types of dances and the music which accompanied them, but at present these 

 lines of distinction are much obscured and it remains for musical analysis to 

 reveal what traces of them may survive, and to define, if possible, the stylistic 

 features, not only of such types of dance songs as may be found, but also of the 

 weather and other incantations and of the music of the peoples more or less 

 separated from the Copper Eskimo who have developed their own local peculiari- 

 ties. 



Of the total collection of dance songs from the Copper Eskimo, forty-eight 

 are definitely classed as pisiks, and this number does not include those songs 

 which are fusions of two or more songs which were originally distinct. Eighteen 

 are known as atons and sixteen were undifferentiated, while one other was 

 simply called "An old song." There were also a few fragments which were mere 

 beginnings, the singer having failed to recall the rest. It was impossible to come 

 to any conclusions regarding these brief bits which were too short for analysis. 

 It will at once be seen that the pisik is the popular type of dance and that prol 

 ably any one predominating musical form associated with that dance, wheth^ 

 discovered under a different guise, or not, is the pisik form. 



^ Correspondence. 



