294 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1^13-18 



This exceedingly regular and interesting little song is certainly not a pisik. 

 It begins on the first beat of the measure on the third degree and ends on the 

 same tone which is the general level of the tune. 



Conclusions 



Now that we have examined all of the songs which are dance tunes, we 

 see that there is one great outstanding type, that with verse and refrains with 

 verse parts usually divided into two or more parts, and refrains generally the 

 same throughout, but with a number of examples in which they are different 

 for corresponding parts, or are inseparably connected with the last phrase of 

 the verse. The connective between verse parts and sometimes in other places, 

 is an almost unfailing feature. In the matter of preludes we have two kinds, 

 one which is practically of no value, the syllabic, and another melodic, which 

 too is diminished in value for the purpose of establishing types because of the 

 great number of ways in which it is varied and because of the numerous examples 

 of all the intervening stages between a true prelude and the form which has 

 none. While the songs that have been classed as pisiks by the people are more 

 numerous than any other group and prove to us that dancing in the pisik fashion 

 is more popular than dancing in the aton fashion, and while they naturally on 

 that account have within their number more variant types, we have found 

 among the atons and the unclassified groups enough different forms to show 

 that they too can produce songs to fit in any of the larger sub-groupings in the 

 pisik class. It thus seems definitely proved that pisiks and atons as such 

 are not to be differentiated in any way that is discoverable from the musical 

 standpoint, although in steps there may be considerable difference, as we have 

 already stated that there is in the use of the drum and in general freedom of 

 motion. 



There may once have been two distinct types of music for these two dances 

 but if this was ever the case the lines of demarcation have become practically 

 obscured. It seems to me, however, that in the last sub-groups as they have 

 been formed in the three instances, we have another type, perhaps several, 

 decidedly different in conception. Musically this fact is interesting, as are all 

 the variations and musical devices which have been encountered so far in the 

 study, to say nothing of the frequently lovely melodic themes, but from the 

 standpoint of the dance, it may mean nothing at all. It is possible that the 

 aton was once executed to music of this character, or it may always have been 

 associated indiscriminately, from the musical point of view, with the pisik. 



It may be that the songs in which the verses are split into two or three 

 parts, each different and each with a different refrain, but with every complete 

 verse following the same pattern after a considerable interval, were once associ- 

 ated with a definite form of dance, for, if in their broadest outlines they are 

 similar to those songs in which all verses are alike, in subdivisions as well as in 

 refrains and connectives, they are at least far more complicated in inner structure, 

 in a large way which might allow for something quite distinct from the others 

 in the way of steps. 



In those songs in which the refrain is associated with the last part of the 

 second verse-phrase, there is a plan that is interesting musically, but is prob- 

 ably of little significance from the dance standpoint, for the novelty lies in a 

 feature which affects the whole structure only in a small way, and which from 

 the rnusical side is so little removed from the separate phrase for the refrain, 

 that it could hardly account for more than small variations in steps. Judging 

 from the collector's account, there are no set dance figures, as we would call 

 them, for either pisik or aton, which in the niceties of distinction would call ^ 

 for such refined musical differences. 



