388 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



No. 136. Record IV. E. 1b 



A major tonality 



Phrases Measures Beats 



A r a b c d 4 2i. 



1 2i 2i 3 2 

 B ( e f (fi) el g 5 11 



4 8 



D f ai 1 m n 4 9 



Coda / ni ii2 2 4 



\ 2 2 



As it is given here this is another example of wandering melody which does 

 not return in any except the a measure to what has gone before. (This, in the 

 D phrase, gives a hint of the melodic ideas which were contained in a but it is 

 very faint.) The song is also characterized by rapid movement and by dotted 

 notes of small time value. The actual tempo of the larger movement is slow 

 which in spirit very well expresses the sentiment which called it forth. The 

 song begins on the first beat of the measure, on the third degree of the major 

 scale. It ends on the second. As is the case in so many songs from all four 

 regions, the seventh degree of this scale comes out prominently in the melody. 

 This point will be discussed in the section on scales or preferences in scale tones. 



As it happened, the collector knew the composer of the song at the time that 

 it was first conceived. The story is partly told in an article which appeared 

 in the Musical Quarterly for April, 1922, entitled "Eskimo Music in Northern 

 Alaska." He says: "The most interesting of all the songs I heard, both from 

 the circumstances in which it was composed and from the intrinsic beauty of 

 the melody, had its origin on the old whaling steamer Karluk, the 'flagship' of 

 the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18. The Karluk was caught in the ice 

 near Flaxman island, off the coast of Alaska, about August 11, 1913, and, after 

 drifting helplessly for several months, was finally crushed, and sank in the 

 following February. In the early days of September a Point Hope Eskimo on 

 board the vessel, Asetsak by name, composed the following song, expressing in 

 its words his longing for his old home and his despair of ever seeing it again. 

 Asetsak reached the shore with a sled party about a fortnight later, and as he 

 travelled along the coast he taught his song to every family he encountered. 

 During the winter of 1913-14 it was perhaps the most popular song for 100 

 miles on either side of Barrow. Mr. Young, who harmonized it for me, frequently 

 played it as a voluntary in his church, and more than once was asked the name 

 of its composer. One lady even thanked him for his 'lovely selection from 

 Bach!'." 



In correspondence Mr. Jemiess goes on, "I learned the song from Asetsak 

 himself and wrote it down about a month after it was composed. At]otitciaq, 

 the native who sang it into the phonograph, learned it at the same time — he 

 was Asetsak's companion with us. But it was not until two years later that 

 he sang it into the phonograph, and during those two years he had never be^ 

 able to check his own version with any one else's, or with the composer's. YSc' 

 will notice, therefore, considerable differences between my version, which is, I 

 think, nearer the composer's own, and Ariotitciaq's." 



