Mmidari Poetry, Music and Dances. 



PART I. 



By Rev. Fr. J. Hoffmann, S.J. Communicated by Mr. E. A. Gait. 



A study of the features of Mundari poetry presupposes two considerations of a 

 general character, viz., the comparatively low stage of culture in which the Mundas 

 still are, and the character of their language. 



The Mundas never either invented an alphabet of their own nor have they adopted 

 any from aliens. They are, as a race, up to the present, entirely illiterate. Hence 

 their mythology and ritual formularies as well as their folk-lore and poetry remain 

 exclusively treasured up in the popular memory, and through it alone are they handed 

 down from generation to generation. It is, therefore, not surprising that their poetry, 

 like their whole civilization, should be very primitive and simple and remain even 

 nowadays in the melic stage. It is made to be sung, and the few simple melodies 

 to which it has to adapt itself are all meant to regulate or to follow their dances. It 

 is never recited or declaimed. We need not, therefore, look for those developments 

 which recitative poetry has gradually evolved, such as the ballad, the idyl, the ode, 

 the elegy. It consists of a great number of short pieces, lyric in character, all of which 

 are nothing more or less than songs. Any other name for this or that particular piece 

 would hardly be justified. 



The Mundari language consists mainly of monosyllabic and dissyllabic original 

 words. These are combined into living speech by means of affixes, most of which are 

 suffixes and infixes. In this way compound words of five, six or even seven syllables 

 are frequently obtained. Regarding the structure of the line and the stanza it is diffi- 

 cult to give a satisfactory account. There is first the question of the rhythm in the 

 line which embraces the accentuation of words, the length or brevity of syllables and 

 the number of syllables in the line ; secondly the form of the stanza as such. 



The accent is not nearly as marked as it is in the Teutonic languages ; in origin- 

 ally dissyllabic words it falls, with rare exceptions, on the first syllable. Grammatical 

 formations do not change the accent of the original word ; hence reduplicated mono- 

 syllables keep the accent on the last syllable, v.g., nel, to see; nenel, to see repeatedly, 

 to look after. The same rule holds good in those cases where an inserted functional 

 consonant turns a monosyllable into a dissyllabic word, v.g., nel, to see ; nepel, to see 

 each other. Whenever affixes of one or several syllables are added for functional 

 purposes to mono- or polysyllabic words, the resulting compound has more than one 

 accent; for the original word, as well as the affix, keep their respective accents, v.g., 

 hdturenko. 



Regarding the length or brevity of syllables, there is a certain distinction between 



