172 W. THALBITZER. 
seven strophes. There are rarely more than 20 burdens (taarnåt) in 
a poem, and the burden rarely contains more than two words, often 
but one. 
When I recorded the drumsongs I contented myself with putting 
down the refrain and left out the repetitions so as not to tire out 
my informant too much. Even then he had plenty to do in memor- 
izing “the burdens” or extracting the text from the enormous web- 
work of refrains, something he was not used to. Only on the wax- 
cylinders of my phonograph the refrains came along completely, and 
from these I have been able to study them more closely later on. — 
The refrain and the burden have mainly the same air, i. e. the same 
musical motif is adapted to both. But the form of the motif is some- 
what more varied in the burdens than in the refrain, because in 
the latter the contents and the air are repeated identically whereas 
the burdens have varying contents. Pag. 170 and in the chapter on 
the melodies (pp. 79—108) detailed examples are given of refrains and 
burdens in their proper relation to each other (from my phonograph). 
The refrain. — The drumsong is opened with the refrain the 
same moment that the drum (the tambourine, see p. 12) is hammered 
and the body-wriggling of the dance begins. The refrain which is a 
set composition consisting of several periods in fixed order (A, B, C, D 
etc.) is sometimes sung all through as an introduction, wherefore it 
has been compared with a prelude. * Otherwise it acts so as to form 
a frame for the words of the burden, being repeated for each new 
burden that follows, part of it being sung before, part of it after the 
burden which may thus fall between A and B, or between B and C, 
or even within one of the periods, e. g. in the midst of B or C. 
The logical word of the refrain (ana, раша etc.) differs for the 
various songs. Each singer uses for himself only a small selection 
thereof; he has his own refrain-forms, and the natives only needed 
to hear the refrain or part thereof to recognize “the owner” of the 
song (cf. p. 159). With Keersagag I went through the types he knew 
from his own and others’ songs, and have collected more through 
my records. They are as follows: 
a’ nayja qa’ n-ayja’ pa’nayja: så” raja 
awoaja: gawo aja: qama‘ja затоа]а: 
ашоа:]а` awane ja puåna'ja' samane:"ja' 
mån'a'ja' ипа`*]а aki’n-ayja: awana'ja' 
ama' ja‘ awa Ja imaqa‘ja 
“the prelude” kemia (i. e. gimcia) ‘the dog’ in the metaphorical sense of “the 
string of a trap that supports the trapdoor (the overlying stone) the loosening 
of which makes the door snap shut.” 
1 Glahn (1771) р. 272. Cf. also the preceding footnote. 
