Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/174

160 Partake, O Finches, Partake, O Stink-bugs, Partake, O Caterpillars, Partake, O Green Fly, Partake, O Wild-deer, Partake, O Wild-pig, Partake, all of you of the top of the Year (lit. the Year's eldest-born) I have not eaten yet. But am just about to do so."

Of the songs that were chaunted, or rather acted, on these solemn occasions, I myself collected no fewer than thirty-six, and their character has, I think, an important bearing upon the argument. Most of them commence with an enumeration of the most striking characteristics of some particular wild animal, bird, or reptile. The singer then proceeds to describe the incidents of its pursuit by men from his own encampment, the eventual slaying of the quarry (with poisoned darts, knives, or spears, as the case may be), and the cooking and apportioning of the meat thus obtained among all the members of the tribe, "young and old, and big and little." In a number of other cases the chief characteristics of various kinds of fruit are chaunted, together with the various methods of gathering them, and their final apportionment in the same impartial manner as the flesh of the animals.

That one of the principal objects of these performances is to increase the yield of the soil appears I think from cumulative evidence, which is rather difficult to set forth adequately. Each of these songs at least concludes with a wild shout of "Fruit! fruit! fruit!" And fruit, moreover, it must be remembered, is a far more important article of food to these tribes than to ourselves. In most cases this peroration is much fuller, and distinctly specifies the kinds of fruit the productiveness of which they wish (as I think) to influence. Thus the peroration of the Roe-deer song runs:

To dance the Roe-deer is the young folks' custom.

To-morrow and always be years of plenty,