Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/517

 Collectanea. 479

love suffered by the poet form the subject. The names of older poets are generally forgotten, except sometimes in the surroundings amongst which the events described took place. More modern bards are well known to the whole tribe.

Before dictating a song every Gilyak would explain who wrote it, in what circumstances, and who are the persons concerned in it. This has a double purpose, firstly to note a fact, and secondly to inform the hearers who are the persons before whom they must not repeat the song.

The Gilyaks sing their songs in a rather low voice. They modulate them almost exclusively in the throat, with occasional chest notes. After the dull and throaty sounds comes a stop, which marks the end of each measure. It is occasionally preceded by a long-drawn haphazard note.

The lack of louder, higher, or lower tones, gradations, and variety renders these songs unpleasant to a European ear, and hinders the understanding of the text.

The musical construction of the songs will probably be studied by specialists interested in primitive music. I think it is akin to the falsetto "intoning" of the Chinese, which also makes upon us a disagreeable impression. Some of the songs are accompanied on a sort of violin with one string.

Love songs form the bulk of the lyrics. These alakhiund do not evince any influence from the folklore of the neighbouring tribes, as is the case with the other poetical works of the Gilyaks, but reflect the individual characteristics of the tribe. It is only amongst the Gilyaks that love between two persons is so intense that they prefer death to separation. The lot of the woman in the Gilyak family is very hard. In childhood slie is sold to a strange family, and is not allowed to remain among her own people nor to marry a man of her father's clan. From these circumstances often result tragedies ; the woman, usually quite a young girl, feels a repulsion from the unknown house and family of the husband for whom she is destined by her parents, sometimes from the day of her birth ; and some of these songs have been the precursors of suicide.

A frequent theme of Gilyak lyrics is the history of two lovers who cannot marry because the girl is already promised to another