Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/36

INTRODUCTION word may be the symbol of a complete idea that, in English, would need a whole sentence for its expression. Even those who know the language may not understand the songs unless they know what meaning lies behind the symbolic words.1 Such poetry is impressionistic, and many may be the interpretations of the same song given by different singers. Again, where the songs belong to sacred ceremonies or to secret societies, the meaning is purposely hidden—a holy mystery enshrined—that only the initiated may hear and understand.

Indians feel that, in the English rendering of their verse, justice is not done to the poetry when there is given only a bare and literal translation of the symbolic word instead of a full expression of the meaning. They say, “It takes many words in English to tell what we say in one. But since you have no one word to tell all we mean, then you must speak our one word in your many.” In some of the songs, however, the meaning is fully expressed in words. Yet even such a song cannot wholly be understood without a knowledge of the event which called it into being, the legend with which it is connected, or the ceremony of which it is a part.

The translations are as literal as possible, yet the chief desire has been that the real meaning should truthfully flash through the English words, and that the translation should retain the fragrance, the color, and, above all, the spirit of the original. The translation has been fitted to the music, for only when the meaning of the song is clearly revealed through the intertwining of poetry and melody can there be fully felt the elemental emotion, the nature quality, the forceful sweeping charm of Indian song.

Of the music, how does Indian song differ from that of civilization? Music is a trinity. It is composed of three elements—rhythm, melody, and harmony. The first element is rhythm, for rhythm is in the earliest consciousness of man. It is in the throb of the pulses, the beat of horse-hoofs, the break of waves. All life is rhythmic, for life is vibration, motion. So music in its earliest form consists chiefly in rhythm.