Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/37

THE INDIANS' BOOK The next element is melody—a succession of sounds of different pitch. The wail of the wind, the laughter of the brook, the mating song of birds, these are melodies of nature. The emotional response is in man. Song becomes the cry of the heart and the transfiguration of the spoken word.

Next conies harmony — the combination of different sounds. Harmony is in the blending, blurring overtones of nature, the melting of many sounds into one. It is the last element of music to evolve, and it has developed with the progress of science—the unfolding to man's comprehension of the universal laws of life. With harmony music becomes an art of greatest dignity and power, a subtle, sensitive reflex of the soul's impressions, a language which expresses thoughts, emotions, and aspirations incapable of utterance in form less spiritual.

The unstudied song of primitive man is as soulful in its purpose as developed art, but it is a simple expression of far simpler things. The music of most primitive people contains the first two elements only—rhythm and melody—and these elements, especially rhythm, are highly developed. Harmony is lacking; but the life and art of the Indian are so linked with nature that it is to be questioned whether the sounds of the nature-world do not supply to these singers of the open a certain unconscious sense of harmonic background. No one who has heard Indian songs in their own environment, under broad skies amid the sweep of wind and grasses, can fail to feel that they are there a note in a nature symphony. Take the Indian from nature, or nature from the Indian, and the Indian's art, if it survive, must undergo the change of supplying from within that which was unconsciously received from without. It must embody the lost nature-world. Thus ever in the growth of civilization are the influences of nature absorbed into the creations of art. Not knowing harmony, it is chiefly on variety of rhythm that primitive man depends for his variety of musical effect. No civilized music has such complex, elaborate, and changing rhythm as has the music of the American Indian.

The songs in this book are written exactly as sung by the Indians, as nearly as musical notation can record. No harmony has been added. The original melodies are absolutely unchanged.