The American Indian/Chapter 9

by Clark Wissler

CHAPTER IX

THE FINE ARTS

No doubt many readers will object to the title we have given this chapter on the ground that no aboriginal production can rise to the level of an actual "fine art," but we feel that the name is justified because the productions here considered occupy the same place in aboriginal life as do the fine arts in Europe. They may be comprehended under the familiar heads of sculpture, painting, literature, and music.

As we have indicated before, the center of New World sculpture was Yucatan, where stone carving is one of the most distinctive traits of Maya culture. True stone carving is rare in South America. The Peruvians did next to nothing of this sort; in fact, the only two places where stone carving rises to an observable level are in the extreme southern limits of Inca influence and again in Colombia, where we have the isolated statues of St. Augustine. In North America, no stone carving worthy of the name occurs north of the Rio Grande. Thus, the ancient Maya cities constitute the center of the sculptor's art, which fringes out in northern Mexico above and in Panama below. Although the carving of small objects in stone reached a very high level in the West Indies, it can scarcely be ranked as sculpture. Even the Aztec and other antecedent Mexican cultures which produced a fair amount of stone carving have not left behind evidences of sculptural skill strictly comparable to those of the Maya. Students of aboriginal art claim that the Maya development came before the Aztec and that the influence of the latter is plainly seen in the later Maya.^[1] For example, the well-known Chacmool statue found at Chichen Itza is said to represent a Nahua type, examples of which have been found in several parts of Mexico and also in Salvador, south of the Maya. These statues are, however, fairly representative of aboriginal sculpture for human figures, but do not reach the level of the best Maya work, of which the great turtles of

Fig. 61. Two Figures from Palenque, Chiapas. Spinden, 1913. I

Quirigua may be cited as examples. However, Maya sculpture is usually in low relief, sometimes little more than drawing. Among the numerous examples that have been brought to notice are the masterpieces shown in the drawings. The curious form of forehead appearing in all figures is not wholly conventional, but is a good representation of the effects of

Fig. 62. Statues of the Chacmool Type. The upper one from Mexico, the lower from Yucatan. Sanchez, 1877. I

head flattening practised upon infants. Like the Greeks and other classical sculptors, the Maya colored their carved figures. On the other hand, in contrast to the marble of the Greeks, the stones at the disposal of the Maya were very inferior and were worked entirely with stone tools.

Fig. 63. A Sculptured Turtle at Quirigua, Guatemala
Spinden, 1913. I

Fig. 64. Life Size Pottery Figure. Valley of Mexico
Saville, 1897. I

Outside of the sculpture area as defined above, rock inscriptions and drawings are numerous, particularly in the northern continent. Most of these pictographs are obviously recent, but no one has studied them with sufficient care to suggest a chronological grouping.

Closely allied with sculpture, in our minds, at least, is modeling in clay. We have already noted this art in the chapter on ceramics. Very good examples, in some cases of respectable size, are found in both Mexico and Central America. The Inca culture of Peru, which did not successfully carve stone, did nevertheless, reach a high level in clay modeling, but apparently limited its work to small vessels and figures. At least, we find nothing like the large clay figures from Mexico.

Painting in the New World never rose above flat tones, but the drawing is often good. Many examples have been preserved in the codex collections from Mexican and Maya cultures, but nothing of the kind has come down to us from the Andean region. Of the historic peoples, the Eskimo seem to lead in graphic skill, though they are, perhaps, equalled by the Dakota.^[2] Elsewhere drawing is rather crude.

LITERATURE

Every student of our subject feels a keen regret that so few fragments of Inca, Maya, and Aztec literature have survived, for there is just enough to show that a considerable advance had been made. To most of us the term literature implies printed works, but we are here using the term in the broadest sense, for literature arose and took many of its essential forms before attempts were made to write it. There is fair evidence that the Inca cultivated the drama. Thus Garcilasso,^[3] himself of Inca descent, states that they "composed both tragedies and comedies, which were represented before the Inca and his court on solemn occasions. The subject matter of the tragedy related to military deeds and the victories of former times; while the arguments of the comedies were on agricultural and familiar household subjects. They understood the

Stone Carving

Wood and Ivory Carving

Clay Modelling

Fig. 65. Distribution of Sculpture, Carving, and Modeling

position of long and short verses, with the right number of syllables in each."^[4]

Markham finds evidence of "four different kinds of plays called Anay Sauca, a joyous representation, Hayachuca, Llama-llama, a farce, and Hanamsi, a tragedy. There is clear proof that the memory of the old dramatic lore was preserved, and that the dramas were handed down by memory even after the Spanish conquest. It is to be found in the sentence pronounced on the rebels at Cuzco, by the Judge Areche, in 1781, which prohibited 'the representation of dramas, as well as all other festivals which the Indians celebrated in memory of their Incas'."^[5]

A few complete plays have been recorded in later times, the most famous of which is Ollantay. As to what effect the intervening years of Spanish control had upon the literary form of this production is now a matter of debate, but since Ollantay was preserved in the native tongue, the presumption is that it has suffered little. The reader is referred to Markham's translation^[6] and discussion for a statement of the case, and to our page 141 for a selection of Inca verse.

There is reason to believe that the early peoples of Mexico also had achieved something in the dramatic art, though good examples have not survived. Even among the Pueblo villages of the United States there are still native festivals in which there appear performances that deserve recognition as dramas.^[7] This is true, to a less degree, of certain ceremonies among the outlying tribes of both continents.

While the content we have given to the term literature is far wider than the modern concept of books,^[8] the Maya and Aztec did have some written literature. Brinton quotes the Spanish writer, Landa (1565), as follows:—

The sciences that they (Maya) taught were the reckoning of the years, months, and days, the feasts and ceremonies, the administration of their sacraments, the fatal days and seasons, their methods of divination and prophecies, events about to happen, remedies for diseases, their ancient history, together with the art of reading and writing their books with characters which were written, and pictures which represented the things written.

They wrote their books on a large sheet doubled into folds, which was afterwards inclosed between two boards, which they decorated handsomely. They were written from side to side in columns, as they were folded. They manufactured this paper from the root of a tree and gave it a white surface on which one could write. Some of the principal nobles cultivated these sciences out of a taste for them, and although they did not make public use of them, as did the priests, yet they were the most highly esteemed for this knowledge.^[9]

The first concern of the Spanish conquerors was to replace the native culture with their own, and it may be doubted if religion played a much less part in one than in the other. Hence, the Spaniards bent every effort to destroy the native priestcraft, and as the native literature was in its keeping, all books were destroyed at sight. Yet, the people could not be made to forget, and many manuscripts were written in secret. A number of these have been preserved under their native class name, The Books of Chilan Balam.^[10] It is from this source alone that we get an inkling of what Maya literature was like. No doubt, back of it all was a wealth of unwritten verse and narrative of real artistic merit.

Outside of the areas we have just discussed, we find but the feeblest effort to record tribal literature; the skeleton-like year counts of the Plains Indians and the mnemonic song tablets of the Algonkin are about all that come to notice. Literature in all these areas is comprised in mythology, ritual, and song.

A naïve notion prevails among us that poetry and song belong to the most advanced states of culture, whereas, it is nearer the truth to say that they are the truly primitive modes of artistic expression. Modern Europe has a verse and song complex quite distinct from Asia and of very ancient origin. The scales of Bronze Age trumpets are said to prove its existence even at that early period. Versification must be as old as song, and both are found in all parts of the world. It is said, the languages of the New World do not have the vocalic quantities or accentuations of the classical world, so that aboriginal poetry is, in the main, made up of refrains of meaningless syllables and repetitions.^[11] Yet, there is form and sentiment, often of great artistic merit.

Unfortunately, the study of aboriginal verse has not been attempted. The field is particularly difficult, for since the essence of verse is lost when translated, the multiplicity of native languages effectively bars progress. We cannot, therefore, compare our data or draw satisfactory conclusions as to the relative place of Inca or any other type of verse in the New World as a whole. As a suggestion, the reader may compare the following selections:—

AN INCA HYMN^[12]

O Uira-cocha! Lord of the universe,
Whether thou art male,
Whether thou art female,
Lord of reproduction,
Whatsoever thou mayest be,
O Lord of divination,
Where art thou?
Thou mayest be above,
Thou mayest be below,
Or perhaps around
Thy splendid throne and sceptre.
Oh hear me!
From the sky above,
In which thou mayest be,
From the sea beneath,
In which thou mayest be,
Creator of the world,
Maker of all men;
Lord of all Lords,
My eyes fail me
For longing to see thee;
For the sole desire to know thee.
Might I behold thee,
Might I know thee,
Might I consider thee,
Might I understand thee.
Oh look down upon me,
For thou knowest me.
The sun—the moon—
The day—the night—
Spring—winter,
Are not ordained in vain
By thee, O Uira-cocha!
They all travel
To the assigned place;
They all arrive
At their destined ends,
Whithersoever thou pleasest.
Thy royal sceptre
Thou holdest.
Oh hear me!
Oh choose me!
Let it not be
That I should tire,
That I should die.

Far removed, geographically, from this beautiful verse, but of almost equal merit, is the following Navajo prayer chant:—^[13]

A NAVAJO PRAYER

Tsegihi.
House made of the dawn.
House made of evening light.
House made of the dark cloud.
House made of male rain.
House made of dark mist.
House made of female rain.
House made of pollen.
House made of grasshoppers.
Dark cloud is at the door.
The outward trail is dark cloud.
The zigzag lightning stands high up on it.
Male deity!
Your offering I make.
I have prepared a smoke for you.
Restore my feet for me.
Restore my legs for me.
Restore my body for me.
Restore my mind for me.
Restore my voice for me.
This very day take out your spell for me.
Your spell remove for me.
You have taken it away for me.
Far off it has gone.
Happily I recover.
Happily my interior becomes cool.
Happily I go forth.
My interior feeling cold, may I walk.
No longer sore, may I walk.
Impervious to pain, may I walk.
With lively feelings may I walk.
As it used to be long ago, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.
Happily with abundant dark clouds, may I walk.
Happily with abundant showers, may I walk.
Happily with abundant plants, may I walk.
Happily on a trail of pollen, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.
Being as it used to be long ago, may I walk.
May it be happy (or beautiful) before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful all around me.
In beauty it is finished.
In beauty it is finished.

Going still farther afield we have the following poetical gem from the Eskimo:—

I look toward the south, to great Mount Koonak,
To great Mount Koonak, there to the south;
I watch the clouds that gather round him;
I contemplate their shining brightness;
They spread abroad upon great Koonak;
They climb up his seaward flanks;
See how they shift and change;
Watch them there to the south;
How the one makes beautiful the other;
How they mount his southern slopes,
Hiding him from the stormy sea,
Each lending beauty to the other.^[14]

No doubt these verses are quite freely translated, but linguists have recorded very similar examples in the original, and Mr. James R. Murie has furnished us the texts and translations for two short Pawnee songs:—

WAR SONG OF THE PAWNEE IRUSKA SOCIETY

Kira   katu   kari   rarix^a
Kira   katu   kari   rarix^a
Kira   katu   kari   rarix^a

Kira   katu   kari   rarixa	ey	ey	a
Let me see (if) this is real	—	—	—

Ti	rat	pari
Am	I	living (my life)

Tiras	ta	kawahat
You (who)	possess	the skies

Kira	katu	kari	rarixa
Ti	rat	pari

A good free rendering of this was published by Brinton:—^[15]

Let us see, is this real,
Let us see, is this real,
Let us see, is this real,
This life I am living?
Ye gods, who dwell everywhere,
Let us see, is this real,
This life I am living?

PAWNEE WAR SONG

He   e   e   e   e   e   e
Yo   e   yoha   eyu   eyu   eyo
Eru   he   ee   ee   ee
A   tiras   ta   kawaha   ti   rat   pari   hey
Ero   he   ee   ee   ee

Tat	ara	kitawira
I	in you	entrust my fate

Hawa	re	ra	wira
Again	I do	have	on warpath

He   e   e   e   e   yo

This is said to be a popular song among the Pawnee and was composed by a man named Tiriraktawirus when upon the warpath alone. Therefore, the following translation by Miss Curtis^[16] is not far wrong:—

O great expanse of the blue sky: see me roaming here.
I trust in you, protect me!
Again on the warpath, lonely.

From these texts we see that many of the lines in a verse are filled out by meaningless syllables and even the thought is carried along by abbreviated phrases here and there. The full import of such a verse is not self-evident, but is conveyed by a secondary prose narrative, in which the incidents and situations leading to the composition are fully stated. This must be considered in translations, such as we have just noted, for this setting is generally known to the singers. Thus, it appears that the song verses of the more primitive tribes are not themselves narratives, but rather mnemonic suggestions of prose tales. One more example may not be amiss:—

DAKOTA FOX SOCIETY SONG^[17]

E ha   e—yo   e—yo   he   ye   ye
E ha   e—yo   e—yo   he   ye   ye   ye
E ha   e—yo   e—yo   he-ye   yo   yo
E ha   e—yo   e—yo   he   ye   yo
He   ye   e   ye   yo!

To-ka-la-ka	mi-ye	ca	ya	ya,
Lo, the Fox,	the Fox	am I!	yea,	yea,

Na	ke	nu	la	wa  on	we	lo,
Still	the	Fox	a	moment	yet	then,

We	ha	e	yo	e	yo	he   ye   yo!
Then	the	Fox	shall	be	no	more!

This is the song of a warlike society, the joining of which carries an obligation of bravery and even foolhardiness when on the line of battle; hence, the pathetic lament of the phrases.

Under the head of mythology we shall consider the literary value of prose narrative. In such narrative and oratory rests a vast store of unwritten lore, much of which has great literary merit. In our own literature the speech of Logan is justly famous. As to its precise correctness we may entertain some doubts, but there are authentic reports of similar speeches from other Indians, and anthropologists have collected literal transcriptions of discourses that rise to the same level of excellence. However, for the comprehension of this phase of New World culture, the reader must turn to the published works on Indian languages.

MUSIC

If the history of verse did not show its origin to be in song, its form would; but there is another side to the song, viz., the music. What the music of the Peruvians and Maya was like we can only conjecture, but among the less cultured surviving tribes we find aboriginal music in what seems to be an adulterated form. Though some attention has been given to the subject, the study of this surviving native music as a culture trait-complex has never advanced beyond a few isolated experiments. On the other hand, a number of investigators have sought by analytic methods to discover the fundamental structural elements, but their work is still in the controversial stage. For one thing, effort has been made to discover the ideal scales toward which the Indian singer strove, whereas, the proper procedure is the empirical determination of actual scales. Nevertheless, this analytic study has revealed what seem to be the most distinctive characters of New World music. First and foremost is what has been described as a "rhythmic pulsation of the voice on sustained notes somewhat analogous to the effect produced on the violin when the same note is slightly sounded several times during one stroke of the bow."^[18] This is a feat of singing learned with difficulty and which makes the proper notation of the music in our system extremely difficult. Another surprising characteristic is the disassociation of dance and instrumental rhythms from the song. Thus, we may sometimes find the drumming, dancing and singing each in a different rhythm, something almost incomprehensible to our musicians. As may be expected, there is no harmony, but this quality is lacking in all primitive music; hence, its absence is not distinctive of the New World. Yet, too much weight should not be given these immature generalizations, for in the first stages of linguistic development analogous traits of New World languages were assumed, most of which are now historical curiosities. What we need first of all is patient collecting and classifying. Already we find evidences of geographical areas for music, just as in art, mythology, etc. Thus, the entire eastern maize area and the bison area seem to have one type, the Pacific Coast belt another, and the Pueblo area another. This, unfortunately, cannot be definitely stated and must remain a mere surmise until properly investigated.^[19]

A little more can be done with instruments, though even here we lack good studies. The two most common instruments are the drum and the rattle. We refer to the calabash type of rattle. Its distribution is coincident with that of agriculture but extends somewhat farther in North America, where we find rawhide a substitute among the non-agricultural bison tribes, and beyond them the hollowed-out wooden rattle of the Northwest. It is a fair assumption that the type arose among a calabash-producing people and was thence diffused.

There are other types of minor rattling, rasping, and clapping instruments of restricted distribution. The only one approaching the calabash rattle in importance is the notched stick.^[20]

Drums seem to be of greater variety. One general tambourine type is found in the bison area and northward to the Eskimo and Siberia. In the eastern maize area the single-headed water-tuned drum prevailed, whose distribution seems to be continuous through the West Indies into South America. In southwestern United States and southward, a double-headed drum similar to our own was in use. The large wooden signal drums of the Amazon country we suspect to be of recent African origin.

As the case now stands, there were no stringed instruments in the New World before 1492. The only debatable case is that of the musical bow found in California and northern Mexico. Of wind instruments, the most complicated is the pan-pipe of Peru and Brazil.^[21] Yet, the aboriginal origin of this instrument has been made improbable by the discovery that it has the same arbitrary scale as the pan-pipe of Melanesia.^[22] Trumpets were used in Mexico and Peru and still survive in the Amazon area. Closely allied to this is a reed instrument of cane, sometimes called a cornet, used in Peru and still found along the Amazon. True flutes were used in Peru,^[23] but in North America, the flageolet. No more than with song music can we compare the types of composition for these instruments in the several geographical areas. This is truly unfortunate, for it seems that music offers one of the very best trait-complexes for the study of diffusion and invention. It is one of the weak points in the careful, painstaking study of ritualism now prosecuted by American anthropologists, for when a ritual passes from one tribe to another (of which phenomenon we have already many instances), we may expect that its music will be carried more faithfully than anything else.

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1. Spinden, 1913. I.
2. Mallery, 1886. I.
3. Garcilasso, 1688. I.
4. Markham, 1910. I, p. 147.
5. Markham, 1910. I, p. 147.
6. Markham, 1910. I.
7. Beckwith, 1907. I.
8. Mackenzie, A. S., 191 1. I.
9. Brinton, 1890. I, p. 245.
10. Brinton, 1890. I.
11. Brinton, 1890. I.
12. Markham, 1910. I, pp. 100-101.
13. Matthews, 1907. I, pp. 54-55.
14. Brinton, 1890. I, p. 290.
15. Brinton, 1890. I, p. 292.
16. Curtis, 1907. I, p. 112.
17. Curtis, 1907. I, p. 51.
18. Curtis, 1907. I, p. 27.
19. Gilman, 1908. I; Densmore, 1910. I; 1913. I; Burton, 1909. I.
20. Lowie, 1909. I, p. 219; Hawley, 1898
21. Mead, 1903. I.
22. Hornbostel, 1911. I.
23. Mead, 1903. I.