| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
PREFACE
a more popular form, that the general public may share with the student the light shed by these untutored melodies upon the history of music; for these songs take us back to a stage of development antecedent to that in which culture music appeared among the ancients, and reveal to us something of the foundations upon which rests the art of music as we know it to-day.
Many of the stories and songs in this little book are now for the first time published. All have been gathered directly from the people, in their homes, or as I have listened to the earnest voice of the native priest explaining the ancient ceremonials of his fathers. The stories are close translations, losing only a certain picturesqueness and vigour in their foreign guise ; but the melodies are exactly as sung by the Indians.
Indian myths embodying cosmic ideas have passages
told in song, tribal legends have their milestones of
song, folk-tales at dramatic points break into song;
but into these rich fields I have not here entered. This
collection reveals something of the wealth of musical
and dramatic material that can be gleaned outside of
myth, legend, and folk-lore among the natives of our
country.
Aside from its scientific value, this music possesses
viii |
||