Chapter III

Well, there you have it all: acting, singing, dancing, choral movement--enlisted ancillary to the domestic drama: and, when you start collecting evidence of these imitative instincts blent in childhood the mass will soon amaze you and leave you no room to be surprised that many learned scholars, on the supposition that uncivilised man is a child more or less--and at least so much of child that one can argue through children's practice to his--have found the historical origin of Poetry itself in these primitive performances: 'communal poetry' as they call it. I propose to discuss with you (may be neat term) in a lecture not belonging to this 'course' the likelihood that what we call specifically 'the Ballad,' or 'Ballad Poetry,' originated thus. Here is a wider question. Did all Poetry develop out of this, historically, as a process in time and in fact? These scholars (among whom I will instance one of the most learned--Dr Gummere) hold that it did: and I may take a passage from Dr Gummere's "Beginnings of Poetry" (p. 95) to show you how they call in the practice of savage races to support their theory. The Botocudos of South America are-- according to Dr Paul Ehrenreich who has observed them[1]--an ungentlemanly tribe, 'very low in the social scale.'

The Botocudos are little better than a leaderless horde, and
pay scant respect to their chieftain; they live only for their
immediate bodily needs, and take small thought for the
morrow, still less for the past. No traditions, no legends, are
abroad to tell them of their forbears. They still use gestures
to express feeling and ideas; while the number of words which
imitate a given sound `is extraordinarily great' An action or
an object is named by imitating the sound peculiar to it; and
sounds are doubled to express greater intensity.... To speak is
_aõ_; to speak loudly or to sing, is _aõ-aõ._ And now for their
aesthetic life, their song, dance, poetry, as described by this
accurate observer. 'On festal occasions the whole horde meets
by night round the camp fire for a dance. Men and women
alternating ... form a circle; each dancer lays his arms about
the necks of his two neighbours, and the entire ring begins to
turn to the right or to the left, while all the dancers stamp
strongly and in rhythm the foot that is advanced, and drag
after it the other foot. Now with drooping heads they press
closer and closer together; now they widen the circle.
Throughout the dance resounds a monotonous song to which
they stamp their feet. Often one can hear nothing but a
continually repeated _kalanî aha!_...Again, however, short
improvised songs, in which we are told the doings of the day,
the reasons for rejoicing, what not, as "Good hunting," or "Now
we have something to eat," or "Brandy is good."'

'As to the aesthetic value' of these South American utterances, Dr Gummere asks in a footnote, 'how far is it inferior to the sonorous commonplaces of our own verse--say "The Psalm of Life?"' I really cannot answer that question. Which do you prefer, Gentlemen?--'Life is real, life is earnest,' or 'Now we have something to eat'? I must leave you to settle it with the Food Controller.

The Professor goes on:

'Now and then, too, an individual begins a song, and is
answered by the rest in chorus.... _They never sing without
dancing, never dance without singing, and have but one word
to express both song and dance._'

As the unprejudiced reader sees [Dr Gummere proceeds]
this clear and admirable account confirms the doctrine of
early days revived with fresh ethnological evidence in the
writings of Dr Brown and of Adam Smith, that dance, poetry
and song were once a single and inseparable function, and is
in itself fatal to the idea of rhythmic prose, of solitary
recitation, as foundations of poetry.... All poetry is
communal, holding fast to the rhythm of consent as to the
one sure fact.