Music Of The Waters - online book

Sailors' Chanties, Songs Of The Sea, Boatmen's, Fishermen's,
Rowing Songs, & Water Legends with lyrics & sheet music

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MUSIC OF THE WATERS.                 319
The Maories also possess a similar kind of song to the natives of the Paumotu group, Polynesia, and those of the Sandwich Islands, namely, the Song of Welcome. The turtle-fishers of the Fiji Islands have also this Song of Welcome when they return from the fisheries. If they have been successful, they come shouting songs of triumph, and the women come down to the shore to meet them also singing, and sometimes as an additional mark of joy they pelt a quantity of bitter oranges at their respective husbands, sons, and brothers. On the contrary, if they have not met with success, they have a sort of chant of the most solemn nature which is used.
Respecting the signs employed in the notation of this song, which I am quoting from Carl Engel's most valuable work on " National Music," it must be observed that \ f is meant to raise a note a quarter-tone ; \ $ raises it a semitone, as does our single sharp ; § Jf raises it three quarter-tones. The same with flats : $ \> is meant to lower a note a quarter-tone ; and so on. The sign v- is used to indicate that the voice is to glide from one interval to another, much as when the finger is drawn over the violin string to a certain distance. Mr. Davies, who is responsible for the foregoing notation, has made a study of the Maories for some twenty years, and may therefore, I think, be re-