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90 HOPI SONGS
note on which the fourth is balanced remaining meanwhile constant. The change in this axial note is neither a partition, as in No. 1, nor a progressive shift, as in No. 2, but an alternation between two levels, the higher judged either e - or e in nineteen repetitions (in B1 e + ), the lower either de+ or de in eighteen repetitions (in A1 de-). The alternation is not irregular, but suggests a rhythm of high and low phases with two strophes in each.
In the first strophe the axis is, in general, constant at the high level, the initial segment being a noteworthy exception. For, in passing from this to the next, the singer apparently changes his mind as to his location in the rhythm, suddenly substituting the high axial phase for the low phase he had first chosen. The record of another song of the series (Shiashtasha ; possibly also the next song and others) preserves like evidence of the singer finding himself, or getting his bearings, in a complex rhythm of strophes. In the second strophe the axis wavers between the levels (A and B alternately high and low; C low). It is constant at the low level throughout the third strophe and up to the closing segment of the fourth, when it suddenly regains the initial high level, holding it thenceforward.
Meanwhile the intermediate note of the salient triad of A is closely constant (ga or ga+) in fourteen out of fifteen repetitions (a + in A5 without putting the singer astray), and the triad is executed in not far from equal intervals above and below it, becoming during the high phase a minor sixth and during the low phase a minor and even a major seventh (the upper note identically d' — in both low level strophes).
The remaining segments, B and C, of the song exhibit equal definite-ness of structure. C closely attains the intermediate note of the triad in three out of four repetitions. Apart from the note A of B3, the first four B's reproduce one another with great exactness; and but for the alternation of the axial note the last five reproduce their minutely complex form still more closely. B5, the exception, duplicates the balanced fourth of the others by a liberty not without charm, and this motive is recalled by the subsequent lapping of the pendent fourth.
The unaided European ear does not appear to advantage as audi- |
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