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MUSIC OF SAVAGE NATIONS. 233
France. It is also a flute (straight, and with mouth piece), with finger holes.* It is made of the bone of a reindeer, which seems a proof positive of its being made at a time when the climate and zoology of France were totally different from the present. From the skulls found in tombs and caves of this period, it appears impossible that man could have been developed sufficiently at that time to construct an article of pleasure, such as this. The skulls are said to greatly resemble those of the present natives of Australia. Yet their possessors must have had a vastly superior intelligence to the latter.
It is no great leap in fact, although it may be in time, to leave the savages of our own ancient race, and describe the musical customs of the savages of another, and inferior one. Therefore, we will leave the discussion of the above three instruments and their makers to Anthropological and Ethnological societies, and pass on to the examination of the barbarian of the present age.
One of the most curious facts in savage music is to be found in New Zealand. It is almost universally conceded that harmony was unknown to Europeans until the tenth century; yet in New Zealand for unknown ages, a combination of simple thirds in a short vocal strainf has been known. It only illustrates the assertion of the force of accident, in the rise of music.
Here was a savage tribe of cannibals who came
•Fetis Hist, gen de la Mas., t. I, p. 26 t AmbrM. Gesch. d. Musik, p. 10, t. I. |
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