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1150 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 7
thus parts of some of his songs were lost. Despite these
difficulties, however, his versions of what appear to be
long rambling recitatives do show a discernible structure,
and his coughs or clearing of the throat tend to
appear consistently in the same places when the melody
is repeated.
In as many instances as possible, several versions of
the same song, recorded by different singers or by the
same persons on different occasions, have been transscribed
and are given in the foUowing pages as a means
of indicating the degree of variation encountered. It
has not been possible, however, to include aU variations,
or to analyze the differences between two or more versions
of the same song. Nor is it always clear whether
we actually are dealing with the "same song." Thus,
Dry Bay Chief George's Song for the Frog Screen
(xixt6 xin daciyi) was sung both by Frank Italio (1954,
2-2-A) and by his sister, Mrs. Frank Dick (1954, 6-2-A).
Yet, while the natives considered these to be recordings
of the "same" song, McAllester found them "to have
only the most distant relationship. The refrain was
similar, in vocables and in melodic line, but the meaningful
texts were quite dissimilar, and so were the
melodies of the stanzas. Yet all songs, even the quavery
ones, are very exact in themselves." For these two
Frog Screen songs I have not only Mrs. Frank Dick's
dictated version of the words, but have tried to indicate
how her sung version differs from or resembles that of
her brother (see pp. 1164-1165). A wide variation may
also be detected between Frank Italio's version of
Wuckika's Lament (II) (1952, 2-2-B c) and her own
(III) (1954, 6-2-C), yet I was given to understand that
these were the "same song." These differences are even
more surprising in view of the relationship between
these two singers.
On the scores, McAllester has indicated the "scale"
in which the song was sung, although he comments
that "tone-system" would be a better term, since
" 'scale' implies harmonic relationships between notes
that may not exist in Tlingit music,"
"Melodies are strongly downward—very American
Indian in this respect. Yet they do not cascade down
like Plains music, . . . Songs very often start with a
jump up of a fifth or an octave." In many songs, he has
noted the gradually rising pitch; up a halftone, a whole
tone, or even more, before the end. In a few cases, fluctuations
in pitch might be ascribed to fluctuations in
the electric current available for the recorder (especially
during the early months of 1954), but this mechanical
difficulty would not explain the consistent tendency to
rise, nor the fact that in some songs only one note is
raised when the melody is repeated. For example, in
commenting on 1952, 4-1-A ("Three" Traditional
CAnkuqedi Songs in Yukon Athabaskan, or rather one
song in three parts), McAllester points out that "the
raising of B-natural is what often seems to happen as a
song starts to rise in pitch: first the lowest note starts
being higher, then others follow, and the over-aU pitch
goes up,"
This music is not divided into even measures or bars.
Rather, as McAllester remarks, "The music has a long
flow. Sometimes my attempts to find the phrase structure
are fairly arbitrary, and I do not begin to see it all
until I recognize repetitions late in the song, I have
actually worked some of them out backwards," These
phrases have been indicated by letters (A, B, etc) above
the score and at the beginning of the line of text.
Phrases are marked by some break in the music, usually
a breath pause, even though in some cases the break
comes in the middle of a word! For most melodies there
are only a few long phrases, and McAllester observes:
"I have been increasingly sparing of bar lines. The continuous
flow of these songs seems to be misrepresented
by our convention of measures, with the implication
of a 'downbeat.' "
The usual structure is Refrain, Stanza I (sung twice),
and Stanza II (sung twice); a repeat of the Refrain may
occur after the repeat of Stanza I and before the first
singing of Stanza II. Each of these parts is sung to the
same melody composed of the same musical phrases;
yet a considerable variation is permitted between Refrain
and Stanza I, and between Stanza I and Stanza
II. Refrains are aU vocables, and the last phrase or
phrases of a stanza may also consist of vocables, usuaUy
the same as those used to end the refrain. A
common formula for ending is he hani haye or 'ey 'ani
'aye. Another rising phrase, used for padding the text,
is xawEs ('thus').
Yet, as McAUester observes, "Texts seem to influence
melody. Repeats of stanzas, with the same words, are
close to being identical musicaUy, too. But the second
stanza, though clearly a repeat of the first, musicaUy,
often has quite a bit of variation, apparently to accommodate
new text. And then it, too, is almost identical
when it is repeated with the same set of new
words,"
Phrases that carry the text are always indicated by
letters: A, B, C, etc,—perhaps up to H or beyond in
unusual cases. Final phrases that are always composed
of vocables and which seem to show a contrast with
those carrying words are usually indicated by letters
at the end of the alphabet: W, X, Y, Z. Sometimes the
initial phrase or phrases of the refrain, if these differ
from those of the stanzas, may be indicated by X, Y, etc.
Variations in phrases that are repeated are indicated
as foUows: B' and B" are variations of B, B+ is a
lengthened form of B. ( ) indicates that an originaUy
independent phrase has become merged or attached to
another, as for example, A(B), where a B phrase has
become merged with an A phrase. Superscripts or sub-