Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/344

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332
PSYCHOLOGICAL, LITERATURE

could be eradicated if society so determined; but any attempt to distinguish certain strains as superior, and to give special encouragement to them, would probably fail to accomplish the object proposed, and must certainly be unsafe. The author adds that "society has never shown itself averse to adopt measures of the most stringent and even brutal kind for the control of those whom it regards as its enemies."

The book concludes with a biographical notice of Mendel, three portraits of whom are inserted, and with translations of Mendel's papers on Hybridization and on Hieracium. There are six colored plates, and a number of figures in the text. The mechanical side of the work is worthy of its spirit and contents. For though a new edition will be called for every few years, as facts accumulate and theories are revised, there can be little doubt that the Principles of Heredity will take rank as a classical exposition of its subject from the Mendelian standpoint. L. Turley.

American Primitive Music, with especial attention to the Songs of the Ojibways. By Frederick R. Burton. New York, Moffat, Yard & Co., 1909. pp. v, 281+73+7. Price, $5.00 net.

Mr. Burton, who is a composer of recognized merit and has served as musical expert in the ethnological departments of the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Columbian Museum, has written this book rather as musician than as ethnologist. "That Indian songs may be useful to civilization, that is, that they have great art value, I thoroughly believe, and I should be lacking in the courage of my convictions if I did not make such demonstration of my belief as lies in my power." Nevertheless, he realizes that the acoustical side of primitive music cannot be ignored even by one who applies himself mainly to the aesthetic, and accordingly does not scruple to express his dissent from the conclusions of certain ethnological enquirers who have previously written on the subject of Indian music.

To illustrate the artistic value of the Ojibway song, the author has selected twenty-eight numbers from his collection, has adapted to them English verse suggested by the Indian originals, and has provided them with pianoforte accompaniment; some of the songs he has also arranged for unaccompanied mixed quartette. Opinions will doubtless differ, both as to the intrinsic value of the themes and as to the possibility of any widespread infusion of Indian ingredients into our own music: the reviewer must acknowledge that, in his judgment, many of these songs have both charm and virility.

Mr. Burton has, further, given the notation of his whole "collection of nearly one hundred songs as recorded by the phonograph, together with the Indian words (so far as intelligible) and their English translation. The notation raises, of course, the whole question of scale. The writer ascribes to the Ojibways two pentatonic scales, major (sol, mi, re, do, la, sol) and minor (mi, re, do, la, sol, mi); each of these is developed by the addition of one tone which brings about a scale relationship closely analogous to the ancient hexachord; major, sol, mi, re, do, si, la, sol, and minor, mi, re, do, si, la, sol, mi. There are also certain songs that appear to be based upon the diatonic major scale of civilization. How far all these things are original, and how far their finish and perfection are due to civilized influence, Mr. Burton does not attempt to say; it is enough for him to appreciate the primitive character of the music as a whole. He has, however, in his remarks upon Mr. Oilman's examination of the Hopi songs, an argument that is suggestive, and may be outlined here. Choruses, he says, composed of persons who know the scale