Columns
Nunani
January 3, 2003 - Song (Part one)
January 10, 2003 - Song (Part two)
January 17, 2003 - Song (Part three)
January 24, 2003 - The odd little couple
Nunani
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Song
RACHEL QITSUALIK
And the birds cry out
"ying-ying!"
Regard that
bird: bird as it is,
Seeking with its voice its companion!
And shall a man not seek his friends?
Spiritual beings will then harken to him:
He will have harmony and peace!
— from a song of the Chou dynasty, China, 606-586 B.C.
And there’s a hand
my trusty fiere!
And gi’es a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a richt gude-willie
waught,
For auld lang syne.
— verse from "Auld Lang Syne", traditional Scottish New Year song, late 17th century
Glorious was life
Now I am filled with joy
For every time a dawn
Makes white the sky of night
For every time the sun goes up
Over the heavens...
— Inuit song recorded by Knud Rasmussen in the 1920s
If you are anything like me, you have wondered from time to time why people (in the West, anyway) tend to sing "Auld Lang Syne" at New Year.
I had heard that it was Scottish, but that was all I really knew about it until I did some research. When I did, I was surprised to learn that the ancient Scottish (that is, Gaelic, or Celtic) attitude toward song was more than a little reminiscent of pre-colonial Inuit beliefs.
First, about "Auld Lang Syne." For a long time, this Scottish song has traditionally been sung at the end of social gatherings, participants holding hands in a circle, arms crossed in front of the body — especially throughout the first verse, chorus, and last verse. It first started to pop up in 17th century ballads, and the song’s original author is unknown.
But the version we know today is a 1788 reworking by Robert Burns. Being sung at gatherings, it was only natural that Scots sang it at New Year, and the tradition has stuck over the years, with the addition that it has crept outward to other cultures based on those in the U.K.
While I was interested to learn all of this, I was far more intrigued when I dug deeper into some of the ancient traditions of the Scots — in other words, of the Celts. As with most cultures, the Celtic peoples (who included the Gaels of Scotland) held song as both a form of entertaining self-expression, as well as a learning tool. But even more strikingly, they believed that song could affect their environment — and if used to ill-purpose, could be lethal.
This is not unlike the traditional Inuit perception of song. But then again, the Celts were Qallunaat (white folks) as they were in ancient, tribal times, when their lifestyle was somewhat closer to that of pre-colonial Inuit than it was by the time their descendants first began to visit the Arctic.
The Celts tended to avoid written language. They viewed it as untrustworthy, the hallmark of untrustworthy civilized folk — the kind that lived in cities, like the Greeks. Instead, theirs was an exclusively oral tradition. And, in time, they produced a class of person whose sole expertise was mastering this oral tradition.
Such people were known as bards, and the task of every bard was to memorize the thousands of songs, stories, and riddles of their culture, as well as the secret names of every kind of bird, beast, flower, and tree.
And just as with Inuit angakkuit (shamans) who held similar lore, such knowledge caused a certain amount of supernatural power to become associated with the bard.
Now it is important, at this point, to bear in mind that humanity has ever regarded song as holding power. A song is an expression of will, and its use of rhythm and repetition can elicit an altered state of consciousness in both the singer and the listener.
Everyone has felt the direct impact of music upon their mind, their very nervous system, and nothing can so mould human emotion like music. The words themselves hold the same influence that words ever have, which is why poetry and writing — which are about the right choice of words, about how best to state something — is so influential. With words and music combined well, in a song, their power is increased exponentially.
For this reason, song is still perhaps the most powerful spiritual tool humanity owns. All-encompassing, yet deeply personal, it has been fundamental to worship since the most ancient of times.
(Concluded in Part Two.)
Song (Part two)
RACHEL QITSUALIK
Due to its social and psychological power, song can easily be wielded by one human being as a weapon against another. Consider the fact that, despite the popularity of visual media today, songs of social/political satire are more common than ever — one can continually hear them on the radio, late night talk shows, comedy specials, popular music, and numerous other sources.
History shows us that one of the first things a tyrant will do, once coming to power, is censor musical lyrics. There is just something about song that drives messages into our brains more effectively than any other medium, and those who would become targets of it often realize this.
Just as the attribution of power to song is an ancient concept, so is the idea of using it aggressively. As an example, the most famous of Celtic (Welsh) bards was Taliesin, who is thought to have flourished in the sixth century. While there is a great deal of lore that is thought to have derived from a real Taliesin, there are many more legendary deeds attributed to the folkloric Taliesin.
Thought by many scholars to be the figure upon which Merlin (the magician from the tales of King Arthur) was based, Taliesin’s beginnings are too long to describe herein, but suffice it to say that he is a figure of many incarnations, having come to own a vast body of lore.
When his adopted father is imprisoned by the wicked King Gwyddno, the youthful Taliesin appears at the king’s court, demanding his father’s release. As a bard, a master of songs and poetry, he is challenged by the bards residing at the king’s court (these were the times when Europeans kept books, but still greatly relied upon their oral traditions). Taliesin confounds the court-bards by singing riddles to them, such as,
"Do you know what you are in the hour of sleep?
A mere body, a mere soul, or a secret retreat of light?"
When they can’t answer, he taunts them with the verse,
"I marvel that in their books they know not with certainty
the properties of the soul, or what form are its members;
Into what part, or when, it takes up its abode,
Or by what wind or stream it is supplied."
Taliesin then confuses and horrifies them by singing of his numerous incarnations: that he has stood with God in the highest heaven, alongside Lucifer in the lowest hell. He sings of his time in India, of when Rome was built, and of his three residencies in the castle of a goddess. He sings of his times as many animals, many men, many women, and that after all this he has ended up here as Taliesin.
By now, King Gwyddno’s bards are in such confusion that their attempts to answer Taliesin have reduced them to babbling idiocy. With that, Taliesin’s final song is a spell that summons a great windstorm, ripping through the court and terrifying all within it — including the king. Thus does Taliesin secure the release of his father.
This Taliesin story is of interest to me because I love to note concordance between different cultural traditions. For the events in the story make perfect sense in Inuktitut. Inuit have always believed that preternatural powers can be expressed through song, and most important of all: Inuit have an ancient tradition of song-duelling.
Song-duels seem to have been especially popular among Eastern Arctic peoples, who used them as a way to resolve interpersonal conflict in a non-violent (at least, non-physically violent) fashion. The tradition was encouraged, not only because of its non-violent nature, but because it was great entertainment for the listeners.
The idea was very simple: each contestant would have a turn at inventing a song (sort of the Inuit equivalent of an evening at the improv) with lyrics that would humble, belittle, satirize, denigrate, revile, and generally humiliate the opponent.
The song was made up off the top of the singer’s head, its dual purpose to poke fun at the subject while also amusing listeners. The subject himself could do nothing but sit and stew while the gibes were sung out, and listeners laughed aloud. And laughter was the critical factor in the contest, since it would determine the winner. The rule was "anything goes" — as long as it was funny.
(Concluded in Part Three.)
Song (Part three)
RACHEL QITSUALIK
In a song-duel, laughter on the part of listeners indicates approval of the lyrics. Conversely, silence indicates disapproval. The loser is essentially laughed out of the contest.
Song-duelling is an ancient tradition that has dwindled in the face of modernity. Even in the 1950s, I never personally witnessed a song-duel, not even among the Netsilingmiut (among whom it is said to have been popular) with whom my family settled.
The written accounts we have of song-duels seem to indicate that it was primarily a male tradition, perhaps due to the fact that contestants typically liked to drum along with their respective songs. Drumming traditionally lies in the masculine sphere. But this is not to say that women were not participants. In fact, some peoples used a variation in which each contestant would secretly teach his song to his wife, who would sing it for him at the contest.
One way or another, song-duelling was a formal event, carried out in a common area, with allies of either contestant present. Neither contestant enjoyed a "home court" advantage. It was presided over by some neutral authority, generally an elder.
Here is part of a duellist’s song, recorded by Knud Rasmussen in 1931:
What was it? On the sea’s
ice
For your daughter-in-law Teriarnaq — yonder
You conceived immoral desires
And yearned for her.
You are one with
brief thoughts — and your thoughts never go to
Your poor wife, Akta;
There is only one reason why such a contest involves singing: music is the best way to deliver a message. Musical tones stimulate regions of our brain that are otherwise closed, allowing a message to be absorbed on many levels. The contestants could just stand and hurl insults at one another, but this would simply resemble a talk show, mutual streams of abuse breaking down into incoherent, counter-productive babble.
The power of song, potentially so destructive, also allows it to be applied in a constructive fashion. Inuit (shamans in particular) used to collect short songs or chants, what Rasmussen renders from the Inussuit dialect as "seratit." According to the lore of Polar Inuit, the original seratit are said to have been dreamt by the earliest humans, from the days when shamans had enormous power. While such shamans are no more, the seratit have nevertheless been passed down by word-of-mouth between elders, who keep them away from the young. Seratit are reminiscent of what Qallunaat would term "spells," "invocations" or "charms," and obviously would have been fiercely denounced by early missionaries for this reason. But pre-colonial Inuit once used them in the belief that their music-word combination (i.e., willpower set to rhythm) could influence nature.
Here is an example seratit,
intended to add speed to a journey:
Forward, forward
ship, kayak, sledge!
Your large cheeks
You must smooth, to grow light-running!
It is the formulaic nature of the obscure seratit that distinguishes them from common "ayaya" songs (which I will term "folk-ayaya" songs herein, distinguishing them from an ayaya format used for song-duelling or seratit). Folk-ayaya songs nevertheless proceed from the same principle, that of a song’s power. But while folk-ayaya songs are much less thaumaturgical than seratit, they are far more flexible and culturally relevant. The folk-ayaya is fundamental to Inuit culture, a way to tell stories, make jokes, and most important of all: to express one’s individual sentiments — a concept virtually sacred to Inuit.
The cultural beauty of the folk-ayaya lies in its freedom from aesthetics. Intended to express the singer’s individuality, early folk-ayaya songs were most often improvised, or were passed between relations to mark a special bond. They were free of any structure but that of rhythm, and the traditional punctuation of statements with "A-YA-YA-YA, a-ya-ya, a-ya-ya...."
Yet the most important use of the folk-ayaya was as an expression of great emotion, whether of sadness, joy, or sheer wonder. And this brings me back to my original comparison of Inuit song with the folk-traditions of Europe. It seems to me that the greatest power that a song ever had was to allow the singer self-expression, a way of issuing forth the very soul to play upon the air. Whether among traditional Inuit or early Europeans, it was once common to hear reference to "his song" or "her song" or "my song."
What does it say about us, today, that none of us has a song?
Pijariiqpunga.
The odd little couple
RACHEL QITSUALIK
If the odd little couple were together through an arranged marriage, it almost certainly had to have occurred long ago. Theirs was a mutual comfort with each other that most couples know only after many decades together. I write of them because it brings a smile to my face to remember their contributions to our small community.
I am not trying to prop up the odd little couple as exemplary elders. Like all human beings, they had their flaws. They were the product of a strange, largely pre-colonial world, one that many people today would have trouble envisioning, a world devoid of our laws, without a monetary system, without even a contemporary hunting-and-trapping lifestyle. I doubt if there were even a handful of people who knew we were part of the "Commonwealth."
The odd little couple lived in Gjoa Haven, although they didn’t know that this was Uqsuqtuuq’s "official" English name. Neither did they know that there was a Qallunaat church out there that had declared them Anglicans. They didn’t feel that they needed spiritual maintenance. But, now that I think about it, they didn’t seem to feel that they needed physical maintenance, either.
This was one of the characteristics that so marked them — their independence. In those days before modern goods, they got by with handmade tools. Their clothing, though not as elaborate as some styles, was just as functional. They caught and butchered their own game, and lived in a funny little hut. They chose to live alone, even though they had quite a few children and grandchildren.
One might have expected them to lean on the community, especially since they were in their late 60s (I think). They never did. They lived independently, with a certain resolve that only those who have thrived on the land can possess. Yes, their things were a bit shabby. Yes, they ate cod in winter, not what a well-to-do hunter would eat, but they were determined to stand on their own two feet.
Ironically, their lifestyle would be scandalous by today’s standards. They had no careers. They were not upwardly mobile. They were not good consumers, contributing to the economy. They did not pay taxes, like modern Inuit. It is extremely ironic that today’s standards would condemn them as utterly, perhaps criminally, useless.
Even by traditional standards, they were eccentric. But useless?
It is arguable that the odd little couple were the most useful people in the community. It was their spirit of self-determination that inspired others to work harder, reach further, and shoulder burdens without complaint. How are younger generations going to feel justified in complaining about hardship when there sits, at the edge of the community, an example of such self-reliance in a pair of elders? Far from useless, theirs was the most lasting contribution of all, a contribution of culture. Everything about them — their lack of affectation, their hard-work ethic, their self-sufficiency, their love of individualism — all served as an example to others.
We live in times when we are expected to network, make connections, publicize our lives. Individualism is shady, suspicious, something to be shunned. But Gjoa Haven today has a reputation for being one of the more pleasant and traditional communities — not an easy reputation to acquire in the face of modern social problems — and I do not doubt that the odd little couple had a lasting influence this way. Their descendants, to this day, are hard-working, hands-on people, responsible for schools and local government.
I ran into one of them a while ago. He was dressed all in quirky colours, as though he couldn’t care less what others thought of him, and in his eye was that individualistic gleam of old.
Long live the independent spirit — however odd.
Pijariiqpunga.
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