Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/221

Conclusions 633 Hoshkwan dance, in which the yucca is made to appear as growing from the newly planted root to flower and fruit in about the space of an hour, is the forerunner of the theatrical "transformation scene" still so dear to popular taste. AU these things will bear study from the theatrical point of view. For the literary rendering of the lines, from which quotations have been given, we are indebted to Washington Matthews, as well as for all we know as a whole of the Night Chant, or, as it is otherwise known, the Mountain Chant. Like the Hako, the Navaho chant is based on a song se- quence; the logical relation is scarcely discoverable without the accompanying action. Taken together, the songs, dances, and interpolated comedy of the last night's performance, within the dark circle of branches, is akin to that most American and popular variety of entertainment, the musical comedy. The same can be said of many of the South-west ceremonials, where the social character is evident, modifying the element of relig- ious observance. There is a disposition among ethnologists to regard the loosened structure of tribal performances as indicating the breaking down of religious significance. It seems perhaps rather the breaking in of the literary instinct ; the unconscious movement of a people to utilize a philosophy already thoroughly assimilated and familiar, as a medium of social expression. It is not, however, the significance of Amerind literature to the social life of the people which interests us. That life is rapidly passing away and must presently be known to us only by tradition and history. The permanent worth of song and epic, folk-tale and drama, aside from its intrinsic literary quality, is its revelation of the power of the American land- scape to influence form, and the expressiveness of democratic living in native measures. We have seen how easily some of our outstanding writers have grafted their genius to the Amerind stock, producing work that passes at once into the category of literature. And in this there has nothing happened that has not happened already in every country in the world, where the really great literature is found to have developed on some deep rooted aboriginal stock. The earlier, then, we leave off thinking of our own aboriginal literary sources as the pro- duct of an alien and conquered people, and begin to think of