The Play of Man. Karl Groos

The Play of Man - Karl Groos


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han,

      Und wie der Teig am Himmel steht,

      Da schiesst der Tag in Ofa.”84

      A. Bastian relates of the Siamese children that they delight in repeating difficult sentences and alter their meaning while speaking rapidly, as Pho Pu Khün Me Pu (The grandfather near the grandmother) is changed to Pho Ku Khün Me Ku (My father near me, his mother), or Pit Patu Thöt, Pit Patu Thot (Shut the door, Shut the temple door), Mo Loi Ma Ha Phe, Phe Loi Pai Ha Mo (The floating pot bumped against the boat, and vice versa), etc.85 “Negro mothers on the Loango coast,” says Pechnel-Loesche, “teach their children verses which trip the tongue when spoken rapidly.”86

      A similar sport for adults is afforded by the students’ song, Der Abt von Philippsbronn, in which the syllable “bronn” must be repeated four times. After the first time there is a “Pst!” sound, after the second a “Pfiff!” after the third a “Click!” and after the fourth a snore, all given as rapidly as possible. The accelerated tempo in the country song in Don Juan and in the wedding feast of the dwarfs in Goethe’s Hochzeitslied are of the same character.

      Other instruments besides the human voice are employed in sound-play. Even parrots and monkeys have found pleasure in other noises than the practice of their own voices. The young gorilla, in his exuberance of spirits, drums on his own breast, or, with even more satisfaction, on any available hollow object, such as a bowl, a cask, etc. The child’s first auditory satisfaction derived from any act of his own is probably the splashing of water; another is the rustling of paper. Preyer says: “The first sound produced by himself which gave the child evident satisfaction was the rattling of paper. He often indulged in this, especially in his nineteenth week.”87 Strümpell noticed the same thing at six months, and also that it gave his little daughter pleasure to pat the table with the palm of her hand88 (rhythmic repetition again). The boy observed by Sully was in the beginning of his eighth month when he one day accidentally dropped a spoon from the table where he was playing with it. “He immediately repeated the action, now, no doubt, with the purpose of gaining the agreeable shock for his ear. After this, when the spoon was put into his hand he deliberately dropped it. Not only so, like a true artist, he went on improving on the first effect, raising the spoon higher and higher, so as to get more sound, and at last using force in dashing and banging it down.”89 At nine months Preyer’s child beat twelve times on the stopper of a large caraffe with increasing force. “On the three hundred and nineteenth day,” he goes on, “occurred a notable acoustic experiment which denoted much intellectual progress. He struck the spoon on his tray just as his other hand accidentally moved it. The sound was deadened, and the child noticed the difference. He took the spoon in his other hand and struck the tray, deadening the sound intentionally, and so on repeatedly. In the evening the experiment was repeated, with the same result.”90 Possibly Preyer is right in regarding this as a sort of scientific experiment on the part of the child to investigate the causes of the deadening of the sound, but Perez thinks the child’s action is accounted for by his desire to feel in both hands alternately the effect of the blow and of the shock.91 However that may be, we are forced to agree with the German student entirely when, from these observations, he finally draws the conclusion: “The restless experimentation of little children and of infants in their first attempts at accommodation, and even their apparently insignificant acts (such as the rattling of paper in the second quarter), are not only useful for the development of their intelligence, but are indispensable as a means of determining reality in a literal sense. We can never estimate how much of the common knowledge of mankind is attained in this way.”92

      Without pausing to enumerate the various instrumentalities employed in childish sound-play, we will leave the infant and pass on to consider the insatiate demands of our sensory organism. It seems that, in order to maintain our present life, an incessant rain of outer stimuli must beat upon us, like that atomic storm which many believe pours constantly upon the heavenly bodies and accounts for gravitation. Indeed, the opinion has been advanced, and apparently supported by some pathological phenomena, that the cessation of all peripheral stimuli marks the dissolution of psychic existence. Certainly the sense of hearing has large claims to notice in this connection—we all know the gruesomeness of absolute silence. This may be why children are so indefatigable in making noises, patting their hands, cracking their knuckles,93 snapping and drumming with the fingers, stamping and beating with the feet, dragging sticks about, creaking and slamming doors, beating hollow objects, blowing in keys, banging on waiters, clinking glasses, snapping whips, and, in short, delighting in tearing and smashing noises generally.94 And adults are not much behind them. These same sounds in other forms please us too, as, for example, the clinking of spurs, snapping a riding whip, rattling sabres, the tinkling of tassels and fringe, the rustle of flowing draperies. The versatile walking cane, too, comes in for a thousand uses here—in striking, beating, and whistling through the air. Going for a walk one winter day, I fell behind two worthy scholars who were deep in an earnest discussion. We came to a place where the drain beside the road was filled with beautiful milk-white ice. Crack! went the older man’s cane through the inviting crust, in the very midst of his learned disquisition. The student everywhere is a past master in such sport, as his unfortunate neighbours find out to their sorrow in the watches of the night. The measured hand clapping, which the child learns so early, occurs in the dances of the people. I have mentioned the maddening rapidity of the Haxenschlagen. Enjoyment of crushing or rending destructible objects is characteristic of every age. I will cite as an example Goethe’s famed boyish exploit. After throwing from a window and smashing all his own store of breakable ware, incited by the appreciative cheers of the neighbours, he descended to the kitchen and seizing first upon a platter found that it made such a delightful crash that he must needs try another. He continued the entertainment until he had demolished all the dishes within his reach. In such a case, of course, enjoyment of the sound is not the only source of pleasure. Joy in being a cause is conspicuous when the clatter is self-originated, and sometimes renders even unpleasant sounds attractive, like scratching with a slate pencil, for instance. Besides, there is the satisfaction of impulses to movement, and often, too, the destructive impulse like that for overcoming difficulties is closely related to the propensity for fighting.

      In all this we have not yet touched on the subject of acoustic playthings, and it is so large that I can only throw out a few suggestions as to the likeness between primitive musical instruments and the noise-producing toys of children. We have seen that even the ape has discovered the principle of instrumental music, and puts it to practice by pounding with his hand on a stick or some hollow object. A baby does the same thing, and will take great delight in beating persistently and with a certain regularity on a table with his hand, on the floor with a stick, or on his tray with a spoon. If we regard these sounds thus playfully produced by beating on some foreign object, together with some notion of time, as affording probably the first suggestion of a musical instrument, we are met by two possibilities: either the stick itself is considered as the source of the noise or else the object it strikes is so regarded. In the simple instruments of savages both possibilities are realized. The Australian bell is a thick, bottle-shaped club of hard wood which, on being struck, gives forth a peculiar long note, and the drum with which the women accompany the dancing of the men is only a tightly stretched opossum skin, which they have been wearing on their shoulders.95 Stringed instruments were derived from the bow; Homer sang of the clear sound which Odysseus drew from the tightly strung bow, and Heraclitus uses a complex figure of speech involving the bow and the lyre. The South African “gora” is only a modified form of this trusty weapon of the Bushman. The modification consists in introducing on one side, between the end of the cord and the bow, a trimmed, leaf-shaped, and flattened quill, which is placed upon the lips of the performer and set in motion by his breath.

      How can we explain these inventions otherwise than as the results of indefatigable experimentation on the part of either children or adults? Wind instruments no doubt arose from contracting the lips and blowing through the fist or from playful investigation of the properties of arrows and the hollow ornaments worn on the neck, while vibratory ones, like the gora, no doubt find their prototype in the blowing on leaves and grass blades, which children are so fond of. Where there is no such thing as scientific experimentation, playful experimentation becomes the mother of invention and of discovery.

      While it is thus not


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