The Play of Man. Karl Groos
with the origination of primitive instruments, we find, too, that children have borrowed many of their toys from the grown people. Things which, from the crudest beginnings, have been brought to a high degree of perfection are reproduced in miniature and simplified form for the little ones. Instances of this are too common and familiar to require illustration here. Even in remote ages it was the custom to give children little bows, wagons, dolls, etc., as well as copies of musical instruments. In the province of Saxony queer clay drums, shaped like an hourglass, have been unearthed; they must belong to the stone age, and among them is a tiny specimen, which can hardly be anything else than a toy.96 It often happens that instruments which have entirely gone out of use among adults continue to be playthings for the children for thousands of years. This is the case with the rattles which are now the merest plaything, having no interest for grown people, except as a means of quieting an infant, yet their original connection with it was probably much closer, as our progenitors used such instruments at dances, feasts, etc., for the pious purpose of driving off evil spirits.97 There is a widespread custom among savage tribes of frightening away the enemies of the stars by noisy demonstrations, especially during the absence of the moon. As these observances gradually become obsolete, the rattling instruments are saved from oblivion by being handed down as toys to the hospitable little people, without, however, entirely losing the glamour of their religious office. Becq de Fouquières says, in speaking of the many religious practices that are connected with children’s toys: “Ses premiers joujoux dont en quelque sorte des talismans et des amulettes.”98 Many rattles have been found in the graves of prehistoric children, together with clay figures of animals, marbles, etc. Schliemann found a child’s rattle, ornamented with bits of metal, in the “third city” at Hissarlik, and Squier found a snail shell filled with tiny pebbles, with the mummy of a child, in Peru.99 Amaranthes, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in his remarkable Woman’s Lexigon, defines a child’s rattle as “a hollow instrument made of silver, lead, wood, or wire, trimmed with bright coral and with little bells either inclosed in it or attached to the outside.”100 Older boys make a rattle of a dried bladder, with peas in it.
As I have dwelt on the probability of the invention of the first musical instruments by means of playful experimentation, I will now touch briefly upon another view. Karl Bücher, in his admirable treatise on Arbeit und Rhythmus, develops the hypothesis that rhythmic art is derived from physical labour. Physical labour which employs the limbs with perhaps some simple implement assumes spontaneously a rhythmical character, since this tends to conserve psychic as well as physical force. The sounds arising as the work proceeds suggest the germ idea of instrumental music and lead to involuntary vocal imitation. Thus, poetry and music are engendered in the very midst of toil, and only later, when they attain to independent existence, are dance motions substituted for the movements of physical labour, and frequently become adaptations of them (as in pantomime dances, for instance).
Convinced as I am that this theory contains a genuine though perhaps one-sided101 contribution to the proper explanation of rhythmical art, I am unable to concur in what Bücher regards as its logical consequence—namely, that musical instruments are adaptations of the labourer’s tools. “We know,” he says, “that labour rhythmically carried on has a musical quality, and since savages, having no appreciation of pitch or harmony,102 value rhythm alone, it is only necessary to strengthen and purify the tone produced by the implement and to complicate the rhythm, in order to produce what is in their estimation high art. Naturally, to accomplish this the tools were differentiated; varying conditions, as they arose in their labours, became the occasion of further efforts for the perfecting of tone and timbre, and the art instinct, struggling for expression, first found it in such rude music. So originated musical instruments from these tools of manual labour, and it is a noteworthy fact that beaten instruments were the first to appear, and are to-day the favourites of savages. We find among them the drum, gong, and tam-tam, while with many tribes the only instrument is the kettledrum, which clearly proclaims its origin, being in many cases nothing more than a skin tightly stretched across the grain mortar or a suitable pot or kettle. Primitive stringed instruments also were struck, like the Greek pleptron, the tone of a violin and of the strings themselves being a later discovery. Wind instruments, too, are of very ancient origin, the commonest being the flute and reed pipe, both of which are rhythmic. The ancient Greeks used them first to mark time and as accompanying instruments.”103
I hardly think that this view will meet with general acceptance. The wind instrument, whose importance to primitive peoples Bücher somewhat underestimates, did indeed serve the purposes of rhythm principally, but it would be difficult to trace its derivation from any manual tool. Nor does it follow that rattles and flappers came from the use of hammers; while the drum, whose prototype he finds in the grain mortar, is in use by tribes who have no mortars. I conclude, therefore, that musical instruments can, with more probability, be accounted for as the result of instinctive sound-play and the experimentation with noise-producing implements, which accompanies it.
6. Sensations of Sight
Turning his face toward the light is about the only manifestation of sight sensation displayed by the infant during his first few days. Many young animals find themselves very much at home in the outer world as soon as they are born, but such is not the case with a child. He must attain to a clear perception of external objects by toilsome experimentation, which commonly requires about five months for its completion, though the fifth week as well as the fifth month marks an epoch in the practice of sight. “The average time is about the fifth week,” says Raehlmann, “when the capacity to ‘fix’ an object is attained—that is, to take cognizance of the retinal picture of what comes within the line of his vision, as it is thrown on the macula lutea. About this time, too, the eye movements, which till then are not definitely co-ordinated, become regulated, while associated movements, such as elevating and depressing the line of vision (the latter somewhat later than the former), also appear. … But movements for the purpose of directly subjecting to fixation objects which lie in the periphery of the field of vision are entirely wanting at this period. The second epoch, that at five months, is marked by the development of orientation in the field of vision. At this time begin actual glancing movements, which shift the line of vision and bring peripheral retinal images on to the macula lutea. Contemporaneously with this, a definite system of innervations is established, especially for those muscles which are employed in shifting the line of vision. Secondly, the winking reflex is perfected by the approach of objects from the periphery of the field of vision. Thirdly, at this time the first experiments in touch controlled by sight are instituted, and serve to bring tactile perceptions into relation with those of sight. The interval between birth and the fifth week, as well as that from this time to the fifth month, is employed in the acquirement of such sense perceptions as react collectively on the organ and commit it to special uses and control. So, on the authority of repeated experience, whatever is unsuitable is gradually excluded, and only those eye movements are retained which further the proper convergence of the two retinal images.”104 Of course, the power of vision is by no means completely developed at five months, though the technique of the function, so to speak, is by that time essentially perfected. Now begin the real tasks of visual practice: acquiring familiarity with external objects, imprinting the visual images on the mind, and widening the scope of association. On entering the subject of child’s play which is connected with vision it is evident that there are four points for us to keep in mind—brightness, colour, form, and movement. The inner images and concepts, which go hand in hand with such perception (especially with the notion of movement), do not, so far as I can see, form part of our study, since while an effect of the highest importance they do not constitute one of the objects of play.105
(a) Sensations of Brightness
Sensations of brilliance seem to arouse feelings of pleasure at a remarkably early period. Thus Preyer says: “Long before the close of the first day the facial expression of the babe held facing the window changed suddenly when I shaded his eyes with my hand. … The darkened face looked much less satisfied.”106 Toward the end of the first week the child turned his face toward the window when he had been placed otherwise, and seemed pleased to see it again. During the second week a child will sometimes cry when taken into the dark, and can only be quieted by having the sensation of brightness restored.