Note 237 — Chapter II · RHYTHM AS THE ESSENTIAL FACT OF POETRY (continued 2)

The tendency to use hands as well as feet in keeping rhythm is illustrated by the Ba-Ronga of Delagoa Bay (Junod, Les Chantes et les Contes des Ba-Ronga, Lausanne, 1897), where the use of sticks may help to explain Donovan’s “rhythmic beating.” With these people “tout s’y chante et ... tous ou presque tous les chants s’y dansent” (p. 21). Refrains are sung “ten, twenty, fifty times in succession”; the songs have two elements, the solo and the refrain en tutti. A circle is formed, the men holding sticks in their hands; the solo singer leaps into the middle and sings a few words; then all the dancers sing a refrain, raising and dropping their sticks in cadence, though the rhythm is primarily given by their stamping feet. Then the soloist again, only slightly varying his theme; and again the long refrain (pp. 32 f.). The war-songs are almost entirely refrain, sung by all the warriors as they dance, “antique et grandiose choral,” says Junod.