The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-10-05
Servian Dance and Song.

The Servian correspondent Of the Lon
don Telegraph says: ''Kolo is an exercise
suited to the torrid weather reigning If
it do not excite the beholder, it does not
warm the performer. Laughter makes
one hot, but looking ON the Servian dance
causes only puzzled smile. What man
ner of men are these who, in European
dress, in cloth of Leeds and arms of Shelf
field, can find delight in holding one an
other by the waistband and dancing Just
like bear? l have tried in vain to dis
tinguish shuffles or cuts, or any form of
step. They slowly raise one foot and
slowly drop it down, then the other, and
then the first again. Admirers of Servia
declare the military intelligence of her
people SO great that no drill comes unwel-
come to them. should conceive that the
goose step and marking time were Pc
culiar favorites. Saving only that they
don't hold each others waistband, nor
perform the evolution in a circle, they
may quite fancy that they are dancing
kolo all the while. When the lasses join
"a sport which have not yet been so ia.
vored as to see-the party revolves in
stamping. This, am told,, makes the
dance much more graceful-one does not
quite see how. If one bear is not thrilling
to watch, neither will ten be, though a
she-creature or two be distributed among
them. Other falr-haircd young soldiers
sing. For my own part I prefer the
dance. That may be silly, but it is not
painful. There is one person in the world
might feel moved by the Servian song.
Mr.. Darwin would be delighted with it as
surviving link Thus, perhaps, the
primeval man expressed the simple senti-
ments of his unsophisticatcd soul. The air
may be divided into drawls, yawns and
bawls. After discoursing such music
through the mouth until the ambient air
is thrilling, they repeat the melody
through the nose. 1t is terrible to hear
the Gospodin Professor recite the lament
of an ancient Serb, who flies to escape the
Turk. OF how many verses this ballad
consists is unknown-never yet has the
end been reached. For the mode of CON-
position has that elasticity characteristic
OF an inexhaustible imagination. The
refugee bids adieu to each member of his
family. A verse to his wife, one to his
brother Ivan, another to Mllosch, fourth
to his maiden aunt, etc. Suppose him to
have large family-lots of brothers, Sis
and his mother in law-each of them must
udNC q NC1SC, NluCl1uS OAlJ 1IOlu luC
others before and after by the change of a
Christian name. If the nearer survive
this enumeration, there remains an mex
haustible fund OF poetry on natural OBJ
jects about the exile's home-thc church,
the tree, the brook, the mountains, and so
on. All the music l have heard as yet
seems to be included in compass of four
notes. No foreigner here-and we are
many-has ears so keen as to distinguish
one tune from another. But there must be
more in it. You see eyes light up and
faces flush at the strain which seems to
your unaccustomcd hearing all one stupid
monotone. The Oriental character is evil
dent, and man skilled in that cxtraor-
binary science would probably display to
you a score of delicate gradations where
you recognize only one drawl. The chants
We heard at mass today were an cxccp-
ton, but they have probably descended
from an older time than the Turkish con-
quest. Some Of them had lit and ring
very different from the measured strains
of our own sacred usagc-so different, in
fact, that they rcsemblcd pallersong' Of
the earlier sort.