recitation by a single person who accompanied himself with some stringed instrument, such as the lyre, and with suitable gestures. The former, public and often religious in its character, preferred subjects of general interest, while the thoughts and feelings of the individual were the appropriate themes of the latter. It is true that no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between these Doric and Æolian lyrics; we know, for example, that Lesbian poems were sometimes composed for choral recitation, such as the humenaios of Sappho imitated by Catullus. Still, the general difference between these choral and personal lyrics is clear; and no less clear is the difference of social conditions which such lyrics respectively reflect. Like the communal institutions of the Dorian states, their choral poetry keeps before our eyes those groups of kinsmen, with common property and feasts, which lie in the prehistoric background of Greek history. The contrast of personal and impersonal poetry is indeed found in literatures which have passed far beyond the clan age. Thus, the epic poetry of medieval France has been divided into the popular and the individual narrative, the former sung or chanted to a monotonous tune, the latter artistically recited.[1] But the contrast of the choral and personal lyric carries us back much farther than feudalism, and brings out some of the earliest characteristics of song and consequently of literature. Some pictures of communal festivals will enable us to realise how much older are these choral songs than any courtly makings of the troubadours.
We are among the Dacotahs of North America. We are present at the sacred feast of one of their clans, "The Giant's Clan," as it is called. High festival is now being
