Page 258 - The Secret Museum

However, Jenny Sunshine found the whole thing a lot of fun and ‘sang half a dozen

chants and made the house ring with laughter when we played them over again’. From
then on, he had no trouble finding singers and recorded 150 songs for future study.

The machine still sometimes amazed them. One afternoon, Jenness played them a
song that was sung by the expedition’s guide, an Inuit man named Paleak. Everyone
listening knew he was 21 kilometres away across the ice – they had seen him that
morning, and then travelled onwards, leaving him behind. So how was he singing to
them now? It must be magic.

I chose ‘Song 21’ from all of the songs and incantations recorded by Jenness that
are in storage at the museum because they also own a photograph of the man who

sung it. It feels so alive, to know that the singer is Angivranna, and that the
photograph was taken as he played his drum and sang his song.

All the songs Jenness recorded were dance songs and incantations to the weather.
Dance songs were sung in a dance-house, where everyone wore their best clothes,
adorned with trophies like the teeth or claws of a polar bear, or the knuckles of a
seal. Whoever was dancing would usually wear a cap with a bird’s bill on top, as
well as gloves and boots.

The people Jenness lived among travelled with the seasons, and a dance-house
would be built from snow and animal skin wherever they settled. They would leave it
behind, along with the other houses, when they moved on. Inside the dance-house,

every piece of news, every event, every emotion was recorded in dance and song.
Jenness described the dance-songs as being a bit like the local newspaper.

They were sung to tell the story of adventures when a group had been away
hunting, to welcome guests, to pass stories from tribe to tribe, as lullabies to send
babies to sleep and to pass the evenings in winter. The songs changed as they went
from singer to singer, a bit like Chinese Whispers.

Their only instrument was the drum, like the one Angivranna is holding, made
from wood and deerskin. Children liked to flip their fingernails against their teeth to
make music. Usually, the singer would drum with the instrument held above their

head, and sing while moving from foot to foot, swaying and circling around.
Everyone would join in loudly. When the singer yelled with joy everyone would
cheer.

I find it wonderful to listen to Diamond Jenness’s voice at the beginning of the
recording of’Song 21’. ‘He introduces it, saying: ‘4C57 Dance song by Angivranna,
Coppermine River man.’ The gramophone recorder whirs into action and the song
begins: ‘Ai yai ya ai ya qa-ai yei ya …’

Imagine it being sung across the ice of the Arctic nearly a hundred years ago as
Diamond Jenness hovered close by, hoping the recording would turn out well.

Jenness explained how, with each song, the Inuit helped to transcribe the words.
‘They jostled my arm as they crowded around, talked incessantly all at the same time,