American Mercury/Volume 7/The Songs of the Indians

by Frances Densmore

THE SONGS OF THE INDIANS

BY FRANCES DENSMORE

ΟNE reason why people do not like Indian music is that they do not understand the words. Another reason is that they do not know why Indians sing. The net result is that few would stay to the end of a concert of Indian music, sung by Indians, unless it consisted entirely of love songs. We have a natural sympathy with love songs in any language and it is easy for us to imagine that the Indian, brave and strong, is a magnificent lover. But the words of these songs, as they are presented by American composers, are purely "white man." Courting songs, in fact, were con- Natron Cutoff Job, Near Eugene, Oregon.-The Dutch Kid's Camp is No. 4. Garbage rotten at $1.50 per. This is a gyppo layout. All the slaves have humps on their backs from hurry. I got canned for selling wob papers.

Folk-Lore sidered bad form, to say the least, among the old Indians. This, however, does not trouble the public because it doesn't know it. The audience smiles and says, "Love is always the same, in every race. Isn't it sweet?" Marriages among the Indians in the old days, as a matter of fact, were arranged by the parents of the young people, and an old Indian lady once told me that brides usually cried a good deal. She added that of course the parents knew what was best and that the young people got used to each other after a while. She said she thought that marriages on that basis were happier than when the young people managed for themselves. Of course the young men

played the flute in the evening. They wan- dered around the edge of the village, too- tling pretty tunes, but no mother who regarded the proprieties would let her daughter go out of the lodge in response. The young man could come inside to do his courting and grandmother would sit up until he went away, putting a fresh piece of wood on the fire if she thought it advisable to let him linger. Sometimes a young man put words to the tunes he played on the flute, but even that was not general. I The singing of love songs, in many tribes, is connected with inebriation. When a man reaches the stage at which he feels terribly sorry for himself he sings them. I have heard prisoners in a guard-house singing melodies of delightful, haunting sadness,—just the type of song that is con- sidered true Indian music, voicing the last farewell of a dying race and that sort of thing. Once, collecting Indian songs, said to my interpreter, "Why do you never get me such lovely songs as I hear in the twilight, passing the guard-house?" He replied, "If you took those songs, the old chiefs would have nothing more to do with your work." The one exception to this rule, in my personal experience of more than seventeen years on the reserva- tions, recording songs for the Bureau of American Ethnology, is found among the Makah who live at the end of Cape Flat- tery and have a culture similar to that of the Northwest Coast. They sing songs of admiration for each other at all social gatherings. At a beach party, an old lady sang of her "sweetheart," and pointed to her husband, a sedate old gentleman with weak eyes. Their weddings in former times were elaborate ceremonies, lasting several days. One event was a wrestling match between the prospective groom and a hypo- thetical rival. The hold was by the hair. Negro music has an advantage over In- dian music in that the emotions of the Negro bear some resemblance to our own. The spirituals bring a thrill that we can- not get from the songs of the Indians. It is easier to respond to an exaggeration of one's own concepts of personal salvation than to realize that a man is feeling relig- ious when he sings about a Thunderbird. Personal salvation, vicarious or otherwise, had no place in the religious thought of the old-time Indian, and it is a question whether he believed that his conduct in this life had any effect on his happiness after death. Indeed, the term Great Spirit has been attributed to the Indian without his knowledge or consent. The Indian religion was practical, and concerned health, long life and the food supply. The Indians, like the old Jews, combined the priesthood and the medical profession, and did it so successfully that their good health has become proverbial. We say that it was due to their outdoor life, so we take a supply of tinned food into the wilderness and try to "live like Indians." But the Indians believed that temperance in all things, self-control, and many doses of carefully-selected herbs were essential to a long life. We pride ourselves on conquering nature, but the Indian re- garded nature as his friend. He lived in harmony with it in a manner that would do credit to a Christian Scientist. Once I heard a Sioux sing "The sun is my friend," and in honor of that friend he wore an ornament with radiating feathers, like the rays of the sun. Happy the man who had the Thunderbird for his friend! The bear was an excellent ally of the doctors. Who has such good claws as the bear for digging roots? When a doctor went to treat a patient he would inspire confidence by mentioning his friend the bear, and by saying that he would now sing the songs taught him by the bear for such a case as that before him. The sick man would begin to feel better as soon as the doctor began to sing. Songs came with dreams, and if those songs could give health, wealth and success on the warpath it seems a bit cavilling to insist that they should also be pretty tunes, like "My Wild Irish Rose." Long ago a man wrote in a book that a certain tribe had no music,

as he had been among them six months. and never heard them singing around the camp. I found an abundance of music in that region. The writer, however, was correct in his idea that the Indians have no "popular" music. They do not mention bananas in their songs. They do not play with music. It is a gift from the spirits, to be used with due respect and a definite purpose, which usually concerns the wel- fare of the tribe or an individual. The Indians never sang for exhibition, although there were standards of excel- lence for the singers who sat around the drum and provided music for the dancing. Originally, it is believed, all the dances were connected with ceremonies, but that time is very long passed, and the dances. incident to many a ceremony have now eclipsed the ceremony itself. In the old days a really great singer could produce great effects by his singing. The question was not the quality of his voice, but whether he could bring rain by his sing- ing, make the crops grow, or cure the sick. The acid test of a song was: will it work? A man might have received the song in a dream or bought it from some other medi- cine man, but he must have within him- self the power to make it do what it was intended to do. Otherwise he became ridic- ulous in the eyes of his little world and sang no more. Many Indian songs are the unwritten classics of the tribes, and the Indians con- sider it a pleasure and privilege to hear them. Such are the song rituals of the ceremonial tribes and the long series of songs found, for instance, among the Yuma, Cocopa and Papago on the Mexican bor- der. The words of these songs are filled with native poetry. The manner of rendi- tion is not dramatic nor "interpretative," neither is the tune lyric in character, as we like our music to be, but it gives the Indian a pleasure similar to that which we derive from "intellectual" music. awake to such monotonous music. His little victrola, with records from the mail order catalogue, gives a much better vari- ety. He does not understand the Indian words. Perhaps he has read Zane Grey and would not like them if he did. The Indian sings of the desert in songs like this: All night the Indians will dance, and the white settler within sound of the gourd rattles will wonder how they can keep I have created you here, I have created you here, The red evening I bring you. If you have ever seen the red evening in Arizona you will feel the dignity and won- der of it coming back. The following lines have the calm of the desert: Downy white feathers are moving beneath the sunset, And along the edge of the world. And in this song one catches the transform- ing light that makes the rugged landscape a wonder of beauty: A white mountain is far at the earth-end, It stands beautiful, It has brilliant white arches of light Bending down toward the earth. To those who ask, "Have you ever at- tended the Snake Dance?" I always reply, "Have you ever seen an Indian cremation?" Only two other white people were there. The logs were piled high and on top was the coffin. The man's clothes were on it, and people threw silk dresses and other garments into the fire that the departing spirit might take them to their friends who had died. The dry cottonwood blazed furi- ously, billows of smoke rolled upward, and bits of silk were floating in the flames. The crackling was horrible. I moved far- ther away. The shrilling of the women mourners was distressing to hear, and the sobs of men exhausted from weeping. Two or three hours before I had seen the body that was now burning. It lay on a cot under a desert shelter, its face covered by a bright handkerchief and a pack of cards on its chest. The family were wailing and kissing the limp hands. The wailing rose above the ceremonial songs as an old man shook the sacred deer-hoof rattle above the body. If only the fire did not crackle so horribly!

probably first noticed that certain patients, apparently recovered from the immediate effects of their operations, developed pneumonia. No records of such late post- operative complications were in the writ- ings of the elder surgeons, but their suc- cessors, having introduced a new element into their operations, naturally reasoned that the pulmonary complications must be due to it. They were thus ascribed to the irritant action of the anesthetic, and, not without reason, as all those who have been given ether will testify. This situation remained unchanged for many years and there gradually crept into the medical nomenclature the term inhalation pneu- monia, a term still used, but no longer accepted as the sole explanation of the large number of pneumonias following operation. That explanation was first questioned by certain German surgeons, who in 1900 re- ported similar complications following the use of the then new local anesthetic, cocaine. Using cocaine in the tissues di- rectly operated upon, far removed from the lungs and trachea, they observed that in a certain proportion of patients there developed nevertheless the familiar lung pathology, four to ten days after operation. This, plainly, could not have been pro- duced by irritating effects within the lung; so a new explanation had to be sought. Meanwhile, it had been observed that an occasional patient, several days after he seemed out of all danger, expired suddenly, without apparent cause. Examination showed that the cause of death was a large plug which had arisen at some place in the circulatory system, become free, and then suddenly lodged in one of the arteries sup- plying the lung, thereby completely shut- ting off that organ from its blood supply. A search of the lungs revealed numerous smaller plugs or emboli lodged in smaller arteries; while not sufficient in themselves to cause death, they gave changes resem- bling pneumonia. These small emboli had undoubtedly, in many instances, been the source of the changes which, by examina- tion of the chest, had been interpreted as pneumonia. Here, then, there developed a new conception of the cause of this dis- tressing complication. The incidence of post-operative pulmo- nary complication varies as reported by different writers, but in general we expect it in 2.5% of all patients operated on under general or local anesthetics. Fatal com- plications are seen less frequently, usually in 0.5%, a proportion which, while small, is nevertheless alarming. This in- cludes all types of disease of the lung fol- lowing operation. Some are undoubtedly due to local irritant effects in the lung, or to chilling after operation, but a large proportion are plainly due to the lodging of small plugs or emboli in the arteries. What is the origin of these emboli? Most students of the condition believe that they arise from the field of operation, and may be caused by infection of the tissues, by injury to the tissues, or by the motion of the part of the body operated upon. Cutler, who has made extensive studies of their mechanism, calls attention to the importance of all these factors. Surgeons have learned, following the dic- tates of the late Professor Halsted, that by taking great pains with their technique they may be able to reduce the incidence of embolic lesions. Other factors that may cause them are pre-existing lung disease and the weakened general condition of the aged. These we are able to control by tak- ing pains to make careful examinations of all persons before they submit to operation, and by eliminating the unfit. Within the last few years surgeons have become familiar with other affections aris- ing in the lung after operation, one a con- dition in which the entire lung on one side is collapsed, airless and so useless; the other, one in which an abscess develops in one lung. The first is known as massive collapse of the lung, and was noticed fre- quently during the late war, following wounds of the chest. There is a voluminous literature on it, notably in the papers of Rose, Bradford, Scott and Jackson, but

thus far no adequate explanation of it has been given. In this condition the patient is suddenly confronted with the difficulty of continuing life with one half of his respiratory mechanism lost. Fortunately, nearly all patients so affected recover after a few days, and suffer no permanent injury. But what lies behind this sudden disfunc- tion of one lung? The problem has been taken to the physiological laboratory, but so far there is no explanation, nor have we been able to reproduce the condition in animals. In these days of the widespread removal of tonsils, surgeons are frequently con- fronted with the development of abscesses in the lungs some days later. Such an abscess is most distressing to a patient. It may become chronic, lasting for months, and its drainage is extremely difficult. Why should a simple operation, done in the flash of an eye, result in such injury? Some authorities have offered the explanation that pus is sucked down into the lung, and, recently, Schleuter and Weidlein have been able to reproduce such abscesses in animals. by putting small particles of tonsils into the blood stream. The particles become lodged in the lung arteries and there pro- duce abscesses like those seen in man after the removal of tonsils. This experimental finding may alter the current method of removing tonsils, and so we may hope to have fewer lung abscesses than are now seen. Surgery has made tremendous strides in reducing the mortality following opera- tions, but there yet remains the menace of lung complications. One person in every thirty to fifty operated upon develops such a complication, and one in every 150 to 175 dies. It is only recently that we have gained a reasonable explanation for most of them. As we learn the mechanism of their production, we are better able to provide remedies. Investigation on animals has already illuminated their physiology and pathology and soon or late measures to combat them will undoubtedly be perfected.