Transcriber's Notes
This e-book contains passages in Native Americandialects; hyphenation and accents have been preserved as they appearin the original. Obvious printer errors in English passages have beencorrected, in particular the inconsistent use of "rythm" for"rhythm."
Midi, PDF, and MusicXML files have been provided for the songs inthis e-book. To hear a song, click on the [Listen] link. To view asong in sheet-music form, click on the [PDF] link. To view MusicXMLcode for a song, click on the [MusicXML] link. All lyrics are setforth in text below the music images. Obvious errors in the notationhave been corrected.
Full-page music illustrations have been slightly moved so as notto interrupt the flow of the text. Some page numbers are missing asa result. Page numbers in the List of Songs have been retained asthey appear in the original, but the links point to the actual locationsof the songs in this e-book.
INDIAN
STORY AND SONG
FROM NORTH AMERICA
By
ALICE C. FLETCHER
Holder of the Thaw Fellowship
Peabody Museum Harvard University
Boston
Small Maynard & Company
Publishers
Copyright, 1900,
By Alice C. Fletcher
Entered at Stationers' Hall
To
MY INDIAN FRIENDS
FROM WHOM I HAVE GATHERED
Story and Song
PREFACE.
At the Congress of Musicians held in connection with theTrans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha in July, 1898, several essaysupon the songs of the North American Indians were read, inillustration of which a number of Omaha Indians, for the first time,sang their native melodies to an audience largely composed of trainedmusicians.
This unique presentation not only demonstrated the scientific valueof these aboriginal songs in the study of the development of music,but suggested their availability as themes, novel and characteristic,for the American composer. It was felt that this availability would begreater if the story, or the ceremony which gave rise to the song,could be known, so that, in developing the theme, all the movementsmight be consonant with the circumstances that had inspired themotive. In response to the expressed desire of many musicians, I havehere given a number of songs in their matrix of story.
Material like that brought together in these pages has hithertoappeared only in scientific publications, where it has attracted thelively interest of specialists both in Europe and America. It is nowoffered inviii a more popular form, that the general public may sharewith the student the light shed by these untutored melodies upon thehistory of music; for these songs take us back to a stage ofdevelopment antecedent to that in which culture music appeared amongthe ancients, and reveal to us something of the foundations upon whichrests the art