ojibwe music #3

With all that in mind, here is the first part of the article in Gilfillan's scrap book:

It is no longer to be doubted that there is real beauty in Indian music - in that of the Ojibway tribe, at least; and on of the most capable of our American composers, Frederick R. Burton of Yonkers, N.Y., is engaged in his summer home in Desbarats, Ont., studying the musical system of the Ojibways, reeducing it to notes and, to please the civilized ear, making harmonized arrangements of it which bid fair to become classic. The word "system" in the foregoing is used advisedly, for, notwithstanding that the Ojibway musical scheme does not recognize harmony, the Ojibways have unconsciously attained an artistic end. The singing of the Zuñis, the Omakas, and other tribes of Western Indians leads very nearly to the conclusion that, while rudimentary melodic ideas of a pleasing nature might be found in aboriginal music, no such thing as a well-defined, coherent Indian tune exists. Indian music, like Indian poetry, consists in the indefinite repetition of a single brief idea. Art music, on the other hand, is distinguished by repetition or imitation of a single melodic idea with various other melodic phrases as links to bind the essential fragments into a complete whole. This feature of art music is palpably manifest in the structure of Ojibway songs. They attain unity by the repetition of a definite melodic phrase, or motif, and they attain variety by the alternation of other phrases or by the familiar device of imitation of the main phrase on another interval of the scale.

Desbarats, since prehistoric times, has been the summer playground of the Ojibways, and it is there that the scene of Longfellow's "Hiawatha" is laid. It is there, too, that the Ojibways give from July 10 to September 1, their annual performance of their own play of "Hiawatha". Mr. Burton's successful dramatic cantata "Hiawatha" has been selected for combination with the Indian "Hiawatha" for the later delectation of audiences in the great cities, and the composer and conductor has been adopted into the tribe and given the appropriate name of "Neganne-Kah-boh" - "the man in front." Himself an Indian by adoption, it is peculiarly fit that it should fall to his lot to uncover to the civilized world the remarkable inherent beauties of the music of his tribe.

ojibwe music #2

This is a bit complicated and I hope I get it right! In the second volume of Gilfillan's scrap book, there is an article that he clipped from a 1902 edition of the New York paper, The Evening Post. The title of the article is 'The Music of the Ojibway Indians: Aboriginal Tunes on the Scene of Longfellow's "Hiawatha"' and it discusses a composer called Frederick R. Burton ('of Yonkers, N.Y.'), who had had been studying Ojibwe music and had made arrangements of some of the songs he had heard.

In the opening years of the twentieth century, at the instigation of one Louis Olivier Armstrong, a company of Native American performers had begun to enact scenes from "Hiawatha" with dialogue in Ojibwe. The performances took place at Desbarats, Ontario, and subsequently also at Little Traverse Bay, Michigan. Armstrong worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and the performances seem to have been, at least in part, intended to draw tourists. Burton became involved with these productions when a tour of urban centres was planned for 1903 and he agreed to arrange the music. So, I guess the article in The Evening Post must have been part of the publicity for the tour.

I'll post something about the article in The Evening Post later. What's pretty cool is that our man, Michael McNally, who wrote the book about Ojibwe hymn-singing, did an article on these Native language performances of "Hiawatha" in a 2006 edition of the journal, American Quarterly. I can probably get hold of that through the university library but, at any rate, the abstract is freely available and this is it:

Each summer from 1901 to 1918, and intermittently thereafter through 1965, Odawa and Ojibwe actors in Northern Ontario and Michigan took part in operatic Native language performances of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha financed by area railroads and captured on silent film. While audiences and reviewers understood the pageants to validate the reality of Longfellow's representations of vanished noble savages and while Native actors peformed this script for pay in lean times, a closer look at their offstage lives, their onstage improvisations, and especially their humor reveals that these were also Indians playing Indian for Indian reasons. In an era of assimilation policies that outlawed drumming, dancing, and ceremony in public, and on stages designed to render them absent as twentieth century Native people, the actors insinuated their presence in heavily ramified, if subtle, ways. Crucially, performances enabled them to embody and thereby maintain a musical and dance repertoire associated with peoplehood and power, that could be rekindled with greater sovereignty by subsequent generations.

Interesting, no? And worth bearing in mind while reading the account of Ojibwe music developed in the 1902 newspaper.

the songs

With a bit of luck, you should be able to view the songs by clicking on these links:

Song of the Medicine Lodge
Dance Song
Love Song
Peace Meeting of Ojibways and Dakotas
Gambling Song

ojibwe music #1

Right - in 1904, Gilfillan published a novel called The Ojibway: A Novel of Indian Life of the Period of the Early Advance of Civilization in the Great Northwest. I first looked at it last week and thought it was a bit boring. But then I looked at it again today and it suddenly seemed much more interesting, which shows how much is in the eye of the beholder!

The interest lies in the fact that it constitutes a huge act of ventriloquism by which the missionary gives readers a sense that they are hearing the voices of Native Americans when, of course, all the voices of the book are mediated through the author himself. And the text presents us not only with *speaking* voices but with *singing* voices too in that, scattered throughout the narrative, are five songs:

Song of the Medicine Lodge (p.40)
Dance Song (p.57)
Love Song (p.168)
Peace Meeting of Ojibways and Dakotas (p.361)
Gambling Song (p.451)

They are all described as 'transcribed and harmonized by Edwin S. Tracey'. I'm a little curious about who Tracey was and whether he worked on Native American music regularly or just did this as a favour for Gilfillan. Will try to post copies of the songs now!

minnesota maps

The MHS is currently presenting an exhibit called 'Minnesota on the Map' and you can look at maps from their collection online if you click here.

eagles

Yet more on Gilfillan. He seems absolutely obsessed with the idea of Itasca as the heart of the continent and, indeed, the nation. Witness these comments on eagles:

On the shores of Lake Breck and almost overhanging its waters, two American eagles have built their nest in a tall, yellow pine, and as we came bursting through the dense undergrowth they came sailing a long way to meet us, as if inquiring what this unusual intrusion upon their solitary haunts meant, and when we got to Lake Itasca itself there was another American eagle flying and circling over its waters, as if the national bird were keeping watch over the cradle of the national life. Strange to say, the only American eagles we saw in a journey of several hundred miles in the wilderness, we saw at that spot.

which side are you on?!

signs right before the Crow Wing State Park boat landing....(click for larger image -- sorry it isn't so clear: my iPhone isn't the greatest camera...)