INDIAN IVIUSIC — DENSMORE 539 



rience, the rhythms are simplified. Thus I recorded a song from an 

 old man and later allowed a young man to record the same song. In 

 the latter rendition it had become a simple little melody, without the 

 native rhythmic peculiarities. On one reservation a young man from 

 an Indian school told me with pride that he was adapting the old 

 songs and playing them on the cornet. Indian music with the 

 present generation is in a transitional form, and my effort has been 

 to preserve the old songs in their original form. 



Women singers are much less in number than men. Women might 

 treat the sick with songs or exercise other power received in dreams, 

 but the number of such women was comparatively small. In some 

 tribes a few women sang around the drum at dances, sitting behind 

 the circle of men and singing an octave higher. The relative number 

 of men and women singers is too large a subject for present considera- 

 tion, but mention may be made of two classes of Indian songs that are 

 popular. These classes are lullabies and love songs. I once asked an 

 Indian singer about lullabies and he replied, "The women make a 

 noise to put the children to sleep, but it is not singing." Subsequently 

 I obtained two records of a lullaby, from two women. One was little 

 more than crooning and the other was a simple melody, suggesting 

 that the song had gradually taken form from the rather vague "noise 

 to put the children to sleep." As the status of the lullaby is so low 

 in the minds of Indian musicians I leave its recording until near the 

 end of work in a tribe and then obtain one or two records from trusted 

 Indian women. The other subject to be handled discreetly is the 

 love song. This is not a native custom and is usually connected with 

 evil magic or intoxication. Love songs, in the old days, were sung to 

 aid intrigue of various sorts, accompanied in some tribes by the use 

 of figurines or other "charms." A Papago said, "If a man gets to 

 singing love songs we send for a medicine man to make him stop." 

 In all tribes it is said that the love song, in our use of the term, came 

 with the advent of the whites. In one tribe I was warned that if I 

 recorded love songs, the fine old men would have nothing to do with 

 my work. I have, however, recorded both the old songs of love 

 magic and the modern love songs, as they are part of the music of the 

 American Indian. The words of the modern songs generally show a 

 lack of respect for women and boast of fascinations and conquests. I 

 have learned not to ask for their translation in all instances. A promi- 

 nent Pawnee said, "Songs arising from deep affection and respect were 

 occasionally sung by Indians in the old times, and might be concern- 

 ing persons who had been married for many years." ^ The cause of 

 the change from these songs of respectful affection to the modern love 



»Densmore, Frances, Pawnee Music. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 93, p. 93, J 929. 



