Till'! ETUDE OCTOBER 1920 Page GGD fe^ ^ ^ y K ^/i v y&u -/A V >1 V The Musical Soul of the American Indian By the Noted Composer of Indian Works and Collector of Indian Themes THURLO W LIEURANCE (The Cuts Used in this Heading are Portraits of the Famous Indian Singer, Princess Watahwasso) [EDITOR'S NOTE.—Thurlow Lieurance was born at Oskaloosa, Ia., March 21, 1880. His father was a physi-cian. His early training was as a cornetist in the town band. He then studied under the finest instrumentalist, Hermann Bernstedt. At the age of 18 he enlisted in the United States Army, became a bandmaster in the 22d Kansas Regiment and served through the Spanish-American war. He saved $400 and went to the Cincin-nati Conservatory where he studied composition under Frank Van der Stücken, voice under W. L. Sterling and piano under Ollie Dickenshied, score reading under Bellstedt and Van der Stücken. When all his money was spent he took a position as chorus man in Savage's Castle Square Opera Company at a salary of $10 a week. During the 2 years he studied 50 different operas, ranging from "Pinafore" to "Tannhäuser" and from his meager salary purchased a complete score of every work he had sung. Standing in the wings he reviewed the opera at every performance. Then he became a teacher in a small Kansas village. He next organised the American Band which played on the Chautauqua circuits for several seasons. In 1895 the United States Government employed Lieurance to make Indian records at the Crow Reservation where his brother was a physician. He made many records which are now kept under seal at the National Museum at Washington. He has made in-numerable records which are preserved in many great universities here and abroad. He has visited and made records from a score of different tribes making pro-longed stays at different places. Upon one occasion a wagon upon which he was riding, in the Yellowstone, in midwinter, broke down throwing one companion down a ravine half a mile deep and injuring Lieurance so that, together with the consequent freezing in a tempera-ture of over 20 degrees below zero, his legs became crippled for life. This is one of the great sacrifices that Lieurance has made to preserve Indian music. Mr. Lieurance's beauti-ful songs have had an international success and stand as a foremost achievement in American Indian music.] To know the heart and soul of the American Red Man has been the dream of my life. This wonderful race which, in its branches, had manifested a remarkable phase of civilization long before Columbus ever dreamed of coming to America, has a fascination for the intelli-gent white man who realizes that in all civilization there is a scale of character from the lowest to the highest. It has been my fortune to live for long periods among the different tribes of Indians in various parts of the country. Members of my family have married into Indian families; and few musicians have ever had the intimate opportunities that we have had to investigate the music of the American Red Man. I have taken innumerable notation and phonograph records of the melodies played by my Indian friends and have had ever increasing opportunities to see the rich mine of beauty which these melodies contain. I have said that there are scales of civilization among the American Indian, precisely as among any other races. There are good Indians, bad Indians, intelligent Indians, ignorant Indians, skilled Indians, unskilled Indians just as one might expect the same trace from the Italian, Russian, English or Chinese. Some Indian tribes are very much more musical than others as some are much more artistic than others. Some are unques-tionably very savage when aroused, while others are, in some ways, as peaceable as any of the other races of the world. Of course, there have been many efforts made to show the connection between the Asiatic races and the American Indian. It is, to my mind, a mistake to group the Indian as either Mongolian or Malay. They have been in America such an indisputably long time that they are in every sense of the word "Americans." If they are not Americans how can we call ourselves Americans? The arts and crafts of the Incas of South America, the Aztecs of Mexico and Yucatan reaching back one or two thousand years, point to a civilization which is still a source of astonishment to the ethnologists and archaeologists. Early Experiences My father was a physician, a pioneer doctor. He went out on the plains of Kansas at the time when the buffalo was being driven still farther west. I was born March 21, 1880, but I still remember the wagon-trains moving along the Arkansas river laden with buffalo meat and hides. They passed our little sod house in long persistent lines. As a child I helped tan and care for the hides in order to prepare them for the wagon trains. THURLO W LIEURANC E W e lived near the Pawnee Rock where Kit Carson fought many a battle with the Indians. As a boy my playmates and I spent many hours on this famous rock "playing Indian" and even as a child I was attracted to Indian music and songs. I was able to begin to collect Indian themes and to color them with harmony. My brother after his graduation from a medical college took up practice among the Indians and married into the race. I used to visit him at different times and once went on the Crow Reservations. I met a German scientist who pointed out to me that right here in this country there was so much very new and original thematic material for the composer. It was he who made me think that some day our native Indian themes would form a part of the warp and woof of American music, as old Hun-garian melodies have been woven into the texture of musical Hungary. I have melodies and records of ma-terial to furnish hundreds of composers themes. And it is my ambition to put this out in such a way that the musician who will make the sacrifices at this time to come here and harken to the real call of the wild will have material to give to posterity. There is a term with the Indian—anything that is "good medicine" is all right. The Indian seems to credit me with the power to give "good medicine." I gained their confidence and this once gained opened the flood gates of their melodies. Strange to say American singers were a little slow to realize the beauties of this material. When such an artist as Julia Culp came to America, she saw at once the value of the genuine Indian material when artistically arranged and placed a group of three of my songs on her program. The very fact that Indian music is of such spontan-eous, natural origin, that it is not a contraption or an artificial invention, makes it the hardest folk music. It comes right from the heart of nature and this gives it a classical feature which likewise makes it enduring in character and style. The Indian sings all his songs entirely in unison, he has no harmony except occa-sionally accidental harmony. In 1913 the following singers: Standing Buffalo, Beaver, War Bonnet, Hand a Deer, Buckskin Star, Mountain Arrow and Black Bird, sang for me the fol-lowing songs, in one single evening at the Pueblo near Taos, N. M.: "Sundown Song," "Buffalo Dance Song," "Deer Dance Song," "Hand Game Song," "Turtle Dance Song," "Visitors Returning to the Estufa," "Willow Dance Song," and "Pueblo" Spring played on a flute. These same singers sang songs they had heard from the following tribes: Ute, "Squaw Dance Song"; Arapahoe, "Owl Dance Song"; Sioux, "War Song"; Navahoe, "Washing Song," and three personal Love Songs. Interesting Legends This shows the variety of just one group of songs in one tribe. It also shows their liking for the songs of other tribes. From the above it has been possible for me to harmonize only five as I have not had time on account of the vast amount of material I have from other tribes. It is very easy to see how readily such themes could be swept away by the course of civiliza-tion, in comparatively few years. They all would have been gone were it not for the splendid efforts of such people as Carlos Troyer, Alice Fletcher, Alice Densmore, Natalie Curtis, La Hesche, and other fellow-investiga-tors and collectors who have saved many of them. The Indians have legends about many of their songs. Here is an interesting one told by Buckskin Star: " A party of Arapahoe hunters were camped in the Castillia canyon in northern New Mexico in the early days when the Indian tribes were at war with one another. Nearby were camped a band of Utes. The Arapahoes were aware of the war-like intentions of the Utes and during the night built up a wall of rocks around them for protection, working and singing at the same time. During the night a party of Utes crept up and learned their war song. The next day the fight took place, the Arapahoes being wiped out. In after years the Utes visited tthe (sic) Pueblo Indians near Taos and taught them their songs. Afterward the Arapahoes made a visit to the Pueblos and they heard their songs and were very indignant and wanted to know how they came to know them. Finally they discovered the reason and made friends with them, and to-day when tribes visit each other it is the custom for each to teach the other their songs." I have often noticed this among tribes. For special ceremonies there are special songs and special singers, there are certain songs which other singers are not per-mitted to sing. There is no singing by all members of the tribe like our congregational of community singing. The Indians who have made records for me have been selected by the leaders and these leaders have been very particular in selecting their singing groups. I have come to this conclusion—Indians either sing or they do not sing. They seem to have singing cliques. Those who do not belong to the clique do not participate. O f course, individuals have their own songs and very often
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