American
Indian Love Lyrics
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
American Indian Love
Lyrics _and_ Other Verse
[Illustration]
_From the Songs of the_
North American Indians
Selected by
Nellie Barnes
_Foreword by_
Mary Austin
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
SET UP AND ELECTROTYPED, PUBLISHED DEC., 1925.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY
THE BERWICK & SMITH CO.
PREFACE
The influence of American Indian song-literature has touched both the
music and the literature of contemporary America. Those writers who use
Indian themes are legion. Mary Austin has gone farthest, perhaps, among
the writers of the day in relating her poetic work to the native rhythms
of America.
These native rhythms pulsed through the songs of our Red Men for
centuries before our Christian era. The very beautiful Aztec and the Inca
poetry belong to the earlier and more highly developed civilizations.
Since it is the purpose of this volume to treat of the more primitive
forms of rhythm, it has seemed best to limit the illustrations to songs
from tribes north of Mexico.
The late Mrs. Natalie Curtis Burlin’s collection of songs in _The
Indians’ Book_ makes that volume quite the most representative source
book for the study of Indian lyrics. The original texts of unusual range
in poetic patterns, the musical settings, the interlinear translations,
and the accompanying narratives add a rich context to free translations
of genuine literary merit.
Among other contributions to Indian song-literature, the studies of
Miss Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Mr. Carlos Troyer, and Doctor Washington
Matthews hold a particular charm for the investigator.
Mrs. Austin’s notable work, _The American Rhythm_, an analysis of the
primitive poetic impulse, with illustrations from her own translations,
came from the press after the writer’s study of Indian poetic rhythms had
been under way for some years. The conclusions for this volume have been
limited, therefore, to those about poetic forms.
The writer is greatly indebted to Mrs. Austin for her generous interest
in earlier work and especially for her helpful criticism of this study.
N. B.
Santa Fe, July 29, 1925
FOREWORD
The student of poetry in America enjoys an opportunity, such as has
never been practicable for the European student, to come in contact
with the source and mould of poetic form. For in Europe, the overlaying
of all native activity by the sedulously cultivated Greek and Roman
preferences, the deliberate turning of scholarly inquiry _from_ what was
self-sprung and indigenous _toward_ what had been perfected in another
environment and upon other roots, left the whole subject of the origin of
form dangling in the atmosphere of theory and surmise. To this day the
most that we know of the high forms of poesy in Europe is owed less to
authentic tradition than to the scholastic rehumation of native remains
in dance and ritual, of what was once, in the interest of the classic
ideal, discarded and buried, or at the least, permitted to survive only
among the unlettered folk.
Fortunately for our general understanding of poetic form, the Greeks
had no such snobbish scruples as arose later throughout Europe against
admitting the origin of their most majestic poetic medium in the communal
dance around the tribal altar. Here in the United States we are, by
a turn of fortune, undeserved and underappreciated, able to watch the
evolution of poetic form from stages somewhat earlier than those recorded
by Aristotle, going on as an indigenous type of human expression. We are
face to face here with the evolution of lyric form out of the stanzaic
act, ritualistically repeated; with the approach to the ode, along the
path struck out by primitive man in the identification of himself with
the sources of high states of being.
We confront these things as unselfconscious acts, rather than as
fragmentary and over-annotated poetic remains. We are able to refer them
directly to accompanying gestures, to generative social occasions, and
the environmental matrix. And we have to guess or to theorize, where
these things are obligatory, only in reference to minds whose movements
are influenced by factors lying open to intelligent apprehension.
To point this out, by way of introduction to the first thoughtful attempt
to put the material for a valid conclusion as to the origin of poetic
form, in order for the unspecialized reader, is not to subtract anything
from the difficulty of the task, nor to minimize the importance of the
result. So careless has American scholarship been of our rich resources
in this direction, that merely for Miss Barnes to have realized their
richness and to have collected illustrative examples of them from the
widely scattered and occasionally obscure sources, implies not only a
general background of wide literary knowledge, but a fund of literary
intelligence and much industry. It also implies a quality of restraint
not infrequently lacking from such undertakings, in not attempting to
bridge the gaps and supply the missing links by even the most plausible
theory. Such restraint in view of the usual American demand for a
complete tabloid statement, an assumption that does away with the
necessity for further inquiry, is so much the more unusual that some of
the credit for making this inquiry accessible surely devolves not only on
the University in which it could take place, but upon the publisher who
ventures to present it.
Merely by collecting from authentic sources, by discarding doubtful
examples and by intelligent grouping of the best translations of
Amerindian lyrics, according to their formative tendency, Miss Barnes has
done more than perhaps she herself realizes, to uncover the influences at
work on the primitive poetic impulse, to crystallize it into forms best
suited to the expression of a progressively higher poetic content. To one
who reads her simple statement of the relation of sacred numbers, fours
and sixes and sevens, to what Miss Barnes calls the “thought rhythm”
as determining the form of primitive verse, and reads it without other
knowledge of Indians than is included in these pages, it will scarcely
appear that the still profounder influence is the natural environment,
determining the force of climate, landscape line, and food succession
in the cultural life of the particular tribe. But to one familiar with
environmental distinctions between Zuñi and Iroquois and Omaha, there
will be distinctive pleasure in tracing relationships between verse forms
and the known formative features of the given landscape. To such a reader
there will also appear intimate relations between the repetitive pattern
of formal elements, the range and interdependence of dance movements,
and of decorative patterns of beadwork and textiles. It would, in fact,
be very little trouble to accompany each poem in this collection with
an appropriate design either of gesture or decorative elements, drawn
from the life of that tribe, in which the distribution of formative
elements would make a pattern recognizably that of the poem. As for
example, in the Paiute _Lament of a Man for His Son_, the gesture of the
first movement would be that inevitable to a man standing at the head
of his son’s corpse, and striving beyond his grief to descry his son’s
spirit walking the spirit road; the gesture of the second movement, the
reverent, slightly swaying tread of friends bearing the body on their
shoulders over uneven ground; and of the last movement, the final tearing
wrench of human affection. In the same manner, the _Iroquois Hymn_ on the
dissolution of the Great League, carries the gesture of up-flung arms,
and the bowing of heads that dust may be cast upon them; while in the
Navaho and Pueblo Rain Chants, there is the recurrent but always slightly
variable motif of the landscape as the determinant of the verbal pattern,
as you can see on any old Zuñi _tinaja_. It is the precision with which
Miss Barnes makes these things appear to the initiate, without at the
same time obscuring the more obvious conclusions for the average reader,
which distinguishes what she has to say above all other writings on the
subject. No one who reads her notes on Amerindian verse forms need feel
the limitation of personal knowledge a hindrance to his æsthetic and
intellectual enjoyment of the poems themselves.
I know of but one parallel to this achievement in the current
descriptions of aboriginal culture in the United States. That is in
George Bird Grinnell’s account of Cheyenne games, in which, without
saying as much, the relation of all games to man’s aboriginal puzzlement
about the world he lives in is convincingly brought out. Mr. Grinnell’s
account should be read in connection with Miss Barnes’ work for the
further light it throws on the origin of patterns, social, decorative,
or literary, in living human impulses. In so far as any study does this,
and especially as it does it in respect to areas of literary activity
all too scantily familiar, it constitutes an indispensable service to
American scholarship.
MARY AUSTIN.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PART ONE
Indian Love Lyrics and Other Verse selected from the songs
of the North American Indians.
I SONGS OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
MY BARK CANOE 21
HER SHADOW 22
LOVER’S WOOING, OR BLANKET SONG 23
PAPAGO LOVE SONGS 25
LOVE SONG (DAKOTA) 26
THE BRIDE’S SONG 27
LONELY 28
WAR SONG 29
II SONGS OF GRIEF
ONONDAGO HYMN 30
LAMENT OF A MAN FOR HIS SON 31
THE DEATH OF TALUTA 32
WIND SONG 33
BLUEBIRD SONG 34
SONG OF THE UNHAPPY WIFE 35
THE SONG OF UKIABI 36
A LOVER’S LAMENT (TEWA) 37
MY HOME OVER THERE (TEWA) 38
III SONGS OF NATURE (Secular)
HUNTING SONG 39
A SONG OF THE DEER CEREMONY 41
MOUNT KOONAK: A SONG OF ARSUT 42
THE COYOTE AND THE LOCUST 43
KA-NI-GA SONG 44
CORN-GRINDING SONG (LAGUNA) 45
SONG TO THE TREES AND STREAMS 46
SONG TO THE MOUNTAINS 47
RITUAL SONG 48
WIND SONG 49
A SONG OF SPRING 50
DARKNESS SONG (FROM THE INVITATION RITE) 51
THE INVITATION SONG 52
THE PLANTING SONG 56
IV SONGS OF RAIN
SONG OF THE RAIN CHANT 57
THE VOICE THAT BEAUTIFIES THE LAND 59
CORN-GRINDING SONG (TESUQUE) 60
SONG OF THE BLUE CORN DANCE 62
CORN-GRINDING SONG (ZUÑI) 63
CORN DANCE SONG (ZUÑI) 64
KORASTA KATZINA SONG 65
ANGA KATZINA SONG 66
HE-HEA KATZINA SONG 67
WUWUCHIM CHANT 68
A RAIN SONG OF THE SNAKE SOCIETY I 69
A RAIN SONG OF THE SNAKE SOCIETY II 70
CORN SONG 71
RAIN SONGS 73
A METATE SONG 75
FLUTE SONG 77
V SONGS OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS
THE SUNRISE CALL 78
HYMN TO THE SUN 79
SUNSET SONG 82
INVOCATION TO THE SUN-GOD 83
A SONG OF GOTAL, LIII 84
FIRST DAYLIGHT SONG 85
SONG OF THE DAWN BOY 86
THE MORNING STAR AND THE NEW BORN DAWN 87
DAYLIGHT 88
THE BIRTH OF DAWN 89
SONG TO THE PLEIADES 91
THE SONG OF THE STARS 92
THE STARS DEHN-DEK AND MAH-OH-RAH 93
VI SONGS OF DEITIES AND HOLY PLACES
SONG OF THE MASKED DANCERS 95
SONG OF THE MASKED DANCERS, III 96
EMERGENCE SONG 97
WARNING OF THE FLOOD 98
PROTECTION SONG 99
SONG OF NAYENEZGANI I 101
SONG OF NAYENEZGANI II 102
SONG OF THE HORSE 103
SONG OF THE HOGANS 104
WAR SONG (THE FLINT YOUTH) 107
ATSALEI YEDADIGLES (WIND BOY) 109
MOUNTAIN SONGS I-VI 110
MOUNTAIN SONG 114
MOUNTAIN SONG 116
VII SONGS OF INVOCATION FOR WELL BEING
INVOCATION OF THE GAME 117
MEDICINE SONG 119
PRAYER OF THE FIRST DANCERS 120
A PRAYER OF THE SECOND DAY OF THE NIGHT CHANT 125
PRAYER TO DSILYI NEYÁNI (LORD OF THE MOUNTAINS) 128
DEDICATION OF A NEW HOUSE 129
PRAYER OF THE FOSTER-PARENT CHANT 131
HOLY SONG 132
INVOKING THE VISIONS 133
RITUAL SONG 135
MEDICINE SONG 136
SONG OF THE PRIMAL ROCK 138
INTRODUCTION OF THE CHILD TO THE COSMOS 142
SONG OF TURNING THE CHILD 144
SUPPLICATION OF THE TSÍZHU WASHTÁGE 145
THE TRIBAL PRAYER (OMAHA) 146
WAWAN SONG 147
THE MORNING SONG 148
PART TWO
Poetic Forms in American Indian Lyrics 149
NOTES 173
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 183
INDEX 187
AMERICAN INDIAN LOVE LYRICS
PART ONE
INDIAN LOVE LYRICS AND OTHER VERSE SELECTED FROM THE SONGS OF THE NORTH
AMERICAN INDIANS
MY BARK CANOE (_Ojibwa_)
In the still night, the long night through,
I guide my bark canoe,
My love, to you.
While the stars shine, and falls the dew,
I seek my love in bark canoe—
I seek for you.
It is I, love, your lover true,
Who glides the stream in bark canoe.
It glides to you,
My love, to you.
HER SHADOW (_Ojibwa_)
Out on the lake my canoe is gliding,
Paddle dipping soft lest she should take alarm;
Ah, hey-ah hey-ah ho, hey-ah hey-ah ho, thus I go!
Somewhere along shore she is hiding,
She is shy to yield to love’s alluring charm;
Ah, hey-ah hey-ah ho, hey-ah hey-ah, love will win, I know.
There is a shadow swiftly stealing!
Should it be her own, soon I will win the race;
Ah hey-ah hey-ah ho, hey-ah hey-ah ho, I think it is!
Will she but turn, herself revealing,
I will shout aloud when-e’er I see her face.
Ah! hey-ah hey-ah ho, hey-ah hey-ah ho,
There she is!
LOVER’S WOOING or BLANKET SONG (_Zuñi_)
I
O what happiness!
How delightful,
When together we
’Neath one blanket walk.
We together
’Neath one blanket walk,
We together
’Neath one blanket walk,
We walk.
O! What happiness!
How delightful,
When together we
’Neath one blanket walk.
We together,
’Neath one blanket walk,
We together,
’Neath one blanket walk,
We walk.
II
Can it be that
My young maiden fair
Sits awaiting,
All alone tonight?
Is she waiting
For me only?
Is she waiting
For me only?
III
May I hope it is
My young maiden
Sitting all alone
And awaiting me;
Will she come then?
Will she walk with me?
’Neath one blanket
We together be,
We—we two, we two,
We two, we two—
Will she come?
PAPAGO LOVE SONG (_Papago_)
Early I rose
In the blue morning;
My love was up before me,
It came running to me from the doorways of the Dawn.
On Papago Mountain
The dying quarry
Looked at me with my love’s eyes.
LOVE SONG (_Dakota_)
Many are the youths, many youths:
Thou alone art he who pleaseth me.
Over all I love thee.
Long shall be the years of parting!
THE BRIDE’S SONG (_Algonquin_)
There are many men in the world,
But only one is dear to me.
He is good and brave and strong.
He swore to love none but me;
He has forgotten me.
It was an evil spirit that changed him,
But I will love none but him.
LONELY (_Ojibwa_)
Fear not, he sayeth,
Though far away,
Thy lover strayeth
At break of day.
“Go not, my sweetheart,”
Vainly I cry,
“To yon far island,”
Yearning I sigh.
Thither must I go,
Sadly I moan;
Heavy my woe,
Left here alone.
WAR SONG (_Dakota_)
Friend, whatever hardships threaten,
If thou call me,
I’ll befriend thee;
All enduring fearlessly,
I’ll befriend thee.
ONONDAGA HYMN (_Iroquois_)
Woe! Woe!
Hearken ye!
We are diminished!
Woe! Woe!
The cleared land has become a thicket.
Woe! Woe!
The cleared places are deserted.
Woe!
They are in their graves—
They who established it—
Woe!
The great League.
Yet they declared
It should endure—
The great League.
Woe!
Their work has grown old.
Woe!
Thus we are become miserable.
LAMENT OF A MAN FOR HIS SON (_Paiute_)
Son, my son!
I will go up to the mountain
And there I will light a fire
To the feet of my son’s spirit,
And there will I lament him;
Saying,
O my son,
What is my life to me, now you are departed!
Son, my son,
In the deep earth
We softly laid thee
In a Chief’s robe,
In a warrior’s gear.
Surely there,
In the spirit land
Thy deeds attend thee!
Surely,
The corn comes to the ear again!
But I, here,
I am the stalk that the seed-gatherers
Descrying empty, afar, left standing.
Son, my son!
What is my life to me, now you are departed?
DEATH OF TALUTA (_Siouan_)
Ah, spirit, thy flight is mysterious!
While the clouds are stirred by our wailing,
And our tears fall faster in sorrow—
While the cold sweat of night benumbs us,
Thou goest alone on thy journey—
In the midst of the shining star people!
Thou goest alone on thy journey—
Thy memory shall be our portion;
Until death we shall watch for the spirit.
WIND SONG (_Kiowa_)
O you warriors, you have loved ones
Longing for you, longing for you;
Rich are ye.
O you lovers, you have maidens
Longing for you; none have I.
Wherefore droop ye in silence, so downcast?
Cheer your hearts with song, ho!
BLUEBIRD SONG (_Pima_)
_Hai-ya, hai-ya,—hai-ya, hai-ya_—
All my song is lost and gone.
Sad at heart is the bluebird,
All my song is lost and gone,
Woe is me, alas! alas!
All my song is lost and gone!
SONG OF THE UNHAPPY WIFE (_Dakota_)
Sorely I am distressed;
Sorely I am distressed;
Sorely I am distressed.
The earth alone continues long;
I speak as one not expecting to live,
Sorely I am distressed;
The earth alone continues long.
THE SONG OF UKIABI (_Cegiha_)
I am walking to and fro!
I can find nothing which can heal my sorrow.
A LOVER’S LAMENT (_Tewa_)
My little breath, under the willows by the water-side we used to sit,
And there the yellow cottonwood bird came and sang.
That I remember and therefore I weep.
Under the growing corn we used to sit,
And there the little leaf bird came and sang.
That I remember and therefore I weep.
There on the meadow of yellow flowers we used to walk.
Oh, my little breath! Oh, my little heart!
There on the meadow of blue flowers we used to walk.
Alas! how long ago that we two walked in that pleasant way.
Then everything was happy, but, alas! how long ago.
There on the meadow of crimson flowers we used to walk.
Oh, my little breath, now I go there alone in sorrow.
MY HOME OVER THERE (_Tewa_)
My home over there, my home over there,
My home over there, now I remember it!
And when I see that mountain far away,
Why, then I weep. Alas! what can I do?
What can I do? Alas! What can I do?
My home over there, now I remember it!
HUNTING-SONG (_Navaho_)
Comes the deer to my singing,
Comes the deer to my song,
Comes the deer to my singing.
He, the blackbird, he am I,
Bird beloved of the wild deer.
Comes the deer to my singing.
From the Mountain Black,
From the summit,
Down the trail, coming, coming now,
Comes the deer to my singing.
Through the blossoms,
Through the flowers, coming, coming now
Comes the deer to my singing.
Through the flower dew-drops,
Coming, coming now,
Comes the deer to my singing.
Through the pollen, flower pollen,
Coming, coming now,
Comes the deer to my singing.
Starting with his left fore-foot,
Stamping, turns the frightened deer.
Comes the deer to my singing.
Quarry mine, blessed am I
In the luck of the chase.
Comes the deer to my singing.
Comes the deer to my singing,
Comes the deer to my song,
Comes the deer to my singing.
A SONG OF THE DEER CEREMONY (_San Carlos Apache_)
At the east,
Where the jet ridges of the earth lie....
At the south,
Where the white shell ridges of the earth lie,
Where all kinds of fruit are ripe,
We two will meet.
From there where the coral ridges of the earth lie,
We two will meet.
Where the ripe fruits are fragrant,
We two will meet.
MOUNT KOONAK: A SONG OF ARSUT (_Eskimaun_)
I look toward the south, to great Mount Koonak,
To great Mount Koonak, there to the south;
I watch the clouds that gather round him;
I contemplate their shining brightness;
They spread abroad upon great Koonak;
They climb up his seaward flanks;
See how they shift and change;
Watch them there to the south;
How one makes beautiful the other;
How they mount his southern slopes,
Hiding him from the stormy sea,
Each lending beauty to the other.
THE COYOTE AND THE LOCUST (_Zuñi_)
Locust, locust, playing a flute,
Locust, locust, playing a flute!
Away up on the pine-tree bough,
Closely clinging,
Playing a flute,
Playing a flute!
KA-NI-GA SONG
The poor little bee
That lives in the tree,
The poor little bee
That lives in the tree
Has only one arrow
In his quiver.
CORN-GRINDING SONG II (_Laguna_)
Butterflies, butterflies,
Now fly away to the blossoms,
Fly, blue-wing,
Fly, yellow-wing,
Now fly away to the blossoms,
Fly, red-wing,
Fly white-wing,
Now fly away to the blossoms,
Butterflies, away!
Butterflies, butterflies,
Now fly away to the blossoms,
Butterflies, away!
SONG TO THE TREES AND STREAMS (_Pawnee_)
I
Dark against the sky, yonder distant line
Lies before us. Trees we see, long the line of trees,
Bending, swaying in the breeze.
II
Bright with flashing light yonder distant line
Runs before us, swiftly runs, swift the river runs,
Winding, flowing over the land.
III
Hark! O hark! A sound, yonder distant sound
Comes to greet us, singing comes, soft the river’s song,
Rippling gently beneath the trees.
SONG TO THE MOUNTAINS (_Pawnee_)
I
Mountains loom upon the path we take;
Yonder peak now rises sharp and clear;
Behold! It stands with its head uplifted,
Thither we go, since our way lies there.
II
Mountains loom upon the path we take;
Yonder peak now rises sharp and clear;
Behold! We climb, drawing near its summit;
Steeper grows the way and slow our steps.
III
Mountains loom upon the path we take;
Yonder peak that rises sharp and clear,
Behold us now on its head uplifted;
Planting there our feet, we stand secure.
IV
Mountains loom upon the path we take;
Yonder peak that rose so sharp and clear,
Behold us now on its head uplifted;
Resting there at last we sing our song.
RITUAL SONG (_Pawnee_)
I
Over the prairie flits, in ever widening circles, the shadow of a bird
about me as I walk;
Upward turn my eyes, _Kawas_ looks upon me, she turns with flapping
wings, and far away she flies.
II
Round about a tree, in ever widening circles, an eagle flies, alertly
watching over his nest;
Loudly whistles he, a challenge sending far; over the country wide it
echoes, there defying foes.
WIND SONG (_Pima_)
Far on the desert ridges
Stands the cactus;
Lo, the blossoms swaying
To and fro, the blossoms swaying, swaying.
A SONG OF SPRING (_Chippewa_)
As my eyes search the prairie,
I feel the summer in the spring.
THE DARKNESS SONG FROM THE INVITATION RITE (_Iroquois_)
(The chief of the Invitation Rite requests all the night folk of the
forest to protect his people on their journey to the morning.)
We wait in the darkness!
Come, all ye who listen,
Help in our night journey:
Now no sun is shining;
Now no star is glowing;
Come show us the pathway:
The night is not friendly;
She closes her eyelids;
The moon has forgot us,
We wait in the darkness!
THE INVITATION SONG
Part I (_The Song of the Whip-poor-will announced by the flute._)
I
So says the whip-poor-will,
Follow me, follow me!
So says the chief to him,
Yes I will follow thee!
II
See the night darkening;
The shadows are hiding,
No light to follow for,
So says the waterfall,
So sings the river voice!
III
Someone is nearing me,
Soft he comes creeping here,
Two eyes glare close to me,
Lighting the forest path—
Hear how his breath blows by!
IV
Fol-low me, fol-low me,
So sings the whip-poor-will!
Yes, I am following,
So the chief answers him.