Frances Densmore - Song Catcher

Frances Densmore was born on May 21, 1867 in Redwing, Minnesota. Her father, Benjamin, was a surveyor and civil engineer. She loved music from an early age. Native American Indian music was something Densmore was familiar with “when Sioux Indians sang and drummed nearby well into the night.” As a child she and her mother, Sarah Greenland, would listen to the songs and her mother encouraged her to appreciate the music. 

She attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1884 to 1886 and taught piano in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1887-89. Frances attended Harvard University for two years where she studied counterpoint. In 1893, inspired by the newly published A Study of Omaha Music, by Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Densmore began a ten-year preparatory period of study during which Fletcher was a teacher, mentor, and friend.  She ended her formal piano performances in favor of a new career in preserving the music and culture of Native America.

Frances first began recording music when a tune hummed by Geronimo caught her attention at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. She recorded that tune and then went on to record the music of the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota,. In 1895, Densmore began lecturing about Native American music. Like many scholars of the time, Frances' lectures were primarily based on her reading of existing sources rather than a first-hand experience with the music. In 1905, Frances made her first visit to a Minnesota tribe, in an Ojibwe village in the far north. She published her observations in the American Anthropologist (April-June 1907)  Frances began to record Indian music in 1907, and she successfully petitioned the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology for financial assistance. This  began a relationship with North American Indians and the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology that lasted until 1957. She was paid a yearly stipend and the Smithsonian gave her the title of collaborator. Her first Indian songs were recorded in 1907 in the back of a music store in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, near the White Earth Indian Reservation where I later was honored for my teaching and weaving of dream catchers at the Rediscovery Center in 1996 nearly a century later. At first Densmore used a wax cylinder Edison Home Phonograph, and later a graphophone and a dictaphone.

Densmore described the Ojibwe music in two volumes published between 1910 to 1913. The Teton Sioux Music collection was published in 1918. It is among the best ethnographies of the Sioux. She also wrote The Indians and Their Music in 1926. This work brought her attention from a wide range of readers.

Frances Densmore wanted listeners to understand that all music needs to be heard and understood in its cultural context. She also wanted to point out that Native American music does not differ much in melody, tempo, and pitch from the Western music that is well known in the United States. Today, Frances Densmore is well known as a pioneer of the study of Native American music.

Every summer between 1920 and 1930 Densmore traveled throughout the country to remote Indian reservations and villages. She recorded on wax cylinders nearly 2,500 songs of the Sioux, Yuma, Cocopa, Yaqui, Pawnee, Northern Ute, Papago of Arizona, Indians of Washington and British Columbia, Winnebago and Menominee of Wisconsin, Pueblo Indians of the southwest and even the Tule of Panama and various other tribes whose cultures were already threatened with disappearance. Her last field trip, collecting songs of the Seminole, was carried out at the age of 87. In all, she recorded the songs of some thirty Indian tribes. The entire collection was eventually transferred from wax cylinders to long-playing discs and is preserved in the Smithsonian-Densmore Collection of Indian Sound Recordings. Densmore also collected hundreds of musical instruments, which are housed in the Smithsonian museums.

Densmore's numerous monographs on Indian music were issued in a series of publications of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology. The most important of these are Chippewa Music, Chippewa Music--II, and Teton Sioux Music. Her other publications include The American Indians and Their Music and Cheyenne and Arapaho Music. Over her entire career, Densmore made roughly 3,500 recordings, transcribed 2,500 songs, took hundreds of photographs, collected innumerable artifacts, wrote 15 major monographs, and published 170 articles.

Rebecca West, Curatorial Assistant, Whitney Gallery of Western Art and the Plains Indian Museum writes in the Summer 2000 edition of Points West:

Frances Densmore's research consisted of three main phases: Recording the songs and collecting related artifacts and information from Indian subjects; transcribing the songs into musical notes; and, analyzing and publishing findings. Densmore realized the importance of collecting musical instruments, associated artifacts, and even plants and herbs as a method of interpreting songs in their cultural context, especially in the case of ceremonial or healing songs. She concluded that musical instruments used by North American Indian tribes vary greatly, as does their music. One exception-the gourd rattle-was widely used. Densmore collected hide drums from the Sioux, plank or box drums from Northwest Makah, flutes from the Winnebago of the Great Lakes regions, and various types of whistles and rattles. Although instruments were collected as meaningful artifacts, Densmore did not overemphasize the role of instruments in comparison to music made by the Indian voice, "Instrumental music is used only as an accompaniment to singing among the Indians, except that the young men sometimes play a flute in the evenings and a whistle may be blown in ceremonies or in the treatment of the sick." In Densmore's estimation, the human voice was the most significant "instrument."

While Densmore's research among Indian tribes was scientifically based, she managed to grasp the elusive concept of spirituality while studying healing songs, dream or personal songs, and warrior's songs. Her refusal to record the most sacred of songs illustrated her understanding and respect for Indian beliefs. Densmore was able to separate common misinterpretations of Indian songs, as a form of entertainment, from their spiritual and ceremonial nature:

. . . the terms 'superstition' and 'witchcraft' as well as words of highest spiritual import, were attached to Indian customs. These terms became permanent and, to a large extent, have influenced the White Man's opinion of the Indian. Similarly the terms 'music' and 'singing' were applied to Indian performances. These did not please the White man, and there is still a reluctance to regard music as an important phase of Indian culture worthy of our consideration.

In her article "The Belief of the Indian in a Connection Between Song and the Supernatural," Densmore articulately interpreted the Indian concepts of spirits and dreams in relation to songs. While songs in many cultures are written to or for a deity, Indian songs are received from spirits through dreams, or visions. When a song is transferred in this manner, it becomes the recipient's possession, or "personal song." A moving example is a personal song recorded by Densmore while she was working with the Pawnee. As a boy, a warrior named Eagle was frightened of thunder. The thunder spoke to him in a dream and told him not to be afraid. The warrior remembered the thunder's song, which became his own:

Beloved it is good,
He, the thunder, is saying quietly,
It is good.

As a grown man, Eagle would sing this song whenever he went to war as a source of courage and inspiration.

Densmore discovered the existence of a hierarchy of songs in the tribes she studied. Songs associated with men's roles, such as warrior's songs, or healing songs, were considered more significant than, for example, a lullaby or a woman's lamenting song. Densmore did not trivialize the cultural significance of any song, and recognized each song as being part of a cultural tradition. However, she also appreciated a more romantic quality she called "the poetry of song." The following Chippewa lullaby, Densmore noted, would have been sung in a low, soothing voice, using the syllables "way, way, way" in a mesmerizing rhythm.

Little baby, sleep,
Mother swings your hammock low;
Little birds are asleep in their nest.

Way, way, way, way, way,
Way, way, way, way, way, way, way.
Little baby with nothing to fear.

Lullabies and love songs did not have the spiritual impact or gravity of healing, warrior society, or other ceremonial songs, but were valued for their soothing qualities and as a form of expression. Such songs are also significant in outlining men's and women's responsibilities in Indian cultures.

To analyze all of Densmore's data is a daunting task. For each song that was recorded and transcribed, Densmore produced a detailed chart of rhythm, tone, pitch, tempo and melody. She was able to formulate common characteristics for Indian music as a whole: songs usually begin with high notes and end in a low note; rhythm is more prominent than melody; and, music is based on vocal capabilities rather than on notes produced from a musical instrument. While songs were a valued part of cultural traditions, passed from one generation to the next, they were in danger of being lost: " . . . songs are rapidly passing away and are now a matter of tradition, which adds to the importance of preserving the old songs that have been handed down to the present generation, with the story of their origin." Frances Densmore's research has ensured, for future generations of Indian tribes, that traditional songs continue to be links to the past as well as celebrations of a vital present.

Fortunately for us, Densmore lacked formal training as an anthropologist. She began her research as a Victorian-era amateur who composed Western harmonies to accompany the Indian songs she collected. By modern standards her attitude toward her Indian informants was at times prudish and patronizing. But over the years, Densmore matured as a researcher: her observations became increasingly focused and her views became less influenced by Western preconceptions.

Her lack of training in anthropology haunted her throughout her career; she never received the acclaim or respect that she craved from the professional community. Nevertheless, Frances Densmore assembled a cultural resource that is remarkable in both scope and volume. No other individual has contributed as much to the preservation and understanding of the music of Native Americans.

http://people.mnhs.org/authors/biog_detail.cfm?PersonID=Dens195
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/densmore_frances.html
http://www.music-cog.ohio-state.edu/Densmore/Densmore.html
http://www.bbhc.org/pointsWest/PWArticle.cfm?ArticleID=76