Frances Densmore

Theresa Frances Densmore ( born May 21, 1867 in Red Wing, Minnesota, † June 5, 1957 ibid ) was an American ethnomusicologist and anthropologist who has done their work makes an important contribution to the preservation of the culture of North American Indians.

Life

Already in her childhood awoke Dens More's interest in Indian music. In an autobiographical manuscript she wrote: " The house of my childhood was close to the banks of the Mississippi. Opposite the town, on an island, there was a camp of Sioux Indians, and at night when they were dancing, we could hear the sound of the drum and saw the flicker of their campfire. [ ... ] At dusk, I listened to these sounds after I had been put to bed. [ ... ] So I fell asleep with my head full of fantasies about the, interesting people ' beyond the Mississippi. " Musically educated parents as a child, she learned early on piano and harmony. From 1884 to 1886 she studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. After she was for a time as a music teacher and Kirchenorganistin in St. Paul and Red Wing work they began in 1888 at Harvard University in Boston piano with Karl Baermann and to study counterpoint with John Knowles Paine.

During their stay in Boston she learned from the fieldwork of Alice Cunningham Fletcher ( 1838-1923 ), which carried out this since 1880 at the Omaha Indians to explore the music and customs of this tribe. Fletcher's 1893 published book " A Study of Omaha Indian Music" was a strong inspiration for Dens Mores own field research. 1893 Densmore began under the direction of Fletcher a ten-year preparatory stage for her later research. During this time she was on music lessons and gave lectures on musicological topics, from 1895 also to Indian music.

In 1905 she undertook a first research trip to the Chippewa Reserve Grand Portage. There transcribing songs by ear. In 1904 she was the famous Apache chief Geronimo encountered on a sales exhibition in Louisiana and had transcribed the songs he sang by ear. In 1907 she recorded for the first time on Indian songs with the help of a borrowed phonograph. After she presented the results of this first field studies the head of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE ) at the Smithsonian Institution, they received financial support from the BAE, which enabled her to buy a phonograph. Thus began a collaboration between the BEA and Densmore, 50 years, until her death should take.

Densmore remained unmarried and devoted her entire life to the study of Indian cultures of North America.

Work

In the following years and decades, they undertook - since 1912, always accompanied by her sister Margaret - nearly 80 research trips to Indian reservations of various tribes. With the help of interpreters they drew on countless stories about the traditional tribal life of the various Indian tribes and with her phonograph she took a total of about 2500 songs of the Indians. Among the tribes she visited were the Chippewa, Sioux, Northern Ute, Mandan, Hidatsa, Tule, Papago, Pawnee, Menominee, Yuma, Yaqui, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Nootka, Quileute, Choctaw, Seminole and Zuni. She continued her fieldwork activity continued until shortly before her death at the age of 90 years.

The results of their work has been the subject of numerous publications, more than 30 of them in book form, some of these books were published as so-called " Bulletin " of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Densmore was assumed that " belongs to the preservation of the songs of the Indians more than raise the phonograph ." For this reason, they collected all information that was needed to understand the music of the Indians in their cultural context. They also photographed not only their Indian informants, but also numerous ceremonial and everyday objects. For this reason, their studies contain numerous ethnographic details about the daily life, culturally significant objects, customs and religious ceremonies as well as the used musical instruments, the biographies of the singers, and the use of music. Very important to her were the lyrics of the songs. Considerable space took their studies on the correlation between music and medicine among the Indians, and generally also the healing arts of Native Americans, including their medicinal herbalism.

Densmore always felt great respect for the culture that were the subject of their investigations. So she managed to win the confidence of the Indians, which she encountered often knowledge that was considered sacred and secret, award- giving. So said the aged Lakota chief Śiya'ka by the Standing Rock Reservation, after he had told her his dream visions and sung the corresponding songs, deeply touched that he had Densmore thus passed its best kept possession. In a lecture on the sun dance in the Sioux, which she held in April 1913 before the Anthropological Society of Washington, Frances Densmore reported on the initial reluctance of other old Lakota, Ituŋ'kasaŋ - lu'ta ( Red Weasel ): "He came very reluctantly. He had traveled 43 miles with a wagon, and when he arrived, he took the tobacco, I offered him to. He said that it was not his wish to come and that he ever wanted to tell me anything. He said that he had knowledge of the sun dance very sacred and that he intended that it should die with him. ". But she also won the confidence of this man and received from him extremely valuable information about the Sun Dance.

In the 1940s, Frances Densmore began to organize the recorded audio material from her new. 1948 started to play the recordings on records, and 1951-1953 published the Library of Congress, Washington DC, seven records with songs of different Indian tribes in a decision made by Densmore selection itself. Your sound recordings are now preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Some of her books enjoyed several reprints, particularly their work on the music and customs of the Chippewa and their work "Teton Sioux Music", the results of their three-year collaboration (1911-1913) with Lakota of Standing Rock Dakota Rersvats and the Sisseton Biosphere Reserve contains. "Teton Sioux Music", first published in 1918, is regarded as " one of the most important ethnographic works that have ever been published about the Sioux " ( Raymond DeMallie, editor of volume 13 of the Handbook of North American Indians ).

In addition to their cultural and historical importance to give their plants alive today Indians the opportunity to continue or revive almost lost traditions and customs. The Lakota musician Earl Bullhead said in a radio interview that the records of Densmore " are like a seed, and that seed is now on in many people my age and older people. "

Writings

  • Frances Densmore: The songs of the old Lakota: Life and Culture of the Teton Sioux. Rosewood Verlag, Chemnitz 2012, ISBN 978-3-938305-20-1. - Original Issue: Teton Sioux Music. Washington 1918 ( online at Internet Archive ).
344954
de