Atsina

This tribe conducted five ceremonies that were of distinct religious character. A very influential portion of them were intended to amuse as well, and they differed greatly by theme, but were very similar in their initiation and delegation. These ceremonies were executed by a member of one of the companies. “While all men whose age lay between certain limits had the right to perform the ceremony appropriate to that age, they were organized, not in one company, but in several, each one of which gave the ceremony without the assistance of any of the others; and a company had the right to perform the same ceremony more than once.”

A man would feel a vow to perform a ceremony in return for the recovery of a loved one from illness, or the preservation of his life in the midst of peril. This man would select an elder man who would have charge of the ceremony. Then, each man of the company would select an elder man, to be known as his “Grandfather.” The Grandfathers would paint the dancers and the dancers’ wives, and every night they would leave camp to observe certain rites by which the old men rendered their medicine to the dancers.

The Fly Dance

In the dance of the Fly Society which lasted one day, the performers were made up of four tiers. There were leaders, the pledger, four “elder brothers,” who were members of companies that already gave the Fly Dance, and finally, the rank and file of members. They were identified by different garments and body paint.

The Grandfathers were to chew an herb which would make the dancers brave and strong as it was rubbed all over them. Around noon, the members of the society assembled in their lodge and filed out, making circular movements around the encampment. They would start to dance, holding their robes outstretched, in a wing fashion, and made humming noises as if they were mosquitoes. At the close of the dance, the dancers all fell to their knees in a circle, and bowed their head to the ground. When the dance ended, the Flies were free to spend the next two hours pursuing all bystanders by poking them with their long sticks with a cactus prick at the end. After this, they gathered in the center of camp and ran four races, then shifted to a time of feasting on meat, which one of their company’s members had prepared.

The Crazy Dance

If a man vowed to conduct the Crazy Dance, he took a pipe to an old man who was familiar with its performance. If the old man accepted the pipe, he became the “Maker of the Crazy Dance.” The members of the company chose Grandfathers to them as they did with the Fly Dance. In this dance, every member of the company was expected to participate.

They were dressed in robes with holes cut near the top where their head came through, like a poncho. There were two loose strips of the robe that hung down from their shoulders which ended in feathers and claws of an owl. They were painted yellow to the knees and elbows. They carried bows and arrows to which crow feathers were attached, and whistles made of eagle wing-bones. On their head, one side was covered with clay, the ears stuffed full with a spongy fungus, and an owl head was worn off the right temple. They carried four-foot staffs, and hung from them were hoofs and claws of various animals.

The ceremony lasted four days and four nights. The dancing continued until darkness, when the dancers’ wives followed the Grandfathers beyond the camp circle to receive medicine from them. As they returned to the lodge, they were kissed by all the dancers, and the wives’ husband would then kiss the Grandfather.

In the mornings, everyone gathered in the lodge. The dancers’ wives took their places behind the Grandfathers and the dancers marched around the lodge, then stopped until the singers commenced. The dancing went on all day, and each time the singing began, the principal Grandfather arose, and then all others joined. On the fourth day there was a fire kindled in the center of the lodge. Grandfather would say “it is time for the Crazy men to dance in the fire.” This meant the dancers must dance on the glowing embers of the blazing fire. They all leaped on the coals until every ember was extinguished. Following that, all the dancers ran outside to discharge their arrows straight up into the sky above them. Each one stood their motionless, in bravery, among the falling shafts.

The Crazy men were free to play pranks and do mischievous actions until nightfall. They would go around shooting people with blunt arrows, saying the opposite of what they meant, and doing the opposite of what they were told. For others, the only refuge one could seek was behind one of the Grandfathers. The ceremony ended on the fourth day as darkness fell upon the tribe.

The Dance of the Fox Society

Following this dance was always the removal of the camp to a new location. As like other dances, it was initiated by the man who had promised its performance. He would seek the help of an old man, and each man of the company would select a Grandfather. This dance, much like the Crazy Dance, lasted four days and four nights, with the dancing taking place during the daytime. Four members of each company carried around a seven foot staff, bent like a shepherd’s crook. These men were of known bravery and were supposed to never leave the grounds in which they planted their standards.

A chosen virgin was chosen to represent the Fox Mother, who’s supposed children were the dancers. The members of the dance entered the lodge and seated themselves in two rows, one on each side of the lodge. A staff-bearer sat at each end of the row, and the Fox Mother was seated behind the dancers who formed the end of the southern row. The man who initiated the dance slept between the two rows near the door. The dancers danced in a circle and moved to the left while the Fox Mother danced in the opposite direction around the perimeter of the circle.

On the last night, relatives of the members of the company brought gifts to the Grandfathers. Early the next morning, the encampment would move to new grounds. Before reaching the new campsite, they halted about halfway when the dancers gained some distance on the gifts which had been received. The warriors charged upon the heap of gifts, selecting from it an article similar to something he had captured in battle.

The Dance of Dog Society

The principal features of this dance resembled the ceremonies of the other societies. In this ceremony, there were two leaders, one wearing a red shirt, and the other yellow, both lined with crow feathers. The other members wore a red cloth over one shoulder and under the other, with the end trailing on the ground. Their robes, and them, were fixed by a staff which was thrust into the ground. The warrior was not permitted to move until someone, a non-member, drove him away, speaking to the member as if he were a dog.

Each Dog Dancer carried eagle-bone whistles and small wands made of deer hoofs, and they all wore eagle feather headdresses. The dance lasted for four days and took place in a large lodge.

The Dance of Drum Society

This ceremony was performed by the bravest men, which were the most experienced warriors in the tribe. This ceremony also lasted four days and four nights. There were four leaders who had crooked staffs wrapped with sacred white buffalo skin. All were painted red and white with dots representing hail and with zigzag lines for lightning. They wore only a loin cloth. “They possessed a drum which, if the dance had been performed a short time before, they might in battle throw towards the enemy. The members then ran to it and stood there fighting, until either the enemy gave way or they themselves were killed.”

These rare maps, photographs, and documents will take you on a visual tour through Aspen in the late 1880s. Give your house a sense of place with a beautiful map or hand-drawn survey.

• One important, original drawing from 1891 is “Town Site of Aspen,” from the estate of John H. Marks, which shows all the original buildings in Aspen.
• This collection is the result of decades of careful selection by gallery owner and born-and-raised Aspenite, Mia Valley.
• Colorado had been a state for only three years when Aspen was established as a mining camp, one of the most remote in Colorado, in June 1879.
• The Gallery acquired these historical documents from the estate of John H. Marks, who was a U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor in Aspen during the mining boom.
• One remarkable map is a unique drawing dated 1891 measuring a staggering fifteen feet long! This detailed survey documents every building of the town site of Aspen all the way down to Woody Creek. It also traces the railroad’s path through the valley and the brisk, enduring Roaring Fork river.
• History and art lovers would both love, “A Matched Set of Maps of the Mining Claims North and South of Aspen.” These vintage maps show the entire town as well as the backside of Aspen Mountain, which many locals know as Little Annie Basin. Maps such as these would have been displayed in a mining office.
• Valley Fine Art has for sale the colorful, hand-drawn survey “Ranches of the Roaring Fork Valley,” which features the coordinates of town, the surrounding rivers, and likely showing ownership of various placers (claims) downvalley.
• The maps show the routes of the railroads. Railroads were an intraoral part of the mining industry, and a key element when looking to add a vintage map to a collection.

These are 8 great reasons to come to Valley Fine Art to observe these spectacular maps. Now is your chance to seize the rare opportunity to own a piece of Aspen’s wild west history.

NOTES FROM “THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN”

BY EDAWRD S. CURTIS

VOLUME VI – NOTES ON INDIAN MUSIC

“In the course of transcribing Indian melodies from phonographic cylinders for Volumes VI, VII, and VIII, one of the first things to impress me was the impossibility of representing these melodies accurately by means of our normal musical notation. The principal reason for this difficulty is that while our notation provides for the representation of certain definite degrees of pitch (and those only), the Indian habitually sings degrees of pitch for which we have no symbols. For instance, we can represent e (330 vibrations per second) and f (352 vibrations per second), but when an Indian sings a tone lying somewhere between these two (say 335 vibrations per second), our notation is powerless to represent this tone with accuracy.

In such cases I have written the note which most nearly approximated the tone sung by the Indian. A notation could easily have been invented which would have permitted the more accurate expression of Indian melody, but this would have been of questionable value. If the Indian deliberately uses a different scheme of tones and intervals from that of the civilized races, as had been suggested, one would naturally expect this difference to stand out clearly, or at least noticeably, in the course of several repetitions of the same song. But in the examination of more than sixty songs much variation appears in the repetitions of each one. As a general rule the repetitions fail to agree in length, rhythm, or accuracy of intonation; frequently they agree only in general contour. It can truthfully be said that in the case of the phonographic records examined by me for these three volumes no song is repeated twice exactly alike. Any single tone is likely to vary up or down at least a quarter of a tone, and in some cases the variation is as much as a full tone. It is more than likely that the Indian is somewhat blindly groping for the diatonic intervals which form the basis of civilized music, and that his deviations there from are not caused by a conscious disregard of them so much as by his inability to intone them accurately. In many instances, however, he is quite successful in his use of the usual diatonic intervals, and while he vary rarely uses the complete diatonic scale, he frequently uses five or even six of the tones comprising it.

But there is a great difference in his manner of using these tones from that of civilized man. In the melody of civilized man the tones are all related to a central tone called the tonic or key-tone, and however widely they may wander from this key-note, a definite relationship to it is always preserved, the melody usually ending on the key-note itself. This relationship among the tones of the melody produces a definite musical atmosphere called a tonality or key. Among the Indians this sense of tonality is largely lacking. In the majority of songs no key is established which lasts throughout the song. Here and there a few measures definitely indicate a particular key, but the sense of this key is usually lost before the song ends. In many of the songs no key whatever, as we understand it, is established, such songs being more or less rhythmic yells upon certain tones, and sounding much as if they were intended for incantations rather than songs. An occasional song is found, however, in which the sense of tonality is quite perfect.

Although rhythm is of great importance to the Indian, it is my belief that he has not consciously developed any very complicated rhythmic schemes. All the rhythmic schemes which have come under my observation seem to be very simple and the complexities which have arisen seem to me to be purely accidental. When a song is accompanied by a drum-beat, it usually happens that the drummer keeps time in the most rigid and inflexible manner throughout the song. The singer, on the contrary, will introduce ritards, accelerandos, pauses of different lengths, and numerous variations of time. There consequently arise many complicated rhythmic relationships between the drum-beat and the melody. But inasmuch as both singer and drummer start with evident agreement as regards time and accent, it is quite probable that the subsequent complications are accidental rather than intentional.

The Indian’s manner of singing has much to do with the particular character of his music. Embellishments such as grace-notes, trills, and shakes abound. Pure sustained tones are somewhat rare. Most long tones are broken up by a kind of fluttering or pulsing of the voice. In most instances this has been carefully indicated in the transcriptions. The Indian is also addicted to the exaggerated use of portamento, or the slurring of one tone into another. Instead of singing one definite tone after another, he is very apt to glide from one tone to the next, producing the impression that he is feeling his way among the intervals. This has been indicated in the most marked cases by the sign \ and in other cases, where it is not so apparent by the slur. Extended slurs have also been used to indicate phrasing, as is the custom in civilized music.

The Indian singer also takes many liberties with the time. Although rhythmic values are fairly well preserved, he introduces retards and accelerandos, and sometimes a long ritenuto, causing the end of the song to be sung at a much slower rate than the beginning. On the other hand songs that accompany dancing or other regular rhythmic movements are sung in strict time.

It is impossible, especially while listening to those Indian melodies of which the tonality is more or less perfect, to escape the conviction that the primitive music has been considerably influenced by the Indian’s contact with the white man. In Nature melody is represented by the songs of the birds, the sighing of the wind in the forest, the babbling of mountain brooks, and there is no doubt that the Indian in his first attempts at melody was largely influenced by such sounds. But with the coming of white men a new musical element was brought to him; the element of tonality. Tonality is present in even the simplest folk-song sung by the rudest pioneer, and it is but natural that the Indian should imitate the songs of the pioneers just as he had imitated the sounds of Nature. It is well known with what patience and perseverance the early Jesuit missionaries taught the Indians to sing church hymns, and when one listens to such (Indian) songs, it seems certain that the Indian music of the present day shows this influence.

By no means the least interesting feature of an Indian song is the yell which precedes so many of them. This yell is usually a very complicated affair, and besides mere shouting is apt to consist of trills, shakes, slurs, and frequently short but quite well-defined musical phrases. When a musical phrase is hinted at in a yell, the same phrase is usually to be found in much more developed form in the subsequent song. This is to be expected, as the yell is simply a wild prelude to the song, a tuning up of the voice, the singer getting himself into the mood, as it were. Of course, the yells practically defy accurate expression in musical notation. At first hearing they sound decidedly more akin to noise than music. The voice glides with such rapidity and in such a slurring and sliding manner through so many changes of pitch that often only the approximate contour of melodic outline of the yell can be indicated. I nevertheless consider these yells to be more interesting, and certainly more significant from an ethnological point of view, than many of the melodies themselves.

Songs are frequently followed by yells, but these are not musically important, as they consist for the greatest part of one or two shouts with a with a falling inflection of the voice, and have no relation to the foregoing song. Sometimes, however, the yell at the end consists of a long and beautifully sustained tones at the top of the voice.

Transcribing Indian melodies in ordinary musical notation is somewhat like forcing a square peg into a round hole; it can be accomplished by dint of sufficient exertion, but the original form may have suffered. The vital part of these melodies can be expressed on our notation, but many a delicate nuance of wild and wayward beauty will have disappeared. However, though the letter may be bruised in the process, enough of the spirit survives to make the transcription valuable, but not only to the reader of today, but especially to the student of the future, who will find in such records as these his only opportunity to study this phase of primitive culture. It is in the songs of a people that we rightly look for the greatest spontaneity of self-expression.”

HENRY F. GILBERT

See attached image of “Love Songs”. See more music in this volume: http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/viewPage.cgi?showp=1&size=2&id=nai.06.book.00000246&volume=6#nav