Weekly Cbcmawa American
VOL VIII. FEBRUARY 2, 1906 NO. 41.
preseruiQ5 Ipdiar? TiJsic:
IT is pursuance of the general idea of
saving instead of crushing what is
genuinely characteristics in the Indian
ami building upon this that I have taken
steps for the preservation, through the
school, of what is besc in Indian music.
This is a subject which has never been
sufficiently studied in the United States.
Eminent musicians in all parts of the
world express astonishment that our
ncople should have left so noble a field
almost unexplored, particularly in view
of the beautiful themes derivable from
certain native songs and dances which
are rapidly passing in to oblivion
through the deaths of the old members
of the tribes and the mistaken zeal of
certain teachers to smother everything
distinctively aboriginal in the young.
As a matter of fact, the last thing that
oujiht to be done with the youth of any
people whom we are trying to indoctri
nate with notions of self-respect is to
teach them to be ashamed of their
ancestry. As we Caucasians take not
only pleasure but pride in reviving the
musical forms in which our fathers
clothed their emotions in religion, war,
love, industry, conviviality, why should
the Indian be discouraged from doing
the same thing? Our German-born fellow-citizen
makes no less patriotic an
American because heelings affectionately
to the songs of his father-land; why
should the Indian, who was here with
his music before the white conqueror set
foot upon the soil?
The Indian school offers us just now
our best opportunity to retrieve past
errors, as far as they can be retrieved,
on account of the variety of tribal ele
ments assembled there. The children
should be instructed in music of their,
own race, side by side with ours. To this
purpose an experimental start has been
made, under intelligent expert direction,
by the creation of the position of sup
ervisor of native music, to which Mr'.
Harold A.Loring of Maine has been ap
pointed. Although he has been at work
011I37 a few months, signs are already
visible that the idea is spreading favor
ably among the teachers; and its popu
larity outside the service is attested by
the enthusiastic reception given by
mixed audiences to the performance of
genuine Indian music by a well-drilled
school band, as a change from the con
ventional airs it has been in the habit of
playing. From Repot t of the Co mis
sioner of Indian Affairs.