The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-07
FOLK SONG in HMERICA.
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were the common property of the early set
! tiers Then, in that curious blending of
ancient chivalry and galantry with the
events of the American revolution and the
''last war with England of old-world tales
with new-world experiences that were
woven into the dance and play songs of the
backwoods period there was not little that
was related to the rhymed tales and tradi-
tons Of peoples whose stories reach back
into the ages when the wandering singers
were the chief historians of current events.
1t is, however, in the children's games and
plays that the perfume of the past, the rare
aroma of ancient fancy and superstition
clings most securely. Professor Lowell said
of the persistency of musk:
''Once get a scent O. musk into a draw,
And it clings fast like precedents in law
And thus it is that the glory of the past
seems to float forever, a misty halo in the
atmosphere of childhood
Many of these things are mere fragments
floating in an apparently senseless jargon of
counting-in and contingent rhymes and
alliterant syllables; yet they lead us back
to the childhood of the race, to the banks
Of the Tigris and the Euphrates While the
influence of the past seems to be rapidly
fading out from the lives of both youth
and maturity in these great central States,
we still hear it echoing in the voices of
the children at their games-alike in town
and country.
The unbroken forests of new countries
with their streams and lakes, their album
dant savage life and UNEMPLOYED depths of
shade and morass, have always impressed
the pioneer with sense of vastness, and
vastness that is oppressive with doubt and
insecurity, and the very magnitude of which
seems to impend like mighty sorrow over
his way. Add to this the knowledge of his
own weakness and nothingness in the face
of the mysterious forces of nature that sur
round and may, at any time, overwhelm
him, and you have the raison d'etre of
that peculiar minor key to which most of
his songs were set Even his love songs and
the vocal notes to which he padded his
dugout or rowed his canoe, swung his
AK or danced or promenaded with the girl of
his choice, We're pathetic in their wailing
sadness, no matter how gay and light or
trifing the words. The songs might mean
good or i'll, something or nothing, but the
tunes had in them the pathos of lifes anxi-
cites, hopes and inevitable sorrows. They
were echoes of the autumn winds that
streweG the brown and scarlet leaves, of the
moaning tides and the anxieties of the hui
man heart.
The songs and dances of the aboriginal
red men, like those of savages everywhere
were cast upon this same mournful pat
tern, but were more monotonous in tone
and dependent upon action and gesticula-
ton for their effect. doubtless the first
white men who came into the section of
country between the Ohio and the great
lakes were the rollicking, wandering cour-
riers du bois. They had, probably navi-
gated many of the rivers and small streams
of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois before Lasalle
and his faithful lieutenant Tonty, entered
upon their long search for the outlet of the
Mississippi. A wilder, more picturesque
band of moral outlaws, who were at once
en- rapport with the savagery and savages
among whom they traded and with whom
they consorted and with the old French
soul of gallantry and devotion to la beau
sex, never existed. But even when they
piled their oars as they sped from Indian
town to town and from tribe to tribe, to
such songs, inspired by the life they led,
as the one bearing the lightsome burden of
''Je suis jeune ct belle,
Je veux m'engage
Tn amant fidele,''
the melody was sad
LAS winds that moan at night forlorn
Along the Isles of Ffon Gaul."
The American homes of the French folk
song and it's relations that deal with love
and adventure and parting are to be found
upon the lower st. Lawrence and it's tribu-
taries, in the maritime provinces of Can
ada, and in Fair Opelousas," in the land
of the Bayou Teche, in western Louisiana.
The French have preserved the spirit of
La Patrie the flavor of the atmosphere in
which their forefathers dwelt better than
any other nationality of American colo
nists. The Germans preserve their social
characteristics and sturdy economical hab-
it's better than they. but not their tradi-
lions and the local pathos, humor and gall
lantry of the various provinces whence
they sprang.
The spirit of the French Adventures was
one of rare devotion to duty as they com
pretended it. especially of duty to the
fatherland and the mother church, combined
with a lightsome, happy careless tempera-
ment, of mirth and joy, even when con-
sciously approaching the greatest trials and
disasters, that was ncomprehensible to the
Americanized Anglo-SaXon and filled the
average Englishman with disgust. They
carried it into the wilderness. The Jesuits
and other orders of priests were sustained
by it as they wandered from tribe to tribe
of cannibal savages, endeavoring to con-
vert them from heathenism and to amelio-
rate their condition by letting the light of
Christianity into their souls, and they natur.
ally subordinated as many of the old popu-
lar airs of Picardy and Normandy to the
uses and services of the church as possible,
while the explorers. soldiers and voyageurs
adapted them to the needs and exigencies
of their own conditions and callngs. They
found abiding places at Detroit and "Chica-
couk," the place of garlick, chives and
leeks,' since developed into Chicago; at old
Kaskaskia and Cahokia in Illinois, and at
Nincennes uiantenon and kekionga (now
Fort Wayne) in Indiana. Vincennes, in the
days of the French possession and even I'M
der English control and during the earlier
territorial government has been pictured as
a place of almost Arcadan simplicity and
happiness. The people worked barely enough
to insure them comfort and plenty of coarse
clothing and plain food, lived in log shan
ties or stockade houses covered with bark
slabs, attended to the rites and cere-
monies of religion danced and sang and
enjoyed the fortunate days, and made the
best of the unfortunate ones when want and
sorrow entered their homes, and were as
happy as a primitive, uneducated people
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