LibGuides: Indigenous Music Resources: Frances Densmore Smithsonian Collection

Frances Densmore

Frances Densmore was an ethnomusicologist born in 1867 who worked until she passed away at 90 in 1957. She travelled across North America, often accompanied by her sister, collecting and transcribing music of various tribes from the Pacific Northwest to the Florida Everglades (Archabal, 1977). She was incredibly prolific, creating over 2,500 vinyl recordings, 200 articles, and 20 books over the course of her career (Archabal, 1977; Levins, 2020). Her writings and recordings were intended to preserve various indigenous music and culture during a time when white settlers were moving onto indigenous lands, and government policy aimed to erase indigenous culture and encourage the adoption of Western customs (Minnesota Historical Society Library, 2020).

Densmore was born in Red Wing, Minnesota to one of the first settler families, across the Mississippi River from a Dakota Sioux camp. As a child she would fall asleep listening to the sound of their drums. Densmore studied piano, organ, and harmony at Oberlin Conservatory, and continued her studies in Boston with Harvard Professor John Knowles Paine (Levins, 2020). She began her studies while continuing to work as a performing musician, by lecturing on Indian music and taking elocution lessons to further understand the pronunciation and inflection of indigenous languages (Archabal, 1977). In 1905, Densmore made her first trip to visit “Indians in their own cultural setting” and began receiving support from the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology to continue her field studies in 1907 (Archabal, 1977, paras. 16).

Densmore used traditional Western notation for her transcriptions and at one point experimented with using graphic representations, which she intended to be used as an analysis of melody concurrently with Western notation. This use of graphs is “one of the earliest experiments with an alternative approach to transcription in the history of ethnomusicology” (Archabal, 1977, paras. 37). While Densmore acknowledged the limitations of the Western notational style to represent fractional tones and rhythm, she “did not consider the possibility that the fractional tones might themselves be the essential characteristic” (Archabal, 1977, paras. 34).

Densmore was inspired to study North American Indian music and customs by Alice Cunningham Fletcher’s work on Omaha music and Fletcher’s collaborator John Comfort Fillmore, who suggested that indigenous people possessed “an unconscious sense of harmony” (Archabal, 1977, paras. 8). Densmore’s earlier ‘transcriptions’ were more like arrangements, embellished “with realizations of what she heard as implicit harmonies” (Archabal, 1977, paras. 33). Over time, she began to question the notion of an indigenous “unconscious sense of harmony,” noting that the Sioux singers’ favourable reaction to her harmonisations seemed to be them trying to please her, rather than liking her harmonies. She first began transcribing songs as unaccompanied melodies in her book Chippewa Music, showing that she “no longer thought of Indian music in terms of harmony” and was becoming “increasingly doubtful of the existence of a universal tonal system,” deviating from earlier theories on indigenous music (Archabal, 1977, paras. 47, 49).

Towards the end of her career, Densmore was quoted as saying about her experience with native tribes: “I never let them criticize the government nor the white race, nor come across with any sob-stuff about the way they had been treated as a race” (Levins, 2020, paras. 25). This statement displays an attitude that was typical for her demographic at the time, though by today’s standards has racist connotations. It may be that after decades of work preserving Indigenous music, Densmore was disappointed that her work would not be portrayed as heroic, as indigenous groups did not eventually assimilate into Western culture as she had expected. “While her early writings are by today’s standards sentimental and patronizing, they nevertheless display a genuine and sympathetic interest in Indians and their culture” (Archabal, 1977, paras. 15).

Many of Frances Densmore’s books are available through our library. You can also search the Smithsonian Repository using the words Frances Densmore to view digitized copies of her works: https://repository.si.edu/discover.

References

Archabal, Nina Marchetti. Frances Densmore: Pioneer in the study of American indian music. American Public Media. (Original work published 1977).http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/densmore/docs/archabal.shtml

Levins, Sandy. (2020, May 27). Frances Densmore – Song catcher of native American music, 1867-1957. Wednesday’s Women. https://wednesdayswomen.com/frances-densmore-song-catcher-of-native-american-music-1867-1957

Minnesota Historical Society Library. (2020, May 5). Frances Densmore: Recording & preserving native American music: Overview. Gale Family Library. https://libguides.mnhs.org/densmore

Williams, Jeff. (2020, June 1). Frances Densmore: Frontier authority on American indian music. Cowboys & Indians: The Premier Magazine of the West. https://www.cowboysindians.com/2020/06/frances-densmore/

Additional Reading

Peters, Gretchen. (2015). Unlocking the songs: Marcie Rendon’s indigenous critique of Frances Densmore’s native music collecting. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 39(4), 79-92. https://brandonu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/7mr5c9/TN_cdi_proquest_journals_1789067532

Frances Densmore and American Indian Music: A Memorial Volume by Charles Hofmann
Call Number: E51.N42 v.23
Publication Date: 1968
Dr. Frances Densmore (1867-1957) was a reknown authority on the study of American Indian music. She began her study at age 26 and continued until her death at 90 years of age. Music is important to many phases of Indian life and Dr. Densmore's contributions and study to this field are of great importance.
Northern Ute Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: M1669.U8D4
Publication Date: 1922
The American Indians and Their Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D352
Publication Date: 1936
Chippewa Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D355 1972
ISBN: 0306704595
Publication Date: 1972-08-21
This now famous study is a detailed inquiry into the music, customs and oral traditions of the Chippewa (Ojibway) Indians.
Originally published as two separate volumes by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1910 and 1913, this work by the renowned ethnologist Frances Densmore, has become a classic.
The purpose of the present work is to determine what constitutes the music of the Chippewa Indians, and to record results in such a manner that they will be available for reference. By means of the phonograph it is possible to obtain an accurate record of Indian song, which, though permanent, is of necessity limited in scope. To the phonograph record and its analysis must therefore be added abundant field notes, giving the results of observations of the musical performances, together with descriptions of circumstances and surroundings. These three - phonograph record, analysis, and field notes - are the necessary data of this branch of research.
The study of Indian music is more than the collection of Indian songs. It includes a consideration of the vocal expression of a mental concept; therefore incorrect repetitions of a song are as significant as correct repetitions. Into their value enters a human element—the personality of the singer. A person of musical gifts and proficiency frequently presents a rendition of a song which contains embellishments. These reveal the succession of tones especially pleasing to the native singer. A person of little musical talent presents an imperfect rendition of a song, yet these imperfections are interesting. They indicate which phase of the song was most difficult for him to acquire and remember, the melody or the rhythm.
The analysis of the Chippewa songs from the land of pine trees, lakes, and hills, in northern Minnesota, shows that in them the descending interval of the minor third occurs with special prominence and frequency; that the majority of the songs begin with a downward progression; and that the intervals of melodic progression are smaller in the older songs. A classification of the songs as melodic and harmonic reveals a possibility that the mental concept of the song has a direct bearing on the form assumed by the melody. The songs said to have been composed during dreams may be considered a spontaneous expression. The majority of these songs are harmonic in structure. The songs whose character and use suggest that their form may have been modified by long repetition are found to be principally melodic in structure.
The value of any specific work lies in the relation of that work to the problems presented by the subject as a whole. Beyond the study of Indian music lies the larger field of research, the development of music, to which the present work is tributary.
Mandan and Hidatsa Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D357 1972
ISBN: 9780306705144
Publication Date: 1972-08-21
The songs of the Mandan and Hidatsa were recorded on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota during the summers of 1912 and 1915, an additional trip in 1918.
A phase of Indian life hitherto untouched by the present writer is shown in this work. The Mandan and Hidatsa lived in houses which were grouped in permanent villages, their environment differ ing essentially from that of the Chippewa and Sioux in their camps or the Ute in the fastnesses of the mountains. The music of the latter tribes has been analyzed in previous works,1 and a comparative statement of results is presented in this volume.
The songs of the Mandan and Hidatsa were recorded on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota during the summers of 1912 and 1915, an additional trip being made in 1918 to complete the material. This research was sugg ested by Dr. 0. J. Libby, secre tary of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, and the first season's work was under the auspices of that society. The subsequent work was under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
The writer desires to acknowledge the valued assistance of her two principal interpreters, Mr. J ames Holding Eagle, a member of the Mandan tribe, who interpreted and translated that language, and Mr. Fred Huber, who interpreted and translated the Hidatsa. Mr. Holding Eagle was born in 1884, received his early education at the Fort Berthold Mission of the Congregational Church, and graduated from the Santee Normal Training School at Santee, Nebr. He is now engaged in missionary work among his people on the F ort Berthold Reservation. Mr. Huber went to Fort Berthold as a musician with the United States Army, and for more than 30 years spent the majority of his time among the Hidatsa. He died before the completion of the present work.
Menominee Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D358
Publication Date: 1932
The writer visited the Menominee in 1910 in connection with a study of the drum-presentation ceremony of the Chippewa, witness ing that dance on the Menominee Reservation. Numerous songs used by the Chippewa in that ceremony were recorded. In the recent work, the same ceremony was studied among the Menominee and its songs recorded, according to the usage of that tribe. The Midewiwin (grand Medicine) of the Chippewa had previously been studied and its songs collected. During the work among the Me nominee a meeting of the Medicine Society was attended and its songs were found to resemble the Chippewa Grand Medicine songs so closely that the Menominee songs of the Medicine Society were not recorded.

One purpose of the present work was to determine the resemblance, or lack of resemblance, between Menominee and Chippewa songs. The result of the work shows that such a resemblance exists in a majority of the songs. A similar resemblance to Sioux songs was not observed.
Pawnee Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML 3557.D368
Publication Date: 1929
The previous studies of Indian music 1 have included no tribe in which ceremonialism is so highly developed as among the Pawnee, whose songs are here presented. This research was conducted among members of the Skidi and Chaui Bands near Pawnee, Okla., in 1919 and 1920. Portions of two important ceremonies were witnessed and several gatherings of a ceremonial character were attended during the progress of the work. The ceremonies were those of the Morning Star and the Painting of the Buffalo Skull, the writer being admitted to the Morning Star lodge during the former ceremony and witnessing the Buffalo and Lance dances, which are a part of the latter. The gatherings included hand games, and dances in honor of Pawnee soldiers upon their return from the recent war.
Seminole Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D373
Publication Date: 1956
The Seminole of Florida are a Muskhogean tribe originally made up of immigrants who moved down into Florida from the Lower Creek towns on the Chattahoochee River. Their tribal name is derived from a Creek word meaning "separatist" or "runaway," suggesting that they lack the permanent background of the tribes whose music had previously been studied.
The writer's first trip to the Seminole in Florida was in January 1931, and the Indians observed were from the Big Cypress Swamp group. The second visit, begun in November 1931, continued until March of the following year, the study including both the Cypress Swamp and Cow Creek groups of the tribe. Two exhibition villages near Miami afforded an opportunity to see the native manner of life. These were Musa Isle and Coppinger's Tropical Gardens. The managers of both villages extended their cooperation, and the principal interpreter was Cory Osceola, a grandson of the celebrated chief Robert Osceola. Many songs were recorded, and the work was extended to the Seminole in the vicinity of Dania and to the camps of Seminole along Tamiami Trail, especially the camp of Chestnut Billie and that known as Fifteen Mile Camp. In February 1932, a trip was made to the interior of the Big Cypress Swamp under the escort of W. Stanley Hanson, of Fort Myers; five camps were visited and photographed. Continuing her journey, the writer went to the "Indian Prairie" northwest of Lake Okeechobee and thence south into the cabbage palm country, which is the home of the Cow Creek group. Several camps were visited, and the songs were recorded at Brighton through the courtesy of Mrs. Eliza Fielden, the storekeeper. The return to Miami was by way of Fort Lauderdale, where an ancient Seminole burial ground was photographed.
Teton Sioux Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D376 1972
ISBN: 0306705168
Publication Date: 1972-08-21
Music of the Indians of British Columbia by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D3587
ISBN: 0306705079
Publication Date: 1972-08-21
Many tribes and locations are represented in the present work, differing from the writer's former books, which have generally considered the music of only one tribe. This material from widely separated regions was available at Chilliwack, British Columbia, during the season of hop-picking, the Indians being employed in the fields. The work was made possible by the courtesy of Canadian officials. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent General, Department of Indian Affairs at Ottawa, who provided a letter of credential, and to Mr. C. C. Perry, Indian agent at Vancouver, and Indian Commissioner A. O. N. Daunt, Indian agent at New Westminster, who extended assistance and cooperation. Acknowledgment is also made of the courtesy of Walter Withers, corporal (later sergeant). Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who acted as escort between Chilliwack and the hop camp, and assisted the work in many ways. Courtesies were also extended by municipal officers in Chilliwack and by the executive office of the Columbia Hop Co., in whose camp the work was conducted.
This is the writer's first musical work in Canada and the results are important as a basis of comparison between the songs of Canadian Indians and those of Indians residing in the United States.
On this trip the writer had the helpful companionship of her sister, Margaret Densmore.
Papago Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: M1669.P25D4
Publication Date: 1929
Music of Acoma, Isleta, Cochiti, and Zuñi Pueblos by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D365
Publication Date: 1957
Yuman and Yaqui Music by Frances Densmore
Call Number: ML3557.D379
Publication Date: 1932
The songs of a group of tribes living along the Colorado River and in northwestern Mexico are here presented, the river culture affording an interesting contrast to the woodland, plain, high plateau, and desert cultures previously studied. The Yuma and Mohave material was collected near Fort Yuma, Calif., the Cocopa material near Somerton in Arizona, a few miles from the Mexican border, and the study of the Yaqui music was made at Guadalupe village, near Phoenix, the entire research being made in 1922. A cremation was witnessed among the Yuma, and important dances were seen among the Cocopa and Yaqui.
The assistance of interpreters and prominent members of the Indian tribes is acknowledged with appreciation. The principal interpreter among the Yuma was Luke Homer, whose cooperation made possible the obtaining of old songs. During the work among the Cocopa it was necessary to employ two interpreters. Nelson Rainbow translating the Cocopa language into Yuma and Luke Homer translating Yuma into English. Katco'ra, a Yuma who spoke no English, assisted in the work by visiting the singers who lived at a considerable distance from Fort Yuma Agency, explaining the work to them, and bringing them to the writer. A similar service among the Cocopa was performed by Frank Tehanna, who also spoke no English. The Yaqui interpreter was Loretto Luna, a resident of Guadalupe village.
Four of the principal singers died before the publication of this material, and their bodies were cremated in the manner which they had described. The songs which they recorded for this work were undoubtedly sung on these occasions. These men were Charles Wilson, Joe Homer, and Peter Hammon (Yuma), and Clam (Cocopa)

American Radio Media Densmore Feature

Healing Songs of the American Indians- About

Travels with Frances Densmore: Her Life, Work, and Legacy in Native American Studies by Joan M. Jensen (Editor); Michelle Wick Patterson (Editor)
ISBN: 9780803248731
Publication Date: 2015-06-01
Over the first half of the twentieth century, scientist and scholar Frances Densmore (1867-1957) visited thirty-five Native American tribes, recorded more than twenty-five hundred songs, amassed hundreds of artifacts and Native-crafted objects, and transcribed information about Native cultures. Her visits to indigenous groups included meetings with the Ojibwes, Lakotas, Dakotas, Northern Utes, Ho-chunks, Seminoles, and Makahs. A "New Woman" and a self-trained anthropologist, she not only influenced government attitudes toward indigenous cultures but also helped mold the field of anthropology. Densmore remains an intriguing historical figure. Although researchers use her vast collections at the Smithsonian and Minnesota Historical Society, as well as her many publications, some scholars critique her methods of "salvage anthropology" and concepts of the "vanishing" Native American. Travels with Frances Densmore is the first detailed study of her life and work. Through narrative descriptions of her life paired with critical essays about her work, this book is an essential guide for understanding how Densmore formed her collections and the lasting importance they have had for researchers in a variety of fields.