“I’m an Indian Too:” A Contemporary Indigenous Reclamation of Racist Musical Tropes
By Kimimilasha James Advisor: Claire Fontijn, Music Wellesley College
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Prerequisite for Honors in Music
May 2021
© 2021 Kimimilasha James
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………i
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………...ii
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1
Chapter One: Depictions of Native Americans in American Music 1888-1947………………….5
Historical Background – Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock………………………………………...... 5
The Indian Love Song………………………………………………………………………………9
The Film Score…………………………………………………………………………………….14
Chapter Two: Wampanoag History and Wamsutta Frank James………………………………..21
Wampanoag Historical Background……………………………………………………………21
Chapter Three: Wamsutta Frank James and Wame Oka-Suoh…………………………………..30
Wamsutta Frank James…………………………………………………………………………..30
Description of the Score………………………………………………………………………...34
Wame Oka-Suoh as Cultural Reclamation and Cultural Expression……………………...39
Chapter Four: A 21st Century Native American Reclamation of Walt Disney’s “What Made the Red Man Red?” and Irving Berlin’s “I’m an Indian Too”……………………………………….54
Native American Representation in James Matthew Barrie’s Peter Pan………………….54
“What Made the Red Man Red?”………………………………………………………………58
“I’m an Indian Too”……………………………………………………………………………...63
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….68
Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………………72
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..79
Full Score of Wame Oka-Suoh…………………………………………………………………...84 i
Acknowledgments
I must begin by thanking my incredible thesis advisor, Claire Fontijn, without whom this document never would have progressed past page one. Her kindness, dedication and guidance have been invaluable, and as my major advisor, she has helped me grow not only as a writer, but also as a person. Since I first began research for this thesis two years ago, Professor Fontijn has offered me steady guidance and invaluable advice, and it truly has been a pleasure to work with her.
I also wish to thank Professor K.E. Goldschmitt for their incredibly helpful and insightful feedback on an earlier draft of my thesis, as well as Professor Gurminder Bhogal and Professor
Sharon Elkins for agreeing to be on my thesis committee. Lastly, I want to thank the Music
Department, the members of the Wellesley College Native American Student Association (Jenn,
Emily, Saffron and Emma), Sonja Tengblad, Dean Shih, Dean Alicea-Westort, William
Hodgkinson, my tribal community, my brother Womsikuk, and my mom for their support throughout this particularly difficult year.
ii
Dedication
Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Wamsutta Frank James, who was unable to pursue
his musical dreams because of the color of his skin, my great-aunt, June Frances MacDonald,
who was the most important Wampanoag elder in my life, my father, Moonanum James, who
passed away while I was writing this thesis, and all of my Wampanoag and Lakota ancestors
who fought so that I could be where I am today.
1
Introduction
From the very first moment they set foot on Turtle Island, white colonists have held a voyeuristic, fetishistic fascination with the Indigenous peoples of North America. This fascination has often been incongruous, with white colonists and Americans routinely “playing
Indian,” while also participating in the slaughter and genocide of the very same people whose identities they co-opted.1 Over the past few centuries, the American population has shifted between reviling, persecuting, demeaning, murdering, and pitying the original inhabitants of
North America.
American popular music, starting in the late 19th century, has embodied all of these sentiments, while also adding new racial stereotypes of its own. In Chapter One, I examine the
“Indian Love Song,” a musical phenomenon that sprang up in the late 19th century as a direct result of white America’s newfound fascination with the Indian reservation, as well as
Americans’ deep obsession with capturing and capitalizing upon the dying cultural traditions of a race of people they simultaneously sought to exterminate. “Indian Love Songs” were the forebears of several musical genres. They contained a variety of tropes that would come to denote Native Americans in music: dactylic rhythms, chromaticism, “war whoop” grace notes, pentatonic harmonies (primarily fourths and fifths), and problematic lyrics. Also in Chapter One,
I explore the relationship between the so-called “Oriental Riff” (which is used to denote East
1 A note about the language used in this thesis: I use the outdated (and offensive to some) term “Indian” extensively. I do this mainly in quotes or when referring to laws, reservations, and federal agencies. All federal agencies and the majority of laws that have anything to do with Native Americans still use the term (e.g., the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Termination Act, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 etc.), so I feel it is acceptable to use the term when speaking about Native Americans within a certain context. Additionally, the majority of Native Americans living on reservations prefer the term “Indian,” and among ourselves we use it. However, wherever possible I have used the term “Native American,” and my use of the term “Indian” should in no way be seen as a normalization or acceptance of the term. 2
Asian people and cultures in music), and its Native American counterpart. I also isolate the
rhythmic pattern that would come to denote Native Americans in late 19th and early 20th century
American popular music by examining a series of extant “Indian Love Songs,” including the
foundational “Indian Love Song,” “Hiawatha (A Summer Idyl)” (1901) by Neil Moret, as well as
“A Wigwam Courtship” (1903) by Sadie Koninsky, and Egbert van Alstyne’s “Navajo” (1903).
Although the craze for the “Indian Love Song” eventually died out, its musical legacy
continued in the Hollywood film score.2 Certain musical riffs from the “Indian Love Song”
migrated to Hollywood largely due to Max Steiner, a prolific Hollywood composer who began
his career as a music copyist in New York’s Tin Pan Alley. Tin Pan Alley was the compositional
hub for the “Indian Love Song,” and this was therefore one of the main ways it was able to live
on vicariously through Hollywood film scores. I briefly touch upon Steiner’s score for They Died with Their Boots On (1942), a Warner Brothers film about Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a
prolific killer of Native Americans, before examining “Pass That Peace Pipe” from Metro
Goldwyn Mayer’s Good News (1947), which is notable for its lyrics and its use of rhythms to
portray “savagery.” In 1973, a Native American theatre troupe flipped “Pass That Peace Pipe” on
its head, and I briefly assess the ways in which they turned a song intended to taunt Native
Americans into a mockery of the United States government.
In Chapter Two, I provide a great deal of Wampanoag history in order to contextualize
the work of Aquinnah Wampanoag composer Wamsutta Frank James, who grew up watching
2 In the introduction to her book about Native American representation in film music in Music of the Western: Notes from the Frontier (New York: Routledge, 2012), Kathryn Kalinak writes, “Although Native American music had been transcribed or recorded by ethnographers as early as the 1910s, Native American music does not find its way into the accompaniment for on-screen Indians in any significant way in the studio era. Instead, Indian music exploits powerful musical codes that reinforce cultural stereotypes about Otherness: Indians are positioned outside American-ness” (6). 3
films like Good News (1947) and listening to the music of Max Steiner. Wamsutta is my paternal
grandfather, and I chose to include his final composition Wame Oka-Suoh (1996) in my thesis
because it is an excellent example of a 20th-century Native American person reclaiming, playing with, and subverting tropes. Wame Oka-Suoh is an incredibly special piece, as it is likely the only piece of music written in the 20th century by a Wampanoag tribal member in the
Wampanoag language. Its publication in this thesis will mark the first time it is available to the general public, and I hope that it will begin to get the recognition it deserves. I analyze the piece in its entirety in Chapter Three, and draw on Wamsutta’s lived experience, the effects of Pan-
Indianism, and Wamsutta’s own writings on Wame Oka-Suoh to attempt to understand the work as cultural expression.
Lastly, in Chapter Four, I look at two of the most egregious examples of musical racism
against Native Americans in film: “What Made the Red Man Red?” from Walt Disney’s Peter
Pan (1953), and “I’m an Indian Too” from Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s film adaptation of Irving
Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun (1950). After considering the lyrics, staging, and context of each of
these films, I then examine the contemporary musical Native American response, which comes
in the form of “What Makes the Red Man Red?” by Lakota hip-hop artist Frank Waln, and “I’m
an Indian Too” by Native American comedy troupe The 1491s. Through this, I show how
contemporary Native Americans are reclaiming racist lyrics and tropes, while also creating brand
new Native American cultural expression.
I chose to write this thesis because I am Native American. I am an enrolled member of
the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, one of the two federally recognized tribes in
Massachusetts, and also Oglala Lakota, as my mother is a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe from
the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In doing research for an independent study 4
two years ago, I noticed that there was a lack of scholarship on contemporary Native American musical output, as well as a lack of scholarship on the music of the Northeastern tribes. Through this thesis, and through future work, I hope to add to the body of scholarship on Native American representation in music.
5
Chapter One: Depictions of Native Americans in American Music 1888-1947
Historical Background – Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock
Depictions of Native Americans in Western media have often been problematic. At best they
are an homage to Native American culture, and at worst they reinforce stereotypes about Native
Americans. Music was not immune to stereotypical and racist depictions of Native Americans,
and so-called “Indian love songs” that appeared around the turn of the 20th century have had an
enormous impact on the way Native Americans have been depicted in American popular music
to this day. These “Indian Love songs” included a variety of tropes that would come to denote
Native Americans in music. Via these songs, Native American music was also commercialized,
consistently “othered,” and had European culture grafted onto it. It is therefore important that we
understand how the “Indian Love Song” came about, what tropes define it, and what its legacy
has been.
Native Americans, like many groups of people who have had their land colonized, have
long held a certain mystique in the eyes of the settlers who displaced them. This mystique,
coupled with the white American tendency to “play Indian,”3 has often led to cultural theft. In
his book Playing Indian, Philip Deloria discusses this phenomenon, and makes the argument that
3 The term “playing Indian” refers to scenarios where white Americans adopt elements of Native American culture best suited to their individual interests as a way of denying their own role in perpetuating American society’s erasure of Indigenous people or assuaging their guilt about the United States’ ongoing genocide of Native Americans. Sometimes this manifests itself in fraudulent claims to Native American heritage, whether through family stories or DNA tests, which leads to the fetishization and cheapening of Native American heritage and ancestry. Other times it manifests itself in the invention of - and participation in - fake Native American rituals, as well as the wearing of Native American regalia – in other words, the practice of wearing Native American identity as a costume. This is best described in Jennifer Helgren’s journal article entitled “Native American and White Camp Fire Girls Enact Modern Girlhood, 1910-39” in the American Quarterly. Helgren describes one camp where the campers “added head feathers to their Camp Fire headbands” and “reinterpreted Camp Fire’s Indian appropriation… by wearing traditional [Native American] attire.” (Helgren, 345) This played an important part in “challenging popular perceptions that the modern girl was frivolous” (Helgren, 350) and helped to establish modern (white) girlhood. This is an example of white Americans using Native American culture and heritage to establish their own identities. 6
white Americans have utilized Native identities for their own purposes, a process that “was
critical to American identities, it necessarily went hand in hand with the dispossession and
conquest of actual Indian people.”4 Indeed, because settler colonialism by its very nature is
avaricious, white Americans have been appropriating and pilfering elements of Native American
cultures for centuries.
Michael Pisani5 argues that the commercialization of Native American culture began at
the end of the 19th century because of groups such as the Indian Rights Association – a white
social activist group that aimed to assimilate Native Americans – as well as the territorial
obsessions of the Secretary of the Interior6, resulting in land runs across the country. Land runs
were instances where previously unassigned or restricted pieces of land were opened to
homesteaders on a “first come, first served” basis. The most famous land run was the Oklahoma
Land Rush of 1889, which, following the forceable removal of the Cherokee, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes, opened up the majority of Oklahoma to white settlers.
These land runs would ultimately culminate in the Supreme Court Case Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock
(1901-1903). The suit, brought by Kiowa chief Lone Wolf against Secretary of the Interior Ethan
A. Hitchcock, claimed that Native American tribes under the Medicine Lodge Treaty had been
defrauded of land by Congressional actions in violation of the treaty.7 The Supreme Court
4 Philip Joseph Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 182. 5 Michael V. Pisani, Imagining Native America in Music (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005). 6 Although the relationship between Native Americans and the Secretary of the Interior has changed since the time of land runs, with the Secretary of the Interior now being responsible for the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres of land held in trust for Native Americans, in the 19th century, the Secretary of the Interior was primarily focused on the removal of Native Americans from their ancestral homes in order to expand the United States’ territory. 7 The Medicine Lodge Treaty was an 1867 treaty between the United States government and the southern Plains tribes. The United States government broke every single one of the more than 500 treaties it signed with tribal governments, and this treaty was no exception. Under the Medicine Lodge Treaty, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache tribes were forced to give up 60,000 square miles of their ancestral homelands in exchange for a three million acre reservation in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Under the Medicine Lodge Treaty, the reservation of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, which had been granted to them via an 1865 treaty, was cut in half. The 7
ultimately ruled against Lone Wolf. According to Justice Edward White, who delivered the
unanimous verdict of the court:
These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food. Dependent for their political rights. They owe no allegiance to the states, and receive from them no protection. Because of the local ill feeling, the people of the states where they are found are often their deadliest enemies. From their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power. This has always been recognized by the executive and by Congress, and by this court, whenever the question has arisen.8 This quote from Justice White represents the paternalistic view the United States held of Native
American tribes, a view which white settlers have held since first arriving in North America. In
the 18th century, religious paternalism “granted Natives the unenviable status of ‘children’ in
perpetual tutelage to colonial authority.”9 Later, the colonial reverend, originally the spiritual
“father” of a tribe, was replaced by the “great white father,” or the president of the United States.
Later in the ruling, Justice White also presents Native Americans as an inferior race, saying:
It is to be presumed that in this matter the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people in their treatment of an ignorant and dependent race. Be that is it may, the propriety or justice of their action towards the Indians with respect to their lands is a question of governmental policy, and is not a matter open to discussion in a controversy between third parties, neither of whom derives title from the Indians.10 As a result of this Supreme Court decision, the United States could freely alter reservation land
without fear of legal retaliation, as Native Americans could only seek recourse via Congress.
Medicine Lodge Treaty was never ratified, at least according to the United States government, and thus the United States encroached on the land the treaty had granted to the Native Americans, resulting in the Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock Supreme Court case. 8 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. at 567 (citing Kagama, 118 U.S. at 383). United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 was a Supreme Court case that upheld the Major Crimes Act of 1885, which gave federal courts jurisdiction over Indian-on-Indian crimes. The case was later used to rule against Lone Wolf. 9 Julius H. Rubin, “The Pattern of Religious Paternalism in Eighteenth-Century Christian Indian Communities” in Tears of Repentance: Christian Indian Identity and Community in Colonial Southern New England (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 78. 10 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. at 565. 8
Emboldened by this Supreme Court decision, the United States government subsequently stripped the Kiowa tribe of 2,900,000 acres of their land, reducing their reservation to just 3,000 acres.
But the decision in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock also “marked a turning point in Indian-white relations and raised new questions about the roles of American Indians in the nation.”11 The
Indian Rights Association wanted Native Americans to assimilate into society, while the majority of white Americans, believing that assimilation would result in intermarriage, feared that Congress would go along with this idea. White fears that Native Americans would take revenge grew in response to the Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock decision. Additionally, the government’s efforts to eradicate the reservation system by stripping Native Americans of their land struck a chord with society that went “right to the heart of American identity.”12
As a result of Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, the concept of Indian reservations became a fascination for the American public, as they were often viewed as places that were free from the stresses of modern urbanization and industrialization. As Pisani explains, “in American popular culture, these spaces served as a fixed locus of idyllic romance.”13 The reality of Indian reservations was different, with food and potable water being scarce.
11 Pisani, Imagining Native America, 244. 12 Ibid., 245. 13 Ibid. 9
The “Indian Love Song”
Music was not immune from the cultural theft discussed by Deloria, and Native
American as well as African American musical and cultural forms were among the earliest to be exploited. Although Native Americans have featured in American music for as long as the
United States has been a nation, the tropes that have today come to denote them in music – including dactylic rhythms, chromaticism, “war whoop” grace notes, pentatonic harmony, and problematic lyrics – did not become codified until the late 19th century. But how exactly was
Native American music assimilated into American popular music in the first place? In order to answer that question, we must first understand the historical events that led to the commercialization of Native American music, which would in turn lead to its assimilation.
The end of the disastrous Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock Supreme Court case of 1903 coincides with the time “Indian Love Songs” about Indian reservations began to flood the market, according to Pisani. He goes on to say that “the enormous popularity of ‘Indian Songs,’ rife with interracial flirtation and innuendo, was due at least partly to the gradual lifting of the Victorian veil of modesty after the turn of the century.”14 The most common genre of these “Indian Songs” was the “Indian Love Song,” which usually focused on a white man visiting an Indian reservation and falling in love with an “Indian maiden.” However, because interracial marriage was not allowed, their forbidden romance could only exist on Native American soil. These reservation-themed songs eventually led to a craze for “Indian Love Songs,” which would become so popular that major composers and publishers, such as those at New York City’s Tin
Pan Alley, would begin to churn them out. Tin Pan Alley published a number of these “Indian
14 Ibid., 243. 10
Love Songs,”15 usually titled something like “Indian Rhapsody” or “Indian Lament.” Of course,
it was highly unlikely that any of these pieces were based on any authentic Native American
music. These early “Indian Love Songs” can best be viewed as a musical extension of Native
American assimilation into American society.
One example of a Tin Pan Alley “Indian Love Song” was “Reed Bird: The Indian’s
Bride” (1903) by Dave Reed, Jr. (See Appendix, Ex. 1). The song begins with a repeated bass
line meant to imitate war drums, a common trope in the “Indian Love Song.” Throughout the
piece there are also minor chromatic scales – such as in m. 10 – which are another common trope
in the “Indian Love Song” used to exoticize a piece of music or group of people. In addition, the
lyrics betray the racism of the song. It begins:
Big bold Injun brave loves a little copper colored squaw
By the time Reed was writing this song, the term “Injun” was considered an ethnic slur,
as was the term “squaw,” a word that was derived from the Massachusett word “ussqua,”
meaning "young woman," but which was later sexualized.16 The song goes on to describe how
the “squaw” is captured by a rival tribe, and how the main character saves her via “heap big
scouting,” leaving the “red men dead men.” The front cover of “Reed Bird: The Indian’s Bride”
(see Ex. 2) is quite interesting as it also demonstrates the sexual objectification of Native
15 “Cowboys and Indians,” Parlor Songs, April 2000. 16 George W. Lyon, “Pauline Johnson: A Reconsideration,” Studies in Canadian Literature, 15 (2) (1990): 136. Squaw began as a generic term used by colonists for any Native American woman, but it quickly became used as a derogatory term for more feminine men. Eventually, squaw became a sexually derogatory epithet. E. Pauline Johnson explained the sexualization of the word “squaw” while reflecting on the title character of An Algonquin Maiden by G. Mercer Adam and A. Ethelwyn Wetherald, writing, “Poor little Wanda! not only is she non-descript and ill-starred, but as usual the authors take away her love, her life, and last and most terrible of all, reputation; for they permit a crowd of men-friends of the hero to call her a ‘squaw’ and neither hero nor authors deny that she is a squaw. It is almost too sad when so much prejudice exists against the Indians, that anyone should write up an Indian heroine with such glaring accusations against her virtue, and no contradictory statements from either writer, hero or circumstance.” In the 1970s, the idea that the word “squaw” came from a Haudenosaunee word “otsiskwa,” meaning “female genitals,” became popular. This furthered the use of “squaw” as a racially specific version of the c-word. 11
American women, as well as the tendency to give Native American women light skin in popular media, because a love interest with European features was seen as more desirable.
Some of these “Indian Love Songs” were more toned-down in their racism, and a few were even semi-authentic and based on real Native American melodies. In 1902, Frederick
Burton published “My Bark Canoe,” which was a hybrid between the “Indian Love Song” and the art song. The melody is a “true” Ojibwe melody, which Burton then masked with European harmonies. Burton explained his reasoning behind this, saying “in these harmonized forms… it never fails to cause unbounded surprise that an Indian could have composed a melody so beautiful… Thus it has served well its purpose in art… to awaken a sane human interest in the
Indian.”17
The melody of “My Bark Canoe” follows a pentatonic pattern. The pattern is an E-flat pentatonic scale spanning an octave.
Burton’s decision to write the melody using a pentatonic scale is thought-provoking because
Native Americans are not the only ethnicity to be represented by a pentatonic riff in Western music.
A stereotypical “Oriental” rhythmic and melodic pattern based on the pentatonic scale
(see Ex. 3) has often been used as a shorthand to denote exoticism or, more specifically, China.
This “Oriental riff,” which can be heard in songs such as “Kung Fu Fighting” and David Bowie’s
“China Girl,” is under-explored in musicology, yet blogger Martin Nilsson has done research on
17 Pisani. Imagining Native America, 247. 12
it. His research revealed that the “Oriental riff” “doesn't come from Chinese folk music, really.
It's just a caricature of how [Westerners] think Chinese music would sound.”18 This is not to say that the pentatonic scale is not found in Chinese music, as it was a relatively common scale in
Chinese music.19 However, it sounded nothing like what I term the “Oriental riff.”
The pentatonic scale seemed to be a shorthand for the “other,” which is part of a trend known as “othering” that anthropologist Johannes Fabian defines as inaccurate and privileged representations of cultures different from one’s own.20 The pentatonic scale was often used to denote Native Americans in the early 20th century, and over time it became the “Oriental riff.”
Examples of the pentatonic scale showing up in pieces about Native Americans include
“Indianola” (1917), by S. R. Henry and D. Onivas (see Ex. 4), and “Silverheels: Indian
Intermezzo — Two Step” (1905), composed by Neil Moret (see Ex. 5).
Although the “Oriental riff” was originally meant to denote both Native Americans and
Eastern cultures in music, the two eventually became distinguishable from one another in the public’s mind, with specific “Indian Themes” becoming prevalent. While Eastern cultures were depicted using this rhythmic pattern,
18 Kat Chow, “How the ‘Kung Fu Fighting Melody’ Came to Represent Asia,” NPR, August 28, 2014. How The 'Kung Fu Fighting' Melody Came To Represent Asia : Code Switch : NPR 19 “China: Scales,” in The New Grove Music Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 1998 paperback edition, vol. 19 (London: Macmillan, 1998), 428. The first Chinese pentatonic scale appeared in the Guanzi, an ancient Chinese text that is attributed to the 7th century BCE philosopher Guan Zhong. The scale is equivalent in pitch to C-D-F-G-A. A second, more common pentatonic scale, found in the Xi-chi, is F-G-A-C-D. 20 Johannes Fabian, “Presence and Presentation: The Other and Anthropological Writing,” Critical Inquiry 16 (1990): 753-72. 13
Native Americans came to be denoted using some variation of a pattern of dactylic rhythms:
Native Americans would also sometimes also be depicted via a pattern of sustained sixteenth notes, most likely meant to imitate a drumbeat. (See the beginning of “Reed Bird” in Example
1.)
“Hiawatha (A Summer Idyl)” (1901) by Neil Moret, which was performed in a concert by John Philip Sousa alongside “My Bark Canoe,” kicked off the national obsession for “Indian” themed songs, selling half a million copies when it was first released. The distinctive “Indian” rhythmic pattern is a curtailed Oriental riff that turns into a dactylic rhythmic pattern in measure
8 (see Ex. 6). This figure is later repeated in the song, and it happens to coincide with the lyrics
“I am your own, your Hiawatha brave”21 (see measures 4-11, the refrain in Ex. 7). Interestingly, an inverse version of this rhythmic pattern can be found in measure 9 of “Reed Bird” (see Ex. 1).
The rhythmic patterns found in the beginning of “Hiawatha” became standard shorthand for “Native American” in the coming years. Pisani notes that this pattern turns up in a number of popular “Indian Songs” after “Hiawatha,” with the “Hiawatha” imitations culminating in Percy
Wenrich’s “Silver Bell” (1910) (see Ex. 8).22 Capitalizing on the “Indian Love Song” craze, publishers began to churn out other styles of “Indian Love Songs.” Sadie Koninsky’s “A
21 Pisani, Imagining Native America, 249. 22 Ibid. 14
Wigwam Courtship” (1903) and Egbert van Alstyne’s “Navajo” (1903) both included the war-
dance rhythmic pattern (see Ex. 9 and Ex. 10). Grace notes are used as “war whoops” in
“Navajo,” which was also the first of the “Indian Love Songs” to use a pentatonic melody,
according to Pisani.23
The Film Score
Tropes such as the pentatonic melody, pulsing drumbeat, and war whoop grace notes
eventually made their way into film music.24 In particular, Pisani indicates a musical moment in
the 1941 Warner Brothers film, They Died with Their Boots On, with a film score by Max
Steiner.25 In the film, a character named California Joe shouts, “Pin your eyeballs, son, there’s a
redskin over that rock yonder” to Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-76). After he says
this, the audience hears what Pisani describes as a “throbbing tom-tom along with high unison
woodwinds playing a descending chromatic figure, a figure bookended by the interval of an
augmented fourth.”26 This demonstrates that, by the 1940s, this musical riff had come to denote
23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., Chapter 9. 25 Kathryn Kalinak, Music in the Western, notes that Native American musical representation in film scores “frequently included the tom-tom rhythm, what Gorbman terms the ‘Indian-on-the-warpath cliché,’ often played by drums or low bass instruments, perfect fifths and fourths in the harmonic design, and modal melody. Indian music was so generic that Max Steiner could recycle the same Indian cue from They Died With Their Boots On (1941) in The Searchers (1956)” (6). 26 Ibid., 292. It is interesting to note that representation of Native Americans in film music shifted away from the Max Steiner-esque “throbbing tom-tom” concept and towards the music of ancient European cultures in the 1990s. As Rebecca Fülöp details in “Music, Whiteness and Masculinity in Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans” in The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound, eds. M. Mera, R. Sadoff, and B. Winters (New York: Routledge, 2017), the Native American characters are represented by an “Aeolian-mode ostinato played by a solo violin, which unfolds into a soaring melody over breathtaking mountain scenery. Enhancing the folk-like, Celtic feel of the violin ostinato is a tinkling acoustic guitar and pulsing low drum, and when the film’s main theme enters, the continuing modal character and rhythmic figures of the ‘Scotch snap’ in the melody maintain the Celtic flavor” (Fülöp, 463). Fülöp explains that this shift towards using European music to denote Native Americans in the 1990s stemmed from a desire not to offend, which is also why the Native American characters in The Last of the Mohicans were also de-centered. However, the end result was just as offensive as earlier approaches, albeit in a different way, 15
Native Americans in film. However, Pisani argues that Steiner’s decision to use this riff, which he admits is “overdone and outworn musical stereotyping,”27 is more complicated than musical stereotyping below the surface. Steiner, according to Pisani, uses music to add the voice of an impartial narrator to the film by adding complex layers and highlighting Colonel Custer’s eventual respect for the Native American characters in the film.
The idea that a riff can be both stereotypical and respectful is problematic because a stereotype is defined in social psychology as “an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people.”28 It is therefore difficult to see how an “over-generalized belief” can be respectful. Within the context of history, it is also difficult to see how Colonel Custer ever showed respect for Native Americans, as Pisani suggests. The film’s version of events, which eventually shows Colonel Custer gaining respect for a handful of Native American characters, is likely entirely fictionalized.29 Pisani goes on to say that “Steiner’s music for They Died With
Their Boots On suggests other things as well, one of which is the ancientness of the people in question. This second and more specific idea relies on music to reinforce an implied connection between the antiquity of the continent and Indian ancestry.”30 He argues that Steiner gives
because Native Americans were ignored or sidelined in their own stories. Another film that takes this approach is Disney’s Brother Bear (2003), which uses Bulgarian folk singing in place of authentic Inuit singing. 27 Pisani, Imagining Native America, 292. 28 Mike Cardwell, Dictionary of Psychology (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999), 227. 29 Colonel Custer engaged in many genocidal practices. During his time in the U.S. Cavalry, the United States government, hoping to starve the Plains Indians to death, allowed railroad companies to kill hundreds of buffalo herds, the Plains Indians’ primary source of food, to lay railroad tracks. The government also urged hunters to kill as many buffalo as possible, and even allowed trains to stop mid journey so that passengers could massacre buffalo for sport out of train windows. This was part of a genocidal policy to starve the Plains tribes to death. Colonel Custer was one of many cavalry officers who protected railroad companies, thus allowing them to build their railroads and kill buffalo. Custer was one of many people sent to Indian Territory to fight the Plains Indians who were militantly resisting U.S. takeover of their homelands. During the Battle of Washita River, which Custer fought against the Cheyenne, he reported killing 103 Cheyenne warriors and a handful of women and children, and he took 53 women and children as prisoners. Custer also instigated the Black Hills gold rush in 1874, which led to the desecration of the Black Hills, the most sacred site of the Plains Indians. Based on these historical facts, it is hard to see how Custer showed respect for Native Americans, both off and on screen. 30 Pisani, Imagining Native America, 294. 16
Native Americans “authenticity” by drawing on this idea of “ancientness.” However, he is confusing the “primitive” aspect of the Native American riff for “ancientness.” The dactylic rhythms found in the Native American riff seem to suggest a certain “primitiveness” because of their simplicity and drumbeat evocation.
Pisani notes that this musical riff was able to become standard in Hollywood films because Steiner was such a prolific and influential composer. A good example of the standardization of this riff can be found in Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Good News (1947). One of
MGM’s low budget “college movies,” Good News is remarkable because it includes a music and dance sequence called “Pass That Peace Pipe,” written by composers Roger Edens, Hugh Martin, and Ralph Blane. The song not only contains stereotypical Native American riffs, but also an offensive dance and offensive lyrics:
So, if your temper's getting a top hand, all you have to do is just stop and pass that peace pipe and bury that hatchet like the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Chattahoochees, Chippewas do. If you’re feeling mad as a wet hen, mad as you can possibly get, then pass that peace pipe, bury that tomahawk like those Chichamecks, Cherokees, Chapultepecs do. That cold shoulder never solved a single complaint. When you’re older, you’ll wipe off all of that war paint. If you find yourself in a fury, be your own judge and your own jury. Pass that peace pipe and bury that hatchet like the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Chattahoochees, Chippewas do. If you want to hover out west, too, you will soon discover it's best to pass that peace pipe and bury that hatchet like the Choctaws, Changos, Chattanoogas, Cheekarohs do. Even in colonial days, you know the ceremonial ways to pass that peace pipe and bury that tomahawk like those Chakootamees, Chepacheps ‘N’ Chicopees, too. Pull your ears in, try to use a little control. When “all clear’s” in, you’ll be top man on the totem pole. So, if you wanna be an all-right guy, not a long face, blues-in-the-night guy, write that apology and dispatch it! When you quarrel, it’s grand to patch it! Pass that peace pipe and bury that hatchet like those Choctaws, Chickasaws, Chattahoochees, Chippewas and those Chickadees, Cherokees, Chapultepecs and those 17
Chakootamees, Chepacheps ‘N’ Chicopees, Choctaws, Changos, Chattanoogas, Cheekarohs do-o-o-o.31
It is worth noting that very few of the tribes listed in the song are actually Native
American tribes, and the inclusion of various other words starting with “ch” suggests mockery of
Native American names. The lyrics imply that there is a Chattahoochee tribe, but the word
Chattahoochee comes from the Creek words “chatta,” meaning rock and “hoochee,” meaning
river. There is no Chattahoochee tribe, only a river. The word “Chichameck” is the name that the
Nahua peoples of Mexico gave nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples, so it has nothing to do with
North American Native tribes. The word “Chichimeca” was similar to the Roman term
“barbarian,” which they used to describe Germanic tribes.32 The word Chapultepec means “at the
grasshopper hill” in Nahuatl, and it refers to the Chapultepec city park in Mexico City.
“Changos” were an Indigenous people in Peru and Chile, while the word “Chepachet” refers to a
village in Rhode Island which was originally inhabited by Pequot and Nipmuc people. The word
“Chakootamee” appears to be made up by the lyricist, although it could be a variation of the
Québecois “Chicoutemi,” and the word “Chickadee” has nothing to do with Native American
tribes.
The lyric “pass that peace pipe, bury that tomahawk” is offensive for two reasons. First,
the term “peace pipe” is a misnomer given to Native American ceremonial pipes by Europeans,
whose cultures did not include the idea of a ceremonial pipe. The ceremonial pipe is used in the
sacred ceremonies of many Native Americans and can be used to offer prayers or seal a
covenant. Because of the sacred significance of the ceremonial pipe in Native American cultures,
31 “The Ultimate Broadway Fake Book” (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Pub. Corp., [1997?]). 32 Charlotte M. Gradie, “Discovering the Chichimecas,” Academy of American Franciscan History, Vol. 51, No. 1 (July 1994): 68. 18
the lyrics to “Pass that Peace Pipe” trivialize the significance of the ceremonial pipe in Native
American cultures. The reference to a tomahawk is offensive because it plays into the trope that the savage “Indians” scalped innocent white people using a tomahawk because they did not want to be civilized, and even though white colonialists eventually adopted scalping, they only did so because the Native Americans taught them to do it. Whether or not Native Americans invented scalping is currently a topic of debate among scholars, and most scholars agree that even if
Native Americans invented the practice, white settlers participated in scalping more than Native
Americans did and routinely paid bounties for Native scalps.33
The music of “Pass that Peace Pipe” is similar to earlier examples of “Indian Songs” because of its offensive lyrics, a common feature of faux Native American songs, but it differs from earlier works because it does not include dactylic rhythms or the pentatonic scale. Instead, it uses repetitive motifs to convey “Indianness,” as well as a limited range of pitch. “Pass that
Peace Pipe” has several sections where the lead vocalist chants the words on a monotone (see
Ex. 11). Using only one pitch, like using a dactylic rhythm, is simple and evokes a drumbeat.
This limited range of pitch is likely to convey “primitiveness” for the same reasons that dactylic rhythms imply “primitiveness.”
As Kenneth Lincoln details in “Indians Playing Indians,” “Pass that Peace Pipe” was featured in Foghorn, a 1973 play by Kiowa playwright Hanay Geiogamah. As Lincoln explains,
“From taped electronic music for a pilgrimage, to performed Zuni sunrise chant, to Pocahontas’
Indian Love Call and the William Tell Overture from the Lone Ranger show, to ‘Pass That Peace
Pipe (And Bury That Hatchet)’ and the concluding AIM unity song about Wounded Knee, life on
33 James Axtell and William C. Sturtevant, “The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping,” The William and Mary Quarterly 37, no. 3 (1980): 451-72. 19
the stage musically mimes Indian life in the streets and along the fringe Euroamerican fantasies.”34 In Foghorn, Geiogamah turns “Pass That Peace Pipe” into a commentary on treaties, instructing a “pretty girl in pigtails”35 to read from a giant roll of toilet tissue, while a performer dressed as a bull “wipe[s] his behind each time treaty is called out.”36
By staging “Pass That Peace Pipe” in this manner, Geiogamah has turned the original meaning of the song on its head, reminding the audience that the United States has failed to “pass that peace pipe” with Native nations, instead breaking each of the nearly 500 treaties it signed between 1778 to 1871.37 He is also transforming a song originally intended to mock Indigenous peoples into a mockery of the United States government, and removing the disparaging meaning of the original song, replacing it with messages of Native American empowerment and anger.
The way Native Americans have been depicted in American popular music has been heavily influenced by the “Indian Love Song,” first popularized after the conclusion of the Lone
Wolf v. Hitchcock Supreme Court case. At first, these “Indian Love Songs” shared similar traits to the so-called “Oriental riff,” specifically pentatonic melodies and a distinctive rhythmic pattern (see Ex. 3). Over time, the melodies of these “Indian Love Songs” became distinguishable from the “Oriental Riff,” and Native Americans began to be represented musically via a unique rhythmic pattern meant to imitate a drumbeat (see measure 8 of Ex. 6).
The “Indian Love Song” was also characterized by racist lyrics, one of many tropes from the
“Indian Love Song” that carried over into film music.
34 Kenneth Lincoln, “Indians Playing Indians” MELUS Vol. 16, No. 3, Ethnic Theater (Autumn, 1989 – Autumn 1990): 95. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid, 96. 37 Gale Courey Toensing, “‘Honor the Treaties’: UN Human Rights Chief’s Message,” Indian Country Today, 2013. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/23/honor-treaties-un-human-rights-chiefs-message-150996
20
Although depictions of Native Americans in music changed drastically over a short time span in terms of melody and rhythmic motifs, each successive faux Native American song was united with its musical forebears in its lack of understanding of Native Americans and their cultures. This lack of understanding was prevalent in the “Indian Love Songs” at the beginning of the 20th century, as writers idealized the Indian reservation and ignored the actual conditions prevailing on the reservations. The use of the “Oriental Riff” to denote Native American cultures additionally showed a lack of understanding of actual Native American music, and also showed a desire to “other” Native Americans the way the Chinese had been “othered” in America. Finally, the inclusion of offensive lyrics, such as those found in “Pass that Peace Pipe,” showed a lack of respect for Native Americans as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of the richness and beauty of their cultures. It is fortunate that Native American depictions in music have improved since 1947, becoming more accurate and less offensive than their predecessors.
21
Chapter Two: Wampanoag History and Wamsutta Frank James
Wampanoag Historical Background
In order to contextualize Wamsutta Frank James’ work and life experience, we must first
understand Wampanoag history and the centuries of forced Indigenous assimilation that had
befallen his people and that he was facing in the 20th century. The Wampanoag38 have lived in what is now called “New England” for millennia. The Aquinnah Wampanoag, one of the two federally recognized39 Wampanoag tribes in the state of Massachusetts, have lived on Noepe40
(Martha’s Vineyard) for an estimated 10,000 years.41 Wampanoag society was agrarian, and the
Wampanoag “pursued a traditional economy based on fishing and agriculture.”42 On the
mainland, the Wampanoag would live in villages along the coast in the summer and then move
inland during the winter. Because New England was heavily populated pre-contact, hunting
territories were very carefully defined between the various tribes. The Wampanoag were
38 The Wampanoag are a group of Native Americans whose Indigenous lands include “Wessagusset (today called Weymouth), all of what is now Cape Cod and the islands of Natocket and Noepe (now called Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard), and southeast as far as Pokanocket (now Bristol and Warren, Rhode Island),” according to the historians at Plimoth Plantation. Wampanoag translates to “people of the first light.” It is estimated that there were as many as 40,000 Wampanoag people and 67 Wampanoag villages pre-contact with Europeans. 39 Federal recognition is granted by the United States government to tribes. Tribes must either have been granted federal recognition via treaty, an Act of Congress, or a rigorous, sometimes decades-long process conducted by the BIA. A federally recognized tribe has a government-to-government relationship with the US, which means that a federally recognized tribe is recognized as a sovereign nation by the United States government, at least in theory. In practice the United States government oversteps its authority, gets involved in tribal matters when it should not, undermines tribal sovereignty whenever it can, and generally maintains a paternalistic view where the “Great White Father” (the president of the United States) governs his children (the Indians). This is touched upon in greater detail in Chapter One. The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), which this chapter focuses on, received federal recognition in 1987. The Final Determination, explaining why the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) received federal recognition, can be read here. The other federally recognized Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, received federal recognition in 2007. 40 “Noepe” is the Wampanoag name for the island that is today known as “Martha’s Vineyard.” 41 “Wampanoag History,” Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Wampanoag History — Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) (wampanoagtribe-nsn.gov) 42 Ibid. 22
organized into a loose confederacy, and the Aquinnah Wampanoag, although geographically
isolated from the other Wampanoag on Noepe, were members of this confederacy.
According to the Aquinnah Wampanoag creation story, the island of Noepe and the
Wampanoag were created by Moshup the giant. As the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe’s website
explains, “Moshup is believed by our tribe to be responsible for the present shapes of Martha's
Vineyard, the Elizabeth Islands, Noman's Land, and Nantucket.”43 Moshup would catch whales
from the ocean and then hurl them against the cliffs of Gay Head, and when “the first
Wampanoag arrived and found the island inhabited by the giant Moshup, his wife Squant, and
their many pets,”44 they found that “Moshup and Squant were generous, sharing food and
knowledge with the newcomers.”45 In return, the Wampanoag provided tobacco for Moshup’s
pipe, and thus the “Wampanoag and Moshup lived side by side until the arrival of Europeans and
Christianity in the 17th century prompted Moshup to depart.”46
The first Europeans dropped anchor off the shores of Noepe in the early 1500s for fishing
purposes. By 1610, it is estimated that there were around 200 British fishing vessels operating in
New England and Newfoundland.47 Early attempts to colonize New England failed as “All early
accounts by Europeans suggest that the region was thickly settled and defended so well that
explorer Samuel de Champlain abandoned attempts to establish a French base on Cape Cod in
43 “Ancient Ways: The Creation of Noepe,” Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Ancient Ways — Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) (wampanoagtribe-nsn.gov). An alternate version of the creation story, which seems to have originated from the “Praying Indian Town” of Christiantown, and which was passed down through my family, says that Moshup stained the Cliffs of Gay Head red with the blood of whales and then created the Wampanoag out of the beautiful clay that resulted. 44 Siobhan M. Hart and Paul A. Shackel, “Aquinnah: Wampanoag Home and Homeland,” Colonialism, Community, and Heritage in Native New England (Gainesville, Tallahassee, Tampa, Boca Raton, Pensacola, Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville, Ft. Myers, and Sarasota: University Press of Florida, 2019), 1. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 James Axtell, Natives and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins of North America (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 16. 23
1605 and 1606. A similar attempt by the British in Maine in 1608 resulted in a conflict that killed
eleven colonists and drove the rest from these shores.”48 Relations between the local Indigenous
population and the European colonizers quickly soured as European slave traders began
capturing Native Americans as slaves. Soon, the slave trade of Indigenous peoples became
commonplace, and slave catchers sailed up and down the coast of New England in search of new
victims. In 1614, Captain Thomas Hunt lured several unsuspecting Patuxet Wampanoag onto his
ship, promising them European merchandise. Once the Wampanoag were on board, Hunt and his
men grabbed 20 of them and “stuffed them below deck.”49
As David J. Silverman reports, “Soon seven other Wampanoags farther east at Nauset fell into the same trap, joining their tribesmen on a horrific oceanic journey toward an unimaginable destiny. It would have come as cold comfort when they discovered Hunt’s actual plan to sell them as enslaved people in Málaga, Spain, alongside his catch of fish. That is the last we hear of most of these unfortunate souls, who disappeared into Iberia’s mass of bound laborers drawn from around the globe.”50
Slavery was not the only thing Europeans brought with them to New England. Following
the arrival of the Europeans, many epidemics began to break out among the local Indigenous
populations, as they lacked the antibodies to fight the diseases the Europeans had brought with
them. In 1616 “a new disease spread along the coast for at least three years, and in many cases
wiped out entire communities. One theory is that the disease was leptospirosis brought over by
48 Meaghan E.H. Siekman, “Before the Mayflower,” citing Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 52. 49 David J. Silverman, “In 1621, the Wampanoag Tribe Had Its Own Agenda,” The Atlantic, November 27, 2019, Thanksgiving Belongs to the Wampanoag Tribe - The Atlantic 50 Ibid. 24
infected rats on ships. It is estimated that between 50–90% of the people on the coast were killed
before the plague subsided.”51
This plague was the reason why the Pilgrims,52 when they arrived in Provincetown in
1620, found countless graves that they promptly robbed.53 Mourt’s Relation, written by William
Bradford and Edward Winslow, provides a contemporary account of the Pilgrims’ arrival and
subsequent grave robbery, saying, “When we had marched five or six miles into the woods and
could find no signs of any people, we returned again another way, and as we came into the plain
ground we found a place like a grave, but it was much bigger and longer than any we had yet
seen. It was also covered with boards, so as we mused what it should be, and resolved to dig it
up, where we found, first a mat, and under that a fair bow, and there another mat, and under that
a board about three quarters long, finely carved and painted, with three tines, or broaches, on the
top, like a crown. Also between the mats we found bowls, trays, dishes, and such like trinkets.”54
They go on to detail the two bodies found in the grave, which were the skull and bones of a man
and the “bones and head of a child.”55 The Pilgrims proceeded to take the child’s burial items
with them, writing, “About the legs and other parts of it was bound strings and bracelets of fine
51 Meaghan E.H. Siekman, “Before the Mayflower,” citing Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press), 30. 52 The Pilgrims are a group of English colonists who arrived in what they termed the “New World” in 1620. Today they are heavily mythologized because of the “Thanksgiving myth,” which claims that the Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, came to the New World. The “Indians” and the Pilgrims shared a harvest meal and lived together in friendship and harmony. In reality, much that is taught about the Pilgrims is wrong. First, they were not called Pilgrims. Plimoth Plantation explains that in their writings they refer to themselves as “planters” or “farmers,” to distinguish themselves from the “adventurers” who had financed the colony. They first began being referred to as the Pilgrims or “Pilgrim forefathers” in the early 19th century. They also were not seeking religious freedom, as they had that in Holland, where they had settled after leaving England. The Mayflower Compact was purely a business enterprise. 53 This grave robbery could be seen as nothing more than a group of people removing objects of interest from a gravesite. But it could also be viewed as portentous of the cultural appropriation and destruction that was to come in the New England region. 54 William Bradford and Edward Winslow, Mourt's Relation; Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1622. Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1622, Part I (illinois.edu) 55 Ibid. 25
white beads; there was also by it a little bow, about three quarters long, and some other odd
knacks. We brought sundry of the prettiest things away with us, and covered the corpse up again.
After this, we digged in sundry like places, but found no more corn, nor any thing else but
graves.”56
Presumably angered by this grave robbery, as well as by the Pilgrims’ tendency to take
everything they found, the local Indigenous population attacked the Pilgrims. Stephen Harrigan
writes of this attack, “No doubt the Nausets were watching the Pilgrims as they once again
walked uninvited through their villages and their graveyards. After weeks of avoiding these
intruders, of witnessing the defilement and theft of their property, they had seen enough. In the
darkness of the next morning they attacked.”57 This sent the clear message that the Pilgrims were
not welcome, and so the Pilgrims got back on the Mayflower and landed in Plymouth. There they
encountered Massasoit, Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy, who was more amenable to
forming a relationship with the Pilgrims than his Nauset counterparts had been, and thus an
uneasy peace was reached.58
This peace would not last. Several ships, such as the Fortune and the Anne, brought new
settlers to the Plymouth Colony which the Pilgrims had established. This meant that the Pilgrims
were beginning to encroach further on Wampanoag territory in an effort to expand their colony.
As the local Indigenous population got in the way of their settlement, the Pilgrims and the
subsequent English colonists who had arrived began to massacre the Natives en masse. Bounties
56 Ibid 57 Stephen Harrigan, “First Encounter,” Accessed March 8, 2021. First Encounter (historynet.com) 58 This was because Massasoit had seen the destruction the European settlers were capable of bringing. He likely formed an alliance with the Pilgrims in the hopes that it would spare his people from the destruction European settlers often brought with them, and he may have also hoped that the Pilgrims would protect the Wampanoag from rival or enemy tribes. 26
were placed on the scalps of the local Indigenous population, including the scalps of Native
children and infants. Native Americans who violated the Puritan code of ethics (referred to as the
“Blue Laws”) were executed, and “Native people who did not choose Christianity were
prosecuted for hunting and fishing on the Sabbath, using Indian medicines, and for entering into
non-Christian marriages.”59
The English settlers also began forcing the local Indigenous population to convert to
Christianity.60 The Indigenous people began to be rounded up into “praying towns,” which were
established by the Reverend John Elliot in 1651. A total of 14 praying towns were created, and
the local Indigenous population was often forced into conversion under the threat of execution.
In a last-ditch effort to save his people’s way of life, Metacom (or King Philip, to give his
English name), son of Massasoit, declared a defensive war on the English colonists in 1675.61
This widespread regional conflict, often referred to as “King Philip’s War,” lasted from 1675 to
1678 and resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 combatants. Additionally, several hundred Nipmuc,
Massachusett, and other Indigenous people – some Christian and others who had refused to
convert to Christianity – were placed in an internment camp on Deer Island in Boston Harbor
and left to die.62 The English colonists were victorious, and Metacom was beheaded in 1676. His
59 “The History of Thanksgiving,” Accessed March 8, 2021. The History of Thanksgiving_1.pdf (westminster.edu) 60 Today we consider forceable conversion to Christianity (or any religion) a form of cultural genocide. A 1994 draft of the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People” includes the following definitions of cultural genocide: “Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities; Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures.” 61 King Philip is quoted as saying, “The English who came first to this country were but a handful of people, forlorn, poor and distressed. My father was then sachem. He relieved their distresses in the most kind and hospitable manner. He gave them land to plant and build upon.…They flourished and increased.…By various means they got possessed of a great part of his territory. But he still remained their friend till he died. My elder brother became sachem. They pretended to suspect him of evil designs against them. He was seized and confined and thereby thrown into illness and died. Soon after I became sachem, they disarmed all my people.…Their lands were taken.…But a small part of the dominion of my ancestors remains. I am determined not to live until I have no country.” 62 “Native Americans and the Boston Harbor Islands,” Accessed March 8, 2020. MWRA Deer Island Memorials Project; Native Americans and the Boston Harbor Islands - Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov) 27
rotting head was displayed in Plymouth for over two decades to serve as a warning to rebellious
Wampanoag, and his body was quartered and hung in trees.63 Subsequently, many of the Native
Americans who had sided with King Philip were sold into slavery or executed.
On Martha’s Vineyard, the local Wampanoag population had been able to escape the
ravages of King Philip’s War64 by remaining neutral,65 but had not been able to escape the grip
of Christian missionaries. In 1641, the first permanent English settler, William Mayhew, arrived
on Noepe and promptly set about forcibly converting the local population to Christianity66 in an
attempt to establish “a feudal colony, using religion as a tool of social control.”67 In 1671,
William Mayhew was appointed by King Charles II as “Lifetime Governor of the Vineyard
Indians with authority to buy their property.”68 Mayhew quickly set about manipulating the
Aquinnah Wampanoag population to give up their lands. Muttak, Sachem of Gay Head
63 Anthony Brant, “Blood and Betrayal: King Philip’s War,” accessed March 8, 2021. Blood and Betrayal: King Philip's War (historynet.com) 64 David J. Silverman, “Indians, Missionaries and Religious Translation: Creating Wampanoag Christianity in Seventeenth Century Martha’s Vineyard,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 2 (April 2005): 170. Silverman posits that Christianity was the means by which the Aquinnah were able to keep peace with the colonists, as King Philip and his allies refused to convert to Christianity, which made them more dangerous to the colonists. 65 Kristina Bross and Hilary E. Wyss, eds., “The Wampanoags,” Early Native Literacies in New England, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 162. 66 David J. Silverman, “Indians, Missionaries.” Although the Aquinnah Wampanoag were converted to Christianity, an account from John Cotton Jr., Mayhew’s successor, details how the Aquinnah Wampanoag were incredibly quick learners who questioned all aspects of Christianity. The questions the Aquinnah Wampanoag asked Cotton Jr. after his first sermon, which included incredibly searching questions such as “How conscience came to be asleep or silent in a man at any time?” also revealed that the Aquinnah Wampanoag were determined to hold onto their traditional beliefs by combining them with Christianity (Silverman, 142). Silverman details the Aquinnah Wampanoag traditional funerary practices that remained intact even after their conversion to Christianity: “Grave goods, designed for the spirit’s use in the hereafter, such as kaolin pipes, metal pots, glass bottles, and shell beads, continued to find their way into coffins. People still avoided mentioning the names of the dead… to leave their ghosts undisturbed.” (Silverman, 166.) Silverman goes on to detail that the Aquinnah Wampanoag “still received death’s notice from an illuminated blur like Cheepi [usually spelled Chepi, a legendary evil spirit in Wampanoag storytelling], and their souls left their bodies for the afterworld in flashes of light no less than the traditional Cowwewonck [a soul which travels in dreams, as opposed to the Michachunck, the clear soul that inhabits the body] souls. Wampanoag speaking angels and ghosts contacted people through dreams to reassure them of their salvation or portend future events.” (Silverman, 166.) In other words, the Aquinnah Wampanoag held onto traditional beliefs by incorporating them with Christian beliefs. 67 “How the Wampanoag Indians Took Back Gay Head,” New England Historical Society, Accessed March 8, 2021. How the Wampanoag Indians Took Back Gay Head - New England Historical Society 68 Ibid. 28
(Aquinnah) and Nashaquitsa (Chilmark), made it abundantly clear in his will that the Aquinnah
Wampanoag were, under no circumstances, to give up their lands. He wrote, “I muttak [sic.] and my chief men, and with our children and all our common people present, have agreed that no one shall sell land. But if anyone larcenously sells land, you shall take back your land, because it is forever in your possession.”69
The Aquinnah Wampanoag were adamant that the terms of Muttak’s will be fulfilled, as land-snatching by English settlers posed the greatest threat to tribal members. However, the
English colonists ignored the terms of the will as Aquinnah was widely held to be “the best tract of land on the island,”70 and it became “a prime target for land hungry colonists and their leaders.”71 Despite their best efforts, including several legal battles over their homelands, the
Aquinnah Wampanoag eventually saw the entirety of their lands fall into English hands. They would suffer a massive population loss as “smallpox thinned the Wampanoag population and land dealings reduced their territories. By 1747, their numbers fell to 112. Only three native communities remained on Martha’s Vineyard: Aquinnah (or Gay Head), Chilmark and
Christiantown.”72
Despite their reduced numbers, there was still an active Wampanoag community on
Martha’s Vineyard in the 19th and 20th centuries. The 1848 Briggs Report and the 1861 Earle
69 Kristina Bross and Hilary E. Wyss, eds., “The Wampanoags,” 164. 70 Ibid., 167. 71 Ibid. 72 “How the Wampanoag.” Because of their relative isolation, the Aquinnah Wampanoag were able to preserve their culture and traditional ways more effectively than mainland Wampanoag, who were forcibly assimilated. In “Jessie Little Doe Baird on Reviving The Wampanoag Language” from Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations With Activists, Scholars and Tribal Leaders, it is alleged that the Wampanoag language had been dead for “six generations.” This claim is incorrect, as some Aquinnah Wampanoag were still able to speak the language up until the 20th century. My Great Aunt, June Frances MacDonald, who was born in 1920, recalls elders speaking Wampanoag in the early 20th century. However, the fact that the language nearly entirely died off speaks to the level of assimilation and cultural destruction the Wampanoag faced. 29
Report, both of which were commissioned to investigate the social conditions of Native
Americans living in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, documented a strong Native
American presence on Martha’s Vineyard. In 1972, the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay
Head, Inc. was founded, and the Wampanoag began to agitate for federal recognition, which was
granted in 1987 after years of legal battles.73
73 The complete Senate hearing minutes for one of the legal battles can be read here. Wamsutta Frank James was one of the Wampanoag tribal members who testified in front of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs. 30
Chapter Three: Wamsutta Frank James and Wame Oka-Suoh
Wamsutta Frank James
The family of Wamsutta Frank James partially originated in Christiantown, with his
paternal great-grandparents, Thomas James, a mariner,74 and Judith Weeks, his wife, both having
been born there. Wamsutta Frank James was born on November 8, 1923 to Francis Leavett
James, a fisherman, and Arabella Rubenia Cook, both of whom were Aquinnah Wampanoag. By
the time Wamsutta was born, his family had relocated from Martha’s Vineyard to the town of
Chatham, MA. They were the only Native American family living within the town, and they
therefore bore the brunt of the anti-Native racism of the townsfolk of Chatham. As a result, the
pressure to assimilate75 into white society must have been strong. The family attended a local
church and served in the US military. Wamsutta and some of his siblings recalled having to run
faster and fight harder in order to escape the clutches of some of the white bullies in Chatham.
74 The James family was a prominent Wampanoag whaling family in the 19th century, with “more than thirty men from the Wampanoag family with the surname James” appearing in a modern database of 19th century whalers according to Nancy Shoemaker in the “Afterword” of Living With Whales: Documents and Oral Histories of New England History (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 201. 75 The desire to assimilate Native Americans into white society was strong during the 20th century, and the “Indian Termination Policy” of the 1920s – 1960s, which aimed to assimilate Native Americans into American society by ending tribal sovereignty and forcing Native Americans to become taxpaying citizens, would have been a defining feature of Wamsutta’s young adulthood. He was also born at a time when Native American children were stolen from their families and put into Indian boarding schools. Their hair would be cut, they would be forbidden from speaking their Native language, and these children would often face extreme physical and sexual abuse. In “Acting Out Assimilation: Playing Indian and Becoming American in the Federal Indian Boarding Schools” from the American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Summer 2016), Jon R. Gram details one of the many ways in which Native children were assimilated: “During the summer of 1886 the students of Albuquerque Indian School (ais) marked the passing of Decoration Day (predecessor of Memorial Day) with a day-long picnic. The following Monday the students took part in the Decoration Day parade…The boys wore their school uniforms and marched ‘in precision of movement and soldierly bearing,’ while the girls, dressed in white aprons, rode on a float decorated with patriotic bunting. Each side of the float bore a banner with a different motto: ‘Anglo-Saxon civilization rules the world, we submit.’ ‘Wise statesmanship demands a homogenous population.’ ‘Patriotism precludes allegiance to civil powers, independent of the United States.’” 31
Wamsutta’s famous 1970 speech (which now lives in the Smithsonian Museum of the
American Indian)76 gives a snapshot of his childhood. He writes, “I speak to you as a man – a
Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict
parental direction (‘You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod
community!’). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic
diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have
earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first – but we are termed ‘good citizens.’”77
This speech illuminates the fact that Wamsutta was both proud of his Wampanoag
heritage, but also very much aware of the fact that American society viewed him as lesser
because of the color of his skin. This likely became even more apparent when he attended the
New England Conservatory of Music. As his obituary explains, “A brilliant trumpet player,
James was the first Native American graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in
1948. While many of his classmates secured positions with top symphony orchestras, James was
flatly told that, due to segregation and racism, no orchestra in the country would hire him
because of his dark skin.”78 By the 1960s, Wamsutta set about fighting for the equal rights of
Native Americans. Wamsutta was, of course, not alone in his efforts, as the 1960s saw the rise of
76 United American Indians of New England, the political organization Wamsutta founded, explains the origin of the speech on their website, saying, “Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their ‘American’ descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however, asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James' views — based on history rather than mythology — were not what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said.” Suppressed Speech - UAINE 77 Wamsutta Frank B. James, “Our Spirit Refuses to Die” from Speeches of Note: A Celebration of the Old, New and Unspoken, ed. Shaun Usher. (London: Penguin Random House UK, 2018), 9. 78 Moonanum James, “Announcement from UAINE of the Death of Native Leader Wamsutta Frank James,” United American Indians of New England, Accessed February 27, 2021. http://uaine.org/old/wamsuttapresente.html 32
the so-called “Red Power Movement.” The Red Power Movement, which came about as a direct result of the Black Civil Rights Movement, “started a tidal wave of ethnic renewal that surged across reservations and urban Indian communities, instilling ethnic pride and encouraging individuals to claim and assert their ‘Indianness.’”79
The Red Power Movement placed a great emphasis on pan-Indianism, which was a
movement that began in the early 1900s and encouraged unity among Native Americans and to
some extent encouraged them to shed their individual tribal identities and adopt a universal,
generalized Indian culture. Pan-Indianism was encouraged in order to promote political unity
among Native peoples. Pan-Indianism—as well as the specific tropes pertaining to Native
Americans created and re-enforced by Hollywood and popular culture—is the reason why
images like this exist:
79 Joane Nagel, “American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Politics and the Resurgence of Identity,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 60, no. 6 (1995): 948. 33
Pictured above is a 1925 meeting of the Council of North Eastern Algonquin Indians, which
included members of the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes. It is telling that the people in the
photograph are dressed not in their traditional clothing, but rather the generalized Plains regalia
seen in Hollywood films, complete with warbonnets.80
As Liza Black remarks, “Just as Europeans created the term ‘Indian’ to inaccurately name
the people of the entire North American continent, the stereotypes associated with ‘Indian’
highlight certain tribes in such a way that they come to typify all tribes and even engender the
sense that there are no other tribes. The Hollywood Indian derives its look from national and international imaginings of the American Indian, and that Indian look consists of a particular and simplistic aesthetic centering on hair, skin, and dress. Studios gave white Americans the Indians they expected, but in a closed loop of reinforcement in that Hollywood images were at least partially responsible for the American public’s images and expectations of Indians. Not only were Indian characters based on inaccurate history, they were also blurred into a single, monolithic tribal nation. Although studios sometimes veered in the direction of accurate tribal dress, they nearly always modeled their costumes on the clothing of Plains or southwestern tribes; never did they base films on less well-known tribes.”81
In the Northeast, tribes were virtually erased from the landscape. In the 1940s,
organizations such as the Federated Eastern Indian League were founded to promote awareness
of Eastern Native American culture. It is highly likely that Northeastern Natives, such as
80 Warbonnets, also referred to as headdresses, were worn exclusively by members of Plains tribes who had earned great respect from their tribe. That type of headdress was never traditionally worn in the Northeast, and the fact that the members of the Council of North Eastern Algonquin Indians are wearing them speaks to the fact that warbonnets became ubiquitous shorthand for “Native American” in the 20th century, as well as the fact that they are adopting elements of a different culture for their own purposes. 81 Liza Black, “A Bit Thick: The Transformation of Indians into Movie Indians,” Native Americans in Film: 1941- 1960 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020), 161. 34
Wampanoag tribal members, felt pressure to look more
stereotypically “Indian,” which they achieved by wearing
warbonnets and Plains regalia, which they (rightly) assumed
would make white Americans take them more seriously.
The picture to the right from c. 1970 shows Wamsutta
in a Plains-style warbonnet. The fact that he is wearing a culturally incorrect warbonnet indicates that he, like the
Council of North Eastern Algonquin Indians pictured on page 32, was influenced by the pan-Indianist attitudes of his
day, which were in turn influenced partially by Hollywood
films. From this we can infer that Wamsutta likely would
have looked to Hollywood film when composing music.
Description of the Score
Wame Oka-Suoh, which means Ode to Mother Earth, was composed by Wamsutta Frank
James in 1996. It is likely the only piece of music written by a Wampanoag tribal member in the
Wampanoag language in the 20th century. It is written (in descending part order) for solo flute,
soprano, alto 1, alto 2, baritone, timpani, and organ. The score begins with the flute part
excerpted for the flutist’s use, followed by a title page, a page explaining the meaning behind the
poem used in the piece, and a glossary. The final page of the score is a picture of Wamsutta
conducting. The musical score officially begins on page 6, and is lettered A – K, with letter I 35
being omitted (possibly because of the condition of the copy). The piece begins four measures before letter A with a moderato section, which features interplay between the organ and timpani.
(Interplay between the organ and timpani four measures before letter A.)
At letter A, there is a spoken section with rattles with the first melodic theme introduced by the flute, followed by a repetition of that theme being introduced at letter B.
(Spoken section with rattles at letter A.)
(First melodic theme at letter B. Voice parts in descending order: flute, soprano, alto 1, alto 2, and timpani) 36
This first melodic theme is also repeated eight measures before letter H in the baritone voice part.
(Eight measures before letter H. Parts in descending order: baritone, timpani.)
Letter C introduces the second melodic theme, a chant section that is repeated in various forms throughout the piece, including at letter D, four measures before letter G, eight measures before letter J.
(The second melodic theme, which will be repeated throughout the piece. Parts in descending order: soprano, alto 1, alto 2 [with rattle], timpani.)
Letter E parallels the beginning of the piece in many ways, as it features a duet between the organ and timpani. This duet continues through letter F, before the flute enters eight measures before letter G. 37
(Organ and timpani duet at letter E. Parts in descending order: timpani, organ.)
Letter G is marked grandioso and is the first time the baritone voice part is heard.
(The grandioso at letter G. All parts are featured.)
The fifth measure after letter H features the second melodic theme first heard at letter C, as well as the rattles first heard at letter A. 38
(The fifth measure after letter H. Parts shown in descending order: flute tacet, soprano, alto 1, alto 2 playing rattles, timpani, organ.)
Letter J is the climax of the piece, with all parts playing at once, and the flute playing a highly ornamental descant “obligato” part.
(The highly ornamental flute descant obligato at letter J.) 39
Finally, letter K begins with a baritone solo, followed by the finale, with the voices singing the
lyrics “They are our brothers, we will care for them one and all! Wame oka-suoh. Manitoo, oka-
suoh ye-uh ash, oka-suoh.”
(The final page of Wame Oka-Suoh, complete with Wamsutta’s signature.)
The significance of the lyrics and the vocal parts will be explored below.
Wame Oka-Suoh as Cultural Reclamation and Cultural Expression
Although the exact musical influences on Wame Oka-Suoh are unknown, we can infer
that Wamsutta was exposed to authentic Algonquian music in his lifetime, likely Mi’kmaq music due to the large number of Mi’kmaq tribal citizens living in Boston in the 20th century. Wamsutta also travelled to various gatherings of tribal nations and Native peoples, including the Bureau of 40
Indian Affairs (BIA) “Trail of Broken Treaties” takeover82 in 1972, as well as various powwows
and events nationwide. It is therefore likely that in addition to standard powwow music,
Wamsutta would have heard a variety of music from a variety of Native peoples, including
Haudenosaunee83 music.
Pre-contact, the Wampanoag, who are considered Eastern Woodlands and Algonquian84
Native Americans, passed music down orally,85 and much like this pre-contact music, Wame
Oka-Suoh features antiphonal singing. As the Encyclopedia Britannica explains, “The most distinctive style element of Eastern Woodlands music is the use of call and response in many dance songs; the leader sings a short melody as a solo and is answered by the dancers in unison.
The alternation between leader and dancers creates an antiphonal texture that is otherwise rare among North American Indians.”86 An example of antiphonal writing can be found at letter C,
where the following rhythmic and melodic patterns are passed between the flute and the choir:
82 In November of 1972, a group of Native American activists travelled to Washington DC to demand better living conditions. They called this the “Trail of Broken Treaties” in reference to both the Trail of Tears and the fact that the United States government had broken every single treaty it had made with Native nations. An estimated 500-800 Native activists barricaded themselves inside the BIA. 83 The Haudenosaunee, referred to as the “Iroquois” by French settlers, are a confederacy of six nations – the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, and Tuscarora. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is sometimes referred to as the “Six Nations,” and the Haudenosaunee are considered Algonquian and/or Eastern Woodlands Native Americans. 84 Algonquian, which is thought to be a French bastardization of the Maliseet word “elehgumoqik,” refers to a general grouping of Native Americans who all speak languages in the same language family. 85 It is important to note that much of pre-contact Wampanoag music was lost to time as a result of assimilation and cultural destruction. However, a great deal of Wampanoag culture was able to stay intact, as both the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag were able to get federal recognition, which requires a tribe’s culture to have remained more- or-less intact. 86 Victoria Lindsay Levine, “Native American Musical Styles and Genres,” The Encyclopedia Britannica, Accessed February 27, 2021, Native American music - Native American musical styles and genres | Britannica. 41
The Eastern Woodlands influence can also be seen in Wamsutta’s choice to include a rattle, and
“rattles were also very important to the Algonqui[a]ns of the Northeast and to Native Americans
in general.”87 Also present in Wame Oka-Suoh are vocables, which, while not a distinctive
feature of Eastern Woodlands music, were common in Native American music as a whole.
Wamsutta defines the vocables “Whay-hi-hi-ya, Whay-hi-hi” as “Chant syllables, an individual’s
prayer words.” More common pan-Indian vocables include “yo-he-yo, we-yo he-ye” etc., which
“have no linguistic meaning, but are composed into the song – they are not improvised.”88
Despite there being plausible Eastern Woodlands and Algonquian influences on Wame
Oka-Suoh, it more closely resembles the “Indian Love Song” and Hollywood film scores than any pre-contact Algonquian or Eastern Woodland musical expression that has survived into the modern day. The feature that most suggests that Wamsutta was not aiming for historical accuracy, but rather a recognizable musical shorthand for Native Americans, is the overly simplified rhythmic patterns, a staple of the “primitiveness” of faux Native American music.
Because Wamsutta grew up in a virtually all-white town, he likely did not hear or experience much if any authentic Wampanoag music, especially because so little of it was able to survive into the 20th century. Much of Wampanoag traditional music would have been replaced
with English hymns and songs in an attempt to assimilate them. As Glenda Goodman explains in
87 Corbin Douglas Clark, “A Study of the Musical Culture of the Algonquin Indigenous Peoples of North America, Liberty University Honors Program Thesis (Spring 2013), 12. 88 Tony Isaacs, “A Brief Introduction to Plains Indian Singing,” indianhouse.com, 1990, A Brief Introduction to Plains Indian Singing (indianhouse.com) 42
“But They Differ From us in Sound: Indian Psalmody and the Soundscape of Colonialism 1551-
75” from The William and Mary Quarterly, the Indigenous people of Massachusetts sang psalms in their own language but set to English tunes. She goes on to add, “However, it is clear that
Indians did not sing psalms the way English men and women did—colonial commentators repeatedly noted that Indian psalmody sounded different, though they stopped short of explaining precisely how. The songs of Eastern Woodlands tribes featured an undulating melodic movement, and Indian converts unfamiliar with Western scales might have rested in the microtonal spaces between pitches. Furthermore, native songs featured asymmetrical rhythms that differed from the regular patterns predominating in psalm tunes. Finally, while some aspects of psalm singing would have resonated with indigenous practices (responsorial singing, for example), missionaries’ stylistic conventions regarding vocal timbre, vibrato, ensemble (how a group sang together), and the use of drums would have differed from those of native converts.”89
It is therefore clear that the Wampanoag were able to preserve some of their musical traditions,
but through a Christian lens.
Wamsutta instead would have grown up hearing film scores, and it is Wame Oka-Suoh’s
rhythmic simplicity that betrays its modern origins and the influence of Hollywood and, by
extension, the “Indian Love Song.” The overly simplified rhythms are clearly meant to convey a
certain “primitiveness,” for, while Eastern Woodlands music did include syncopated rhythms
and meter changes, they would often be more complicated. Corbin Douglas Clarke displays
89 Glenda Goodman, “‘But They Differ from Us in Sound:’” Indian Psalmody and the Soundscape of Colonialism, 1651–75,” The William and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 4 (2012): 796. 43
some examples of authentic Eastern Woodlands music,90 and the rhythmic differences between
them and Wame Oka-Suoh is striking. Below is a Passamaquoddy91 Dance Song:
Below is a Haudenosaunee song:
Below is an authentic Algonquian antiphonal song:
90 Corbin Douglas Clark, “A Study of the Musical Culture,” 16-17. 91 The Passamaquoddy are the Indigenous peoples who originally inhabited parts of Maine and western New Brunswick, Canada. 44
It becomes clear from observing these fragments of authentic music that the rhythms are nowhere near as simple as this rhythmic example found four measures before letter F in Wame
Oka-Suoh, which also constitutes the main rhythmic theme of the piece:
(Timpani part pictured)
It is especially interesting that Wamsutta used iambic rhythms in Wame Oka-Suoh instead
of the variation of a pattern of dactylic rhythms that were discussed in Chapter One. The offbeat
accents and iambic rhythms are distinctive throughout the composition, and they seem to be
meant to indicate a drumbeat. In Chapter One, it was noted that “Native Americans would also
sometimes be depicted via a pattern of sustained sixteenth notes, most likely meant to imitate a
drumbeat,” and although there are eighth notes instead of sixteenth notes in Wame Oka-Suoh,
they resemble an inversion of the second measure of “Silverheels: Indian Intermezzo:”
The passage in Wame Oka-Suoh also resembles the rhythmic pattern that begins in the vocal part 45
at measure nine of “Ottawah: An Indian Serenade” (1909) by T. Jay Flanagan.
Although the rhythmic tropes in Wame Oka-Suoh are not exactly the same as the tropes found in
most of the “Indian Love Songs” explored in Chapter One, it is clear that Wamsutta was
influenced by them and Hollywood film scores, as opposed to authentic Eastern Woodlands
music, in terms of rhythmic simplicity.
The fourth page of Wame Oka-Suoh, which contains a written explanation of the lyrics,
confirms that Wame Oka-Suoh is by no means meant to be an authentic recreation of Eastern
Woodlands music, but rather it is “written in modern style,” with the timpani representing “the
heartbeat of the people, the flute the voices of the winged creatures, and the rattles the rain drops
falling to the earth to supply it with water. The organ, the most forceful force (backed by hot air),
is the white man trying to control it all.” The choir, SAA (and later B), sings in prayer vocables
as well as in English.92 Doug Fraser, a staff writer at the Cape Cod Times, further explains that
92 Wamsutta’s use of English in the piece is thought-provoking because English is a colonial language, which Wamsutta would have been painfully aware of. It is possible that he chose to write parts of the piece in English because he probably thought the English-speaking audience would relate more to it or understand its meaning better, or, alternately, he simply may not have known enough Wampanoag at the time to write the poem without borrowing English words. 46
“James was not trying to create a cathedral in song like the ornately complex chorales written by
a Bach or Verdi. His is more a simple wetu, a stick-and-bark shelter in the woods amid a
Western lifestyle. It is short, just six or seven minutes long, with a chanting chorus of Indian
words mixed in with Western classical music from the flute and organ.”93
Of course, Wame Oka-Suoh is by no means as primitive as Fraser suggests. While the
music itself is intentionally simplistic, there is great complexity in what Wame Oka-Suoh would have meant to Wamsutta, and what he is grappling with within the music. For Wamsutta, Wame
Oka-Suoh likely would have been a chance to not only reclaim some of the musical tropes he had heard in Hollywood film scores, but also a chance to invent a unique musical identity for himself and his people in the 20th century.
The opening texture, the Moderato, is thought-provoking, with only the organ and the timpani making sound. Both the organ and the timpani crescendo to fortissimo, play one note with sudden emphasis (a sforzando), and then play one note subito piano. This represents an interplay between the voice of the white man (the organ) and the heartbeat of the people (the timpani). The fact that the two mirror each other in dynamics, and the fact that both crescendo to fortissimo, suggests that this is perhaps a wake-up call for the voice parts and the beginning of the final struggle between Indigenous peoples and settlers.
93 Doug Fraser, “Playing Frank’s Song,” Cape Cod Times, July 12, 2001, Playing Frank's song - z* Local News - capecodtimes.com - Hyannis, MA 47
(The moderato, which occurs four measures before letter A. Parts shown in descending order: timpani, organ.)
At letter A, the second altos begin shaking rattles and the sopranos and first altos chant,
rather than sing, the words “Hear this song, manitoo, hear our thunder proud and bold.”
Interestingly, Wamsutta does not specify that the vocal parts are representative of anything
greater, but from contextual clues it can be concluded that they are meant to represent the voice
of the Wampanoag (or perhaps more broadly, Eastern Woodlands Native Americans). First, they
chant a prayer to “Manitoo,”94 which is, “among Algonquian-speaking peoples of North America
the spiritual power inherent in the world generally. Manitous are also believed to be present in
natural phenomena (animals, plants, geographic features, weather); they are personified as spirit-
beings that interact with humans and each other and are led by the Great Manitou (Kitchi-
Manitou).”95 It makes logical sense that the only people who would be trying to communicate
with Manitou would be the Wampanoag or Eastern Woodlands Natives, heavily implying that
the voice parts are meant to represent Native peoples. Also noteworthy is the fact that the voice
parts, flute, rattles, and timpani seem to be calling upon Manitou, perhaps for protection against
94 Manitoo is usually spelled “Manitou.” 95 The Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, “North American Indian Religion: Manitou,” The Encyclopedia Britannica, Accessed February 27, 2021. Manitou | North American Indian religion | Britannica 48
the white man “represented by the organ,” which primarily plays sustained notes throughout the invocation of Manitou.
(The invocation of Manitou at letter A. Parts shown in descending order: flute, soprano, alto 1, alto 2.)
Five measures after letter A, the vocal parts drop out and the timpani and the flute are homorhythmic, playing the main rhythmic theme of the piece, while the organ plays its own rhythmic pattern which, while it does not clash with the other voice parts, also does not perfectly align with them. The fact that the timpani and the flute are homorhythmic suggests that the winged creatures and the heartbeat of the people are in sync with one another, and the fact that the flute’s melodic pattern in the final measure is the same as at the beginning of page 7 (just one octave higher) suggests that it too is playing an invocation to Manitou.
It is on page 8 where the interplay between the organ, which represents “the white man, trying to control it all,” and the other musical voices becomes noteworthy. In the main theme of the piece (letters B through C), the singing voices are homorhythmic, while the organ occasionally lines up with the singing voices and timpani (such as in the last measure of page 8).
Three measures after Letter D, the organ is perfectly aligned with the voices and flute, perhaps representing harmony or unity in the world: 49
(Three measures after letter D. Parts shown in descending order: flute, soprano tacet, alto 1, alto 2, timpani, organ.)
It is important to note that this rhythmic motif had been earlier introduced by the timpani, which represents the heartbeat of the people, suggesting that balance can only be maintained as long as
Indigenous voices are listened to.
Throughout the piece, however, the organ begins to fall out of sync with the other voices, often playing its own rhythmic motifs, which is likely meant to represent the “white man” trying to assert control over the other voices. Interplay between the organ and the timpani again juxtaposes the heartbeat of the people with the dominating voice of settlers. For example, seven measures after rehearsal number 7, the timpani has a solo: 50
The tempo then changes, and the organ overpowers the timpani, perhaps meant to represent the
“white man” trying to assert dominance over the heartbeat of the people:
(Instruments and voice parts, from top to bottom: alto tacet, timpani, organ.)
As the piece progresses, the organ also begins to introduce the themes that are going to be heard next. For example, on page 17 the organ plays the following motif:
which is then echoed by the other voice parts a page later (with the flute’s first melodic theme in diminution): 51
The organ also represents the white man asserting dominance over the other musical parts and having them fall in line with what it wants, exactly what happened to the Wampanoag when they were assimilated. This leads to the “Grandioso” section, Letter G, at full fortissimo, which perhaps represents the final struggle between the white man and Indigenous people.
(The grandioso at letter G. All parts at fortissimo.)
It is telling that after this section the right hand of the organ is tacet, the left hand of the organ is largely homorhythmic with the other musical parts (see eight measures before letter H), and, 52
more importantly, the organ begins dropping out of the musical texture altogether, often playing pedal tones or being silent.
(Eight measures before letter H. Parts pictured in descending order: baritone, timpani, organ.)
Finally, at letter J, all parts are homorhythmic except the flute, which represents the winged creatures flying above everything, and the piece concludes with unity among the voices.
(Letter J: Tutti) 53
In Wame Oka-Suoh, likely the only piece of music written in the 20th century in
Wampanoag by a Wampanoag tribal member, Wamsutta intentionally reclaims Hollywood rhythmic tropes for his own purposes and incorporates modern Western harmonies and instruments to convey his message. As Noel Tipton, the organist who performed the work in
2001, recalls of Wamsutta’s reasons for composing Wame Oka-Suoh, “He was trying to come to peace with his feelings for this country and trying to come to peace with himself.”96
96 Doug Fraser, “Playing Frank’s Song.” 54
Chapter Four: 21st Century Native American Reclamation of Walt Disney’s “What Made
the Red Man Red?” and Irving Berlin’s “I’m an Indian Too”
As was discussed in Chapter One, the way Native Americans have been depicted in
American popular music has been heavily influenced by the “Indian Love Song” and its musical successor, the Hollywood film score. This chapter will examine two more examples of musical racism in the Hollywood film score and the modern response to them. The first is the song “What
Made the Red Man Red?” from Walt Disney’s Peter Pan (1953), and the other is “I’m an Indian
Too” from Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s film adaptation of Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun
(1950).
Native American Representation in James Matthew Barrie’s Peter Pan
Peter Pan, one of the most famous characters in children’s literature, first appeared in
Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie’s 1902 novel, The Little White Bird. He would later appear in several other novels and plays, including Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904), and Peter and Wendy (1911). Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up starts off fairly innocuously; Peter Pan, a magical boy of about 12-13 years of age, is spotted one evening eavesdropping on the Darling children’s bedtime stories. Peter flees, and as a result of his hasty exit, he loses his shadow, which he later attempts to retrieve. In the process, he accidentally wakes the eldest Darling child, Wendy. Wendy reattaches his shadow to him, and Peter invites her to come to Neverland, which Barrie described as an island “with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and 55
princes with six elder brothers...and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.”97 It becomes clear throughout the story that Barrie viewed Neverland as a sort of fantasized America, complete with Native Americans and racial stereotypes specific to American popular culture.
For example, the “savages”98 alluded to in the above quote appear in the form of the
Piccaninny tribe. The name of the tribe is as thought-provoking as it is racist, as “The picaninny
was the dominant racial caricature of black children for most of this country’s [the United
States’] history… Picaninnies had bulging eyes, unkempt hair, red lips, and wide mouths into
which they stuffed huge slices of watermelon. They were themselves tasty morsels for alligators.
They were routinely shown on postcards, posters, and other ephemera being chased or eaten.
Picaninnies were portrayed as nameless, shiftless natural buffoons running from alligators and
toward fried chicken.”99 It is strange that Barrie chose to name the tribe after a racist caricature
of Black people, but perhaps he used it, as Sarah Laskow suggests, as “a blanket stand-in for
‘others’ of all stripes, from Aboriginal populations in Australia to descendants of slaves in the
United States.”100 Perhaps most insultingly of all, the Picaninny tribe refers to Peter Pan as “the
great white father,” a phrase Barrie had originally chosen to be the title of the play.101 This
97 J.M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy (New York: Sterling, 2008), 10. 98 It can be assumed that the term “savages” refers to the Native American characters in the play, as they are the only non-white characters, and the term “savage” was almost exclusively reserved for non-white people and cultures. Additionally, Native Americans were consistently referred to as savages, including in the U.S. Constitution, throughout much of colonial history. The reason for the use of this term, which invokes violent images and stereotypes, was likely to justify the settlers’ efforts to exterminate and subjugate the Native American populace. 99 David Pilgrim, “The Picaninny Caricature,” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University, October, 2000. https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/antiblack/picaninny/homepage.htm. 100 Sarah Laskow, “The Racist History of Peter Pan’s Indian Tribe,” Smithsonian Magazine Online, December 2, 2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/racist-history-peter-pan-indian-tribe-180953500/. 101 Ibid. 56
harkens back to the paternalism seen in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock,
with Native Americans being described as “wards of the
nation”102 by Justice Edward White.
Peter Pan and his friends also encounter Tiger Lily, “a
princess in her own right. The most beautiful of dusky Dianas
and the belle of the Picaninnies, coquettish, cold and amorous by
turns.”103 Tiger Lily is the daughter of the chief of the Picaninny
tribe, Great Big Little Panther.104 Like the front cover of “Reed
Bird: The Indian’s Bride,” which was discussed in Chapter One,
the image of Tiger Lily provided here can be seen as a specific type of sexual objectification
whereby the Native American woman is given light skin and phenotypically European features
as a way of making her more desirable to the white male
protagonist. The above image of Tiger Lily is from 1907, and
in it, Tiger Lily is phenotypically white, but has been given
black hair, buckskin, and a feather to seem more exotic. The
covers of many “Indian Love Songs,” including “Hiawatha’s
102 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. at 567 (citing Kagama, 118 U.S. at 383). United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 was a Supreme Court case that upheld the Major Crimes Act of 1885, which gave federal courts jurisdiction over Indian-on-Indian crimes. The case was later used to rule against Lone Wolf. See Chapter One. 103 J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan and Wendy (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), Chapter 5. It is important to note that Barrie has conflated African American and Native American culture and stereotypes. This is possibly because he was from Scotland, not America, and therefore may have viewed American culture as a hodgepodge of various racial stereotypes. Here, Tiger Lily is described as both a “Picaninny,” a racist term for African Americans, and the daughter of the chief of a Native American tribe which he has named after a racist caricature for African Americans. 104 The chief’s name can be viewed as a mockery of naming customs that were used in some Native American tribes. (For example, real Native American names include Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.) Here, Great Big Little Panther is a contradictory series of adjectives. For another example of mockery, see Adam Sandler’s 2015 film, The Ridiculous Six, which includes Native American characters named “Never Wears Bra,” “Smoking Fox,” and “Beaver Breath.” 57
Melody of Love” (1920) (above page, bottom left) by George W. Meyer, follow a similar
concept.
Tiger Lily and the other members of the Picaninny tribe speak in pidgin English, a
common trope for Native Americans. As Barbara A. Meek discusses in “And the Indian Goes
‘How!’: Representations of American Indian English in White Public Space,” this style of pidgin
English, which includes phrases such as “Squaw105 no dance, squaw get-um firewood,”106 draw
“on a range of nonstandard features similar to those found in ‘foreigner talk’ and ‘baby talk,’ as
well as a formalized, ornate variety of English; all these features are used to project or evoke
certain characteristics historically associated with ‘the White Man's Indian’…When the fictional
utterances of Indians have been commented on, such terms as ‘whooping,’ ‘grunting,’ and
‘primitive’ have been used to describe them, as well as phrases like ‘a weird sort of pidgin
English.’”107 This style of pidgin English is prominent in the “Indian Love Song,”108 as well as
the Hollywood film score. Like the rest of her tribe, Tiger Lily speaks in pidgin English,
although she “is slightly more loquacious,”109 according to Sarah Laskow, saying things like
“Peter Pan save me, me his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him.”110 The style of pidgin
English found in the original Peter Pan play and novel was taken to new extremes in Walt
Disney’s “What Made the Red Man Red?” from Peter Pan (1953).
105 See Chapter One for a discussion of the term “squaw.” 106 Barbara A. Meek, “And the Indian Goes ‘How!’: Representations of American Indian English in White Public Space,” Language in Society 35, no. 1 (2006): 100. 107 Ibid., 93-94. 108 As just one example, “Reed Bird: The Indian’s Bride” includes lyrics such as “Heap much scouting, war whoops shouting,” and “All time make big Injun dream about a pow-wow.” 109 Sarah Laskow, “The Racist History.” 110 Ibid. 58
“What Made the Red Man Red?”
“What Made the Red Man Red” is a song from Walt Disney’s 1953 adaptation of Peter
Pan. It features lyrics written by Sammy Cohen, known professionally as Sammy Cahn, and a musical score by Sammy Fain. In the film, Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, and the Darling children encounter a group of Native Americans, who refer to themselves as “Injuns,” which was, by
1953, considered an ethnic slur. The Native Americans are dressed in stereotypical Plains clothing (headdresses, buckskin, headbands and feathers, warpaint), and are shown as living in teepees. However, the tribe is also shown to have a mélange of Native American symbols and items, including a totem pole. Totem poles were and are used exclusively by tribes in the Pacific
Northwest, and so this can be seen as a version of the pan-Indianism discussed in
Chapter Two, where it was established that
Native American cultures were lumped into a monoculture in American popular culture.
The song begins when the chief of the tribe offers to “teach-um pale face brother all about Red Man,” and the children proceed to ask him three questions: “What Makes the Red Man Red?”, “When Did He First Say 'Ugg'?” and “Why
Does He Ask You 'How’?”
The lyrics are as follows:
Why does he ask you, "How?" Why does he ask you, "How?" Once the Injun didn't know All the things that he know now But the Injun, he sure learn a lot And it's all from asking, "How?" 59
Hana Mana Ganda Hana Mana Ganda We translate for you Hana means what mana means And ganda means that too
When did he first say, "Ugh!" When did he first say, "Ugh!" In the Injun book it say When the first brave married squaw He gave out with a big ugh When he saw his Mother-in-Law
What made the red man red? What made the red man red? Let's go back a million years To the very first Injun prince He kissed a maid and start to blush And we've all been blushin' since
You've got it from the headman The real true story of the red man No matter what's been written or said Now you know why the red man's red!
The lyrics “Hana Mana Ganda” are clearly meant to be a mockery of the vocables found in authentic Native American music, as they are set to the following rhythmic pattern:
This rhythmic pattern is similar to the rhythmic pattern of the “Oriental Riff” discussed in
Chapter One: 60
The rhythmic motif found in “What Made the Red Man Red?” is simple and likely meant to
portray primitiveness. The song also features war whoops throughout, and the lyrics themselves
are quite offensive. The use of the word “red” to describe Native Americans is considered
outdated and offensive, and it is worth noting that the animators actually colored the Native
Americans’ skin red.
On December 29, 2015,111 Sicangu Lakota hip-hop artist Frank Waln released his own
version of “What Made the Red Man Red?” entitled “What Makes the Red Man Red?” Waln
said in a Tweet, “I’ve always wanted to flip this racist Disney song.” As John Murray explains,
Waln had “always wanted to challenge what he saw as racist stereotypes in the 1953 animated
Disney film Peter Pan, particularly the song called What Makes [sic] the Red Man Red.”112 One
day, while browsing in a Minneapolis music store, Waln came across an old copy of the Peter
Pan (1953) soundtrack, “and his idea began the journey to reality.”113 Waln said of the song, “I
wanted to address the racism in colonial propaganda.”114
Waln’s “What Makes the Red Man Red?” begins with audio from the film where Wendy
and her two brothers express a desire to learn about the “Aboriginals” and the “Indians too.” The
111 The date when Waln chose to release the song is significant. On December 29, 1890, around 300 unarmed Lakota men, women, and children were slaughtered by the U.S. 7th Cavalry. This event is referred to as the Wounded Knee Massacre. 112 John Murray, “Breaking Stereotypes with Lyrics,” APTN National News, April 16, 2018, https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/breaking-stereotypes-with-lyrics/ 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid. 61
song includes a sample of the chorus of the original song (“What made the red man red?”), and then Waln enters singing,
Your history books (lies)/ Your holidays (lies) Thanksgiving lies and Columbus Day Tell me why I know more than the teacher Tell me why I know more than the preacher Tell me why you think the red man is red Stained with the blood from the land you bled Tell me why you think the red man is dead With a fake headdress on your head Tell me what you know about thousands of Nations Displaced and confined to concentration camps called reservations We died for the birth of your nation Hollywood portrays us wrong (like savages) History books say we're gone (like savages) Your god and church say we're wrong (like savages) We're from the Earth, it made us strong Here, Waln is addressing the genocide that the United States was founded on (“We died for the birth of your nation”), cultural appropriation (“With a fake headdress on your head”), and stereotypes (“Hollywood portrays us wrong”). Whereas the original song asserts that the red man is red because “He kissed a maid and start to blush, and we've all been blushin' since,” Waln declares that the redness is blood from the land. The echoes of “like savages” are a direct quote from the movie, where Wendy asks her brothers, “Do you want to stay here and grow up like savages?” The song continues:
Savage is as savage does The white man came and ravaged us Caused genocide/ look in my eyes and tell me who you think the savages was Here, Waln is flipping Wendy’s line about “savages” on its head. The term “savage” has been applied to Native Americans for hundreds of years. The Declaration of Independence refers to 62
Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages,”115 and Thomas Jefferson urged the government
to “pursue them to extinction.”116 This idea of the “savage” dehumanized117 Native Americans,
reducing them to little more than bloodthirsty, uncivilized animals. Colonel John Chivington, a
combatant in the American Civil War, said of the Native American population, “Kill ‘em all, big
and small, nits make lice.”118 This demonstrates the dehumanization of Native Americans and the views on extermination at the time. Referring to Native Americans as “savages” is therefore a loaded, highly problematic statement. In “What Makes the Red Man Red,” Waln is challenging this rhetoric of Native Americans being “savages,” referencing the genocide of Native
Americans, as a reason why settlers are the real savages.
Manifest destiny arrested what's best for me They kill my culture/ America made a mess of me You inherited everything we die for and all we get is a god damn mascot You made me red when you killed my people Made me red when you bled my tribe Made me red when you killed my people (Like savages/ Like savages) Here, Waln is once again playing with the question “What makes the red man red?” In the movie, one of the Darling children asks the question. Here, Waln is asserting that you (meaning white people) made the red man red when “you killed my people…bled my tribe.” He is taking the onus off the Native Americans and instead placing it on the shoulders of the colonizers. He is
115 Thomas Jefferson, et al, July 4, 1776, “Copy of Declaration of Independence,” 1776. 116 Thomas Jefferson, “Letter To Alexander von Humboldt,” December 6, 1813, http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl224.php 117 This 1879 quote on Indian boarding schools from Canadian Prime Minister John A. MacDonald demonstrates what was generally thought about Indians at the time: “When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write … [T]he Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.” 118 Katie Kane, “Nits Make Lice: Drogheda, Sand Creek, and the Poetics of Colonial Extermination,” Cultural Critique, no. 42 (1999): 81. 63
also refusing to provide a silly explanation for the red man being red, instead ensuring that the
bloody and violent history of the country is the focus of the song. His placement of the “like
savages” audio clip greatly alters the fabric of the piece, as in the original song the “savages”
refer to the Native Americans, whereas here, Frank Waln is making it clear that the “savages” are
actually the colonizers who “killed my people” (like savages). Through his use of samples from
“What Made the Red Man Red?”, as well as his illuminating lyrics, Waln brilliantly challenges
and reclaims stereotypes.
“I’m an Indian Too”
“I’m an Indian Too” is a song from the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun by Irving
Berlin. The musical is loosely based on the life of Annie Oakley, a sharpshooter who starred in
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. In 1950, Metro Goldwyn Mayer released a film version starring
Betty Hutton as Annie Oakley. Judy Garland was originally slated to star in the film, but she was
fired from the production for a variety of reasons, including clashes with the director and poor
health. Before she was fired, Garland recorded “I’m an Indian Too.” This version of “I’m an
Indian Too” was not shown until 1994 when it was featured in MGM’s documentary That’s
Entertainment III. Interestingly, Garland’s version of “I’m an Indian Too” differs wildly from
Hutton’s version in terms of lyrics, tone, and spectacle.
Garland’s version of “I’m an Indian Too” begins with her being dressed in Plains-style regalia. As Garland looks on in awe and confusion, the Native Americans119 begin to dance. A
119 As the lyrics will later state, the Native Americans are Sioux. It is not made clear which of the three main divisions of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or “Great Sioux Nation,” they are. 64
Native American man120 dressed in all white (including white face paint) does backflips on a
buckskin trampoline that is being held aloft by several other Native American men. Throughout
this, there are war whoops, a constant drumbeat, and stereotypical dancing. Every male character
wears a headdress, despite the fact that headdresses were only worn by male leaders who had
demonstrated great courage in battle. Garland is dragged through the crowd by the Native
American dressed in all white and presented to the chief. She asks, “Am I an Indian yet?” The
chief sticks a feather in her hair and she is declared “an Indian.” The piece begins with a male
choir singing “Ook-a-looka, Gah-hay-la-kinka, La-ha-hoo-way, Hoo-way.” This is either
supposed to approximate vocables, or, more likely, be a mockery of Siouxan languages. Garland
then sings:
Like the Chippewa, Iroquois, Omaha Like those Indians I'm an Indian too A Sioux ooh ooh! A Sioux ooh ooh! Some Indian summer's day Without a care I may run away With Big Chief Son-of-a-Bear And I'll have totem poles, tomahawks121, small papoose Which will go to prove I'm an Indian too A Sioux ooh ooh! A Sioux Like “Pass That Peace Pipe” from Good News (1947), discussed in Chapter One, “I’m an Indian
Too” includes the gimmick of listing Native American tribes, but here all of the tribes listed are
real. Both “Pass That Peace Pipe” and “I’m an Indian Too” also contain a limited range of notes.
120 The majority of actors in this sequence – if not all – were not Native American. Most of the performances in this song and dance sequence can therefore be considered some form of “brown face.” 121 The problematic nature of references to tomahawks is discussed in Chapter One. 65
This limited range is most likely meant to convey “primitiveness.” Like “What Made the Red
Man Red” from Peter Pan (1953), the song features an amalgamation of Native American
cultures: referencing totem poles, which belong to tribes in the Pacific Northwest; tomahawks,
which belong to Algonquian tribes; and the word “papoose,” which originally came from the
Narragansett tribe. In other words, none of the things Garland references would apply to Siouxan
people.
Hutton’s version of “I’m an Indian Too” is very different from Garland’s, as Hutton’s
comedic style was broader than Garland’s, therefore making the song more of a mockery.
Although Hutton and Garland both wear the same green fringed dress, the accessories they wear
with the dress serve to highlight the difference between their performances. While Garland wears
a few short necklaces, Hutton wears a very long necklace made up of large red and green beads
and animal teeth. Nothing like this was ever worn by the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, and it is highly
possible that Hutton’s necklace is meant to be a bastardization or mockery of the breastplates122
worn by Native Americans in real life.
Hutton dances throughout the sequence, and her dancing carries very strong racial
connotations. The choreography involves a sloped or hunched posture, bent limbs and frequent
jumping. As Christopher J. Smith discusses in his book Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and
Sound in American Cultural History, the posture of dancers is often racially coded. Smith says of
early American descriptions of Caribbean dancers, “it is also possible to identify creolized
movement vocabularies in nineteenth-century dance iconography, even if it is sometimes a
hidden language. When, in William Sidney Mount’s Dancing on the Barn Floor (1831), for
122 Breastplates were/are typically made from long bone or dentalium beads strung together on cord with beads and leather spacers. Breastplates can also be made from quills, bullet casings, buffalo horn, feathers, horsehair, shells and other natural materials. No breastplate resembles the necklace worn by Hutton. 66
example, we find one dancer’s torso upright, the head erect, and the shoulders in line with the
hips and the pelvis level, we are seeing the physical connotations of Anglo-European body
aesthetics. In contrast, when we see another dancer’s spine bent, the head canted forward or
backward, or the shoulders twisted out of line from the hips and the pelvis tilted, we are seeing,
equally clearly, Afro Caribbean body aesthetics.”123 Although this quote is not specifically about
how Americans depicted Native American body aesthetics via artwork, it does help to establish
an Anglo-European body aesthetic, which Hutton is clearly not emulating in “I’m an Indian
Too.” The end result is a more racially charged dance number than Garland’s rendition of “I’m
an Indian Too.”
Hutton sings:
Like the Seminole, Navajo, Kickapoo Like those Indians I'm an Indian too A Sioux ooh ooh! A Sioux ooh ooh! Just like Rising Moon, Falling Pants, Running Nose Like those Indians I'm an Indian too A Sioux ooh ooh! A Sioux ooh ooh! Some Indian summer's day Without a care I may run away With Big Chief Son-of-a-Bear And I'll have totem poles, tomahawks, small papoose Which will go to prove I'm an Indian too A Sioux ooh ooh! A Sioux
123 Christopher J. Smith, “A Tale of Two Cities I: Akimbo Bodies and the English Caribbean,” Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space, and Sound in American Cultural History (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2019), 32-33. 67
Like Peter Pan, “I’m an Indian Too” mocks Native American names (“Falling Pants,” “Running
Nose”). Alternate names presented in the full song (which was not included in the film) include
Battle Axe, Hatchet Face, Eagle Nose, and Big Chief Hole-in-the-Ground.
The 1491s, a Native American comedy troupe, released their own version of “I’m an
Indian Too” in 2012. The song addresses the elements of cultural appropriation present in the
original song (declaring oneself Native American,124 appropriating Native American items, etc.).
The video begins with a phenotypically white man wearing a headdress, sunglasses, and a loin
cloth with the word “hipster” written across his chest. As he begins to dance, an instrumental
version of “I’m an Indian Too” plays in the background as photographs of non-Native people
dressed as Native Americans flash across the screen. These images include a picture of a sports
fan dressed as an Indian chief, Cher dressed as a Native American, and “Pocahottie”125
Halloween costumes. The video then cuts to Native Americans listening to the song, and the
lyrics start. Although the lyrics are the same as the original song, they are primarily being sung
over images of real Native Americans. This seems to encourage unity among Native Americans,
taking the phrase “I’m an Indian Too,” which was originally supposed to be a mocking phrase,
and instead having it be a badge of honor (I’m an Indian Too!!).
124 Many Americans self-identify as Native American, usually due to family lore about a supposed Native American ancestor. Self-identification is not acceptable in Native American communities, as in order to be Native American, a Native American community must claim you, either via citizenship or kin relations. In response to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s claims to Cherokee ancestry, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate scholar Kim TallBear said, "Part of what’s troubling about this whole conversation is that it’s really a bunch of non-indigenous people debating whether or not [Warren is] Native American when none of them clearly know anything about our definitions of what it is to be Native American or Cherokee within that, and we want to privilege our definitions. Part of what white supremacy has done in the United States is allowed white people to define everybody else’s racial category." 125 This term “Pocahottie” refers to hypersexualized Native American Halloween costumes marketed for women. There are many problems with these costumes according to Native American activists and writers, including the hypersexualization of a group of women who have the highest sexual assault rates in the country, and the myriad of problems that come with dressing up as a race other than your own. 68
Conclusion
Depictions of Native Americans in American music have often been riddled with racism and cultural confusion. As I have shown in this thesis, the “Indian Love Song” contained some of the most influential musical tropes that came to denote Native Americans in music, such as the dactylic rhythms, chromaticism, “war whoop” grace notes, pentatonic harmony, and problematic lyrics we see repeated in the Hollywood film score and beyond. In other words, the “Indian Love
Song” was essentially the precursor to what was to come. As discussed in Chapter One, the
“Indian Love Song” was the result of a perfect storm of certain conditions, including the fetishization and appropriation of Native American identities, attempted assimilation at the hands of groups such as the Indian Rights Association, land runs authorized by the Secretary of the
Interior, the establishment of Indian reservations, the major blow dealt to tribes by the Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock Supreme Court case, and the deep-seated paternalism over Native peoples and tribes in the United States. The end result of this perfect storm was the commercialization of
Native American culture, and it is therefore no wonder that the “Indian Love Song” became a vehicle for white fears of – and wonderment of – Native Americans.
In the “Indian Love Song,” we see tropes that continued well into the 20th century, including Native Americans speaking in broken English, such as the line “Big bold Injun loves a little copper colored squaw” in “Reed Bird: The Indian’s Bride” (1903). Lines like this would continue to be written and sung, and the idea of Native Americans speaking in broken English largely entered the American psyche via Hollywood and “The Indian Love Song.” Other examples of this use of broken English are found in the songs explored in Chapter Four, including “What Made the Red Man Red?” from Walt Disney’s Peter Pan (1953), which includes lines such as: 69
When did he first say, "Ugh!" When did he first say, "Ugh!" In the Injun book it say When the first brave married squaw He gave out with a big ugh When he saw his Mother-in-Law
Of course, the tropes from the “Indian Love Song” lived on in other ways, including in
the music of actual Native American composers. In Wame Oka-Suoh, Wamsutta Frank James takes the idea of having a specific rhythmic motif to denote Native Americans and runs with it,
using iambic rhythms instead of some variation of a pattern of dactylic rhythms, as discussed in
Chapter One. In this way, he is taking a trope from the “Indian Love Song” and flipping it on its
head, by reversing it. For example, although there are eighth notes instead of sixteenth notes, the
main rhythmic pattern in Wame Oka-Suoh resembles an inversion of the second measure of
“Silverheels: Indian Intermezzo:”
(The main rhythmic theme of Wame Oka-Suoh as it first appears at letter F)
In Wame Oka-Suoh, Wamsutta plays with tropes from the “Indian Love Song” and the
Hollywood film score, fitting them together like puzzle pieces to create a more authentic artistic
expression.
We see similar acts of reclamation in “What Makes the Red Man Red?” by Frank Waln
and “I’m an Indian Too” by The 1491s. In “What Makes the Red Man Red?” Waln samples 70
audio from the original and these audio samples throughout his song in a strategic manner so that
new meaning is brought out. For example, Waln’s genius placement of the “like savages” audio
sample is used to interrogate who the real savages are. Similarly, The 1491s also use the original
lyrics of the song “I’m an Indian Too” in interesting ways. In their case, they do not alter the
lyrics, but rather use visuals to suggest a new meaning to them. In that way, they are
interrogating and reclaiming the original work, making the lyric “I’m an Indian Too” a statement
of pride, rather than mockery.
As American society has progressed into the 21st century, so has its relationship with
Native Americans. In many ways, white Americans continue to “play Indian,” this time through
pseudoscientific DNA tests that purport to connect a person with their Indigenous heritage, a
modern extension of the idea that everything Native American belongs to American society as a
whole, even Native American identities.126 White contractors claiming to be Cherokee have
walked away with millions of dollars in contracts meant for minority businesses,127 non-Native
Americans continue to dress up as Native Americans for Halloween, and non-Indigenous film
makers continue to create films about Indigenous peoples, although now sometimes under the
guise of supposed Indigenous heritage.128 As American popular culture has gone global, so have
126 Kim TallBear, a Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate scholar, explains this phenomenon further, writing about Elizabeth Warren’s Native ancestry claims: “Part of what’s troubling about this whole conversation is that it’s really a bunch of non-Indigenous people debating whether or not [Warren is] Native American when none of them clearly know anything about our definitions of what it is to be Native American or Cherokee within that, and we want to privilege our definitions. Part of what white supremacy has done in the United States is allowed white people to define everybody else’s racial category… Non-Indigenous Americans will never stop making claims to all things Indigenous: bones, blood, land, waters, and identities. The US (and in this case Warren) continue to appropriate every last thing.” 127 For more information, see this Los Angeles Times article. 128 The allegations that Michelle Latimer, a filmmaker who has (at various points over her career) claimed to be “Algonquin, Métis and French heritage, from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg (Maniwaki), Quebec” is not Indigenous come to mind. 71
Native American stereotypes. Of particular noteworthiness is the K-pop industry, which has
turned Native American (and African American) cultures into an aesthetic.129
However, in America, there has been a shift towards authentic Native American music in recent years, due in large part to the reclamation of past racist tropes130 and an emergence of a
Native American musical scene. In this thesis, I have explored a painful history of assimilation,
racism, and stereotyping in American popular music. I have also examined contemporary Native
American musicians’ attempts at rehabilitating Native American representation in music through
interrogation and reclamation of certain tropes. Although there are new problems facing Native
Americans in 21st century music, especially from non-American artists, what we have seen is that by promoting and listening to real Native American voices, and by interrogating the past, the
United States can move away from mockery and towards authenticity in its popular music.
129 Many offensive K-pop music videos have been released over the years. As one example, K-pop girl group T- ARA’s released a 2010 music video for their song “Yayaya.” In it, Native Americans are derided through “primitive” singing meant to mimic vocables, as well as dancing similar to the kind found in Betty Hutton’s rendition of “I’m an Indian Too,” as well as extensive use of face paint, tipis, feathers, and other visual signifiers of Native Americans. T-ARA is far from the only K-pop group engaging in these practices, with other K-pop groups and artists, such as BTS, Twice’s Jihyo, EXID’s Hani, and MC Mong engaging in them as well. 130 Oxford Languages defines “reclamation” as “the process of claiming something back or of reasserting a right.” 72
Appendix
Ex. 1 – “Reed Bird: The Indian’s Bride” by Dave Reed, Jr. 73
Ex 2: Cover of “Reed Bird: The Indian’s Bride” by Dave Reed, Jr.
Ex. 3: The “Oriental riff” in its most basic form.
74
Ex. 4 – “Indianola” by S.R. Henry and D. Onivas.
Ex. 5 – “Silverheels Indian Intermezzo” by Neil Moret
Ex. 6 – Beginning of “Hiawatha: A Summer Idyl” by Neil Moret
75
Ex. 7 – “Hiawatha: A Summer Idyl” by Neil Moret 76
Ex. 8 – “Silver Bell” by Percy Wenrich 77
Ex. 9 – “A Wigwam Courtship” by Sadie Koninsky 78
Ex. 10 – “Navajo” by Egbert Van Alystyne
Ex. 11 – “Pass that Peace Pipe” by Roger Edens, Hugh Martin, and Ralph Blane
79
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