Frances Densmore

“ The spirituals bring a thrill that we can- not get from the songs of the Indians. It is easier to respond to an exaggeration of one's own concepts of personal salvation than to realize that a man is feeling relig- ious when he sings about a Thunderbird. Personal salvation, vicarious or otherwise, had no place in the religious thought of the old-time Indian, and it is a question whether he believed that his conduct in this life had any effect on his happiness after death. Indeed, the term Great Spirit has been attributed to the Indian without his knowledge or consent. ”

“ Who has such good claws as the bear for digging roots? When a doctor went to treat a patient he would inspire confidence by mentioning his friend the bear, and by saying that he would now sing the songs taught him by the bear for such a case as that before him. ”

“ Songs came with dreams, and if those songs could give health, wealth and success on the warpath it seems a bit cavilling to insist that they should also be pretty tunes, like "My Wild Irish Rose." Long ago a man wrote in a book that a certain tribe had no music,
as he had been among them six months. and never heard them singing around the camp. I found an abundance of music in that region. The writer, however, was correct in his idea that the Indians have no "popular" music. They do not mention bananas in their songs. They do not play with music. ”

“ Such an abscess is most distressing to a patient. It may become chronic, lasting for months, and its drainage is extremely difficult. Why should a simple operation, done in the flash of an eye, result in such injury? Some authorities have offered the explanation that pus is sucked down into the lung, and, recently, Schleuter and Weidlein have been able to reproduce such abscesses in animals. by putting small particles of tonsils into the blood stream. The particles become lodged in the lung arteries and there pro- duce abscesses like those seen in man after the removal of tonsils. ”

“ Marriages among the Indians in the old days, as a matter of fact, were arranged by the parents of the young people, and an old Indian lady once told me that brides usually cried a good deal. She added that of course the parents knew what was best and that the young people got used to each other after a while. She said she thought that marriages on that basis were happier than when the young people managed for themselves. ”

“ This experimental finding may alter the current method of removing tonsils, and so we may hope to have fewer lung abscesses than are now seen. Surgery has made tremendous strides in reducing the mortality following opera- tions, but there yet remains the menace of lung complications. One person in every thirty to fifty operated upon develops such a complication, and one in every 150 to 175 dies. It is only recently that we have gained a reasonable explanation for most of them. As we learn the mechanism of their production, we are better able to provide remedies. ”

“ The question was not the quality of his voice, but whether he could bring rain by his sing- ing, make the crops grow, or cure the sick. The acid test of a song was: will it work? A man might have received the song in a dream or bought it from some other medi- cine man, but he must have within him- self the power to make it do what it was intended to do. Otherwise he became ridic- ulous in the eyes of his little world and sang no more. Many Indian songs are the unwritten classics of the tribes, and the Indians con- sider it a pleasure and privilege to hear them. ”

“ The Indian religion was practical, and concerned health, long life and the food supply. The Indians, like the old Jews, combined the priesthood and the medical profession, and did it so successfully that their good health has become proverbial. ”

“ But the Indians believed that temperance in all things, self-control, and many doses of carefully-selected herbs were essential to a long life. We pride ourselves on conquering nature, but the Indian re- garded nature as his friend. ”

“ Other factors that may cause them are pre-existing lung disease and the weakened general condition of the aged. These we are able to control by tak- ing pains to make careful examinations of all persons before they submit to operation, and by eliminating the unfit. Within the last few years surgeons have become familiar with other affections aris- ing in the lung after operation, one a con- dition in which the entire lung on one side is collapsed, airless and so useless; the other, one in which an abscess develops in one lung. ”

“ Folk-Lore sidered bad form, to say the least, among the old Indians. This, however, does not trouble the public because it doesn't know it. The audience smiles and says, "Love is always the same, in every race. ”

“ Most students of the condition believe that they arise from the field of operation, and may be caused by infection of the tissues, by injury to the tissues, or by the motion of the part of the body operated upon. ”

“ It is a gift from the spirits, to be used with due respect and a definite purpose, which usually concerns the wel- fare of the tribe or an individual. The Indians never sang for exhibition, although there were standards of excel- lence for the singers who sat around the drum and provided music for the dancing. ”

“ A search of the lungs revealed numerous smaller plugs or emboli lodged in smaller arteries; while not sufficient in themselves to cause death, they gave changes resem- bling pneumonia. These small emboli had undoubtedly, in many instances, been the source of the changes which, by examina- tion of the chest, had been interpreted as pneumonia. Here, then, there developed a new conception of the cause of this dis- tressing complication. ”

“ They wan- dered around the edge of the village, too- tling pretty tunes, but no mother who regarded the proprieties would let her daughter go out of the lodge in response. The young man could come inside to do his courting and grandmother would sit up until he went away, putting a fresh piece of wood on the fire if she thought it advisable to let him linger. Sometimes a young man put words to the tunes he played on the flute, but even that was not general. ”