Songs of the Teton Sioux

Introduction

THIS WORK has been written in the belief that the rich body of literature in the oral tradition, created by the American Indians centuries before and after the arrival of the white man, is worthy of preservation and scholarly attention.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the origins and methods of Indian poetry as well as the human needs which inspired its development. The songs of the Teton or Western Sioux constitutes its primary subject matter. As with the language arts within the Western tradition, there are distinctions made between prose and poetry in primitive societies. Prose is the language of everyday affairs, while poetry is language clothed in dignity, seriousness, rhythm, form and cosmic belief by which the primitive sought understanding and ultimately power over the mysterious forces which surrounded him and shaped his environment. Poetry was his attempt to "trap the universal mystery in a net of magical words."

The present study attempts to present the characteristic features of the primitive imagination, the primitive's imaginative grasp of reality, which is so strikingly different from our own. The primitive, for example, does not recognize our dichotomies. In his life as in his art there are no Cartesian or Aristotelian cleavages to be reconciled. There is instead a sense of oneness which permeates his thought and is articulated in his poetry.

The poetry of the Sioux is analyzed for method and construction. Primitive poetry is highly impressionistic; therefore, symbolism is one of the keys to understanding, as it is in Indian graphic arts. The language of metaphor, secret language, archaic language, as well as the stylistic devices of contrast, variation, incremental repetition, parallelism, personification, apostrophe and euphony are examined in their relationship to the composition and purpose of the songs. Songs are classified according to types and placed in their traditional settings; e.g., individual and ceremonial, spiritual and secular, pure, and those showing evidence of cultural contact with outside influences. The probable degree of acculturation is considered by comparing older and more recent versions of ceremonial poetry. Problems of translation, such as the multiple meanings of words, the lack of abstract terms, and the difficulties of literal translation are investigated. The Lakota language itself is examined as an effective vehicle for the composition of primitive poetry. The study includes the recording, translation, interpretation and analysis of the songs of the Teton Sioux as a literary art form.

The study of Indian poetry is a study not only of the poems themselves, but the contexts in which they are presented. Many songs are absolutely meaningless without a knowledge of the setting in which they appear. The study of such poetry then must include examinations of relevant contexts?physical, psychological, and spiritual.

Hence this work must also describe the Indians of the Plains?a people for whom the early nineteenth century was culturally a Golden Age. It was an epic age, an heroic age that existed in curious juxtaposition to the encroaching mechanical civilization. It was an age of hunting and warfare and the never-ending search for glory. It was a time in which an Odysseus or a Beowulf might have cried out for the moment to linger. Indeed, the struggles of Odysseus and his followers on their homeward journey seem reenacted in the odyssey of Chief Big Foot and his band of Sioux over the trail of tears, and Beowulf's struggle against wyrd seems as tragic as that of Sioux heroes Crazy Horse and Red Cloud. Even the tragic inevitability of the Greek drama seems to hang over the Sioux Nation like an ominous cloud, threatening not only the individual hero, but the extinction of a people as well. No spot in Illium holds more tears than Wounded Knee.

To the Sioux, singing was a natural function, his song representing usually either a spontaneous overflow of the emotions or a carefully disciplined contribution to a ceremony or ritual designed to bring about a specific end. In either case it seems as natural as breath. Primitive song was not art for art's sake, but for life's sake?an integral part of the primitive's being, for it was the one significant way in which he showed his dependency on the unseen powers. His songs covered human experience from birth to death, and even beyond to the "spirit trail."

To the modern reader the songs of the Sioux are a challenge. This challenge is to see through Indian eyes the world and man's relationship to it clearly, simply and with fresh vision and a new insight. Perhaps the challenge is not to see only, but to feel?to feel the magic and wonder and, at the same time, the reality of human experience which moved man to song.