Frances Densmore: American Indian Songs (Part One)

Translations selected by Kenneth Rexroth

CHIPPEWA

Mide Songs

In form like a bird,
It appears.

*

The ground trembles
As I am about to enter.
My heart fails me
As I am about to enter
The spirit lodge.

*

The sound of flowing waters
Comes toward my home.

*

Now and then there will arise,
Out of the waters,
My Mide brothers,
The otters.

*

Beautiful as a star,
Hanging in the sky,
Is our Mide lodge.

*

What are you saying to me?
I am arrayed like the roses,
And beautiful as they.

*

The sound is fading away.
It is of five sounds.
Freedom.
The sound is fading away.
It is of five sounds.


Dream Song of Thunders

Sometimes
I go about pitying
Myself,
While I am carried by the wind
Across the sky.


Dream Song

From the half
Of the sky
That which lives there
Is coming, and makes a noise.


Dream Song

The heavens
Go with me.


My Love Has Departed

A loon,
I thought it was.
But it was
My love’s
Splashing oar.


Love Song

Do not weep.
I am not going to die.


Love Song

He must be very sorrowful,
Since he so deceived
And forsook me,
During My young days.


Love Song

I will go and talk with
My sweetheart
The widow.
I love My sweetheart
The widow.


Love Song

You desire vainly
That I seek you.
The reason is,
I come
To see your younger sister.


Love Song

Oh!
I am thinking,
Oh!
I am thinking,
I have found
My lover!
Oh!
I think it is so!


Dance Song

Strike you
Our land
With curved horns.


Death Song

The odor of death,
I discern the odor of death
In front of my body.


War Song

The noise of passing feet
On the prairie.
They are playing a game
As they come,
These men.


Song of the Butterfly

In the coming heat
Of the day
I stood there.


Begging Dance Song

Maple sugar
Is the only thing
That satisfies me.


Dream Song

As my eyes
Search the prairie,
I feel the summer in the spring.
Whenever I pause
The noise Of the village.


NORTHERN UTE

Dance Song

On a mountain,
The noise of the wind.


MANDAN AND HIDATSA

Love Song

A certain maiden
To the garden goes.
Lonely, She walks.

[Kenneth Rexroth’s introduction to Densmore’s translations of American Indian song-poems appeared earlier on Poems & Poetics, & the second part of his selection from her work will be posted later. Additional Densmore works are available as free PDF scans at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=densmore%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts%20AND%20subject%3A%22Indians%20of%20North%20America%20--%20Music%22]