hat brought together in these pages has hitherto
appeared only in scientific publications, where it has attracted the
lively interest of specialists both in Europe and America. It is now
offered in a more popular form, that the general public may share
with the student the light shed by these untutored melodies upon the
history of music; for these songs take us back to a stage of
development antecedent to that in which culture music appeared among
the ancients, and reveal to us something of the foundations upon which
rests the art of music as we know it to-day._

_Many of the stories and songs in this little book are now for the
first time published. All have been gathered directly from the people,
in their homes, or as I have listened to the earnest voice of the
native priest explaining the ancient ceremonials of his fathers. The
stories are close translations, losing only a certain picturesqueness
and vigour in their foreign guise; but the melodies are exactly as
sung by the Indians._

_Indian myths embodying cosmic ideas have passages told in song,
tribal legends have their milestones of song, folk-tales at dramatic
points break into song; but into these rich fields I have not here
entered. This collection reveals something of the wealth of musical
and dramatic material that can be gleaned outside of myth, legend, and
folk-lore among the natives of our country._

_Aside from its scientific value, this music possesses a charm of
spontaneity that cannot fail to please those who would come near to
nature and enjoy the expression of emotion untrammelled by the
intellectual control of schools. These songs are like the wild flowers
that have not yet come under the transforming hand of the gardener._

ALICE C. FLETCHER.

PEABODY MUSEUM,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

STORY AND SONG OF THE HE-DHU'-SHKA 3

STORY AND SONG OF ISH'-I-BUZ-ZHI 14

STORY AND SONG OF THE LEADER 21

THE OMAHA TRIBAL PRAYER 26

STORY AND SONG OF THE BIRD'S NEST 30

A TRYSTING LOVE-SONG 34

STORY AND SONG OF THE DEATHLESS VOICE 39

STORY AND SONG OF ZO_N_'-ZI-MO_N_-DE 45

LOVE-SONG. Poetical Transcription by Miss E.D. Proctor 49

STORY AND SONG OF