Densmore, who was funded partly by the Smithsonian, which still houses the recordings, started her life's work just after the new century began and continued until after 1950. She grew up in Red Wing, Minn., where she could hear the drumming and singing of the nearby Dakota. She later wrote, "If my mother had told me that Indians were savages, I might have been afraid to go to sleep. Instead I was told they were people with different customs from our own and there was no fear in my mind. I fell asleep night after night to the throb of the Indian drum."
Densmore was the subject of an American Radio Works documentary from the 1990s, which can be heard here. Stephen Smith of ARW said that despite her many years of close work with native people, she still held an attitude toward them that seems hard to fathom:
When Indians failed to dissolve into the American melting pot as she predicted, Densmore’s sympathy hardened, Smith said. During her decades of research, she said: “I never let them criticize the government nor the white race, nor come across with any sob-stuff about the way they had been treated, as a race.”More evidence that it's hard for humans to hear anything but what they want to hear, even when they can listen to the music.
2 comments:
I am a little confused. This posting is called "Margaret Densmore", who I believe was the younger sister of Frances, and a sometime assistant. Do you know anything about Margaret or their family? I agree that Frances' comments are disheartening to us today, but the more I learn about history, the more I see how most people, are a least somewhat, products of their time. For example, parents out of love for their children, often teach protective behaviors that they would not in an ideal world.
I found you on a search for Margaret, so do not know anything about your blog--apologies for this sidestep.
Thanks for your comment, Cindy - I have corrected the headline. Not sure how I typed in the name Margaret there when I wrote this post back in 2016, but clearly it was an error and should have been Frances.
I agree that people are products of their time, but as is often pointed out, there are other people who are also products of the same time who did not hold those views. This post and the documentary it was based on were pointing out that a person like Frances would have seemed particularly well-positioned, for a European American, to be one of the people who could understand and value indigenous peoples and recognize the damage of colonization.
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