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Indian Melodies (1845) by Thomas Commuck

Title

Indian Melodies (1845) by Thomas Commuck

Description

Thomas Commuck (Narragansett) published his hymnal, Indian Melodies, in 1845. While Commuck clearly states that the purpose of this collection is to “make a little money,” to provide for the needy as well as his family, and to “spread the knowledge of the Redeemer” (vi), he actually did far more. Indian Melodies provided an assertion of intellect and culture by a Native American in a time of great prejudice. Commuck was not unaware of his position: "Add to this the circumstance of having been born, not only in obscurity, but being descended from that unfortunate and proscribed people, the Indians, with whose name a considerable portion of the enlightened American people are unwilling to associate” (iii). Today, there are more books published by Native Americans regarding their own cultures and histories. But while times have changed, the continual oversight of Commuck’s book of Indian Melodies has not, even though it is one of the earliest books to be authored by a Native American regarding Native American culture. 

Indian Melodies was written while Thomas Commuck lived in Wisconsin. Commuck states that he authored the book; by this, he means that he both collected learned songs and wrote his own as well. While the majority of songs seem to be written by Commuck, some, such as the very first song, “Pequot,” have “Words by Dr. Watts” or another such suggestion. The songs themselves are both religious and richly expressive and their context consists of everyday life, hardships, harmony, and the connection one has with a higher power. No matter the context, the songs continually consist of a descriptive language of emotion or commentary on various experiences. Some of the most powerful songs are those including religious experience and natural imagery. The song, “Flathead” is able to represent behaviors and characteristics of the Flathead Indian Nation, while using the concept of a higher power, harmony, fellowship, and natural imagery. The mixture of all these things creates a noble representation of the Flathead people,

Blest are the sons of peace
Whose hearts and hopes are one
Whose kind designs to serve and please
Through all their actions run

Blessed is the pious house
Where zeal and friendship meet
Their songs of praise, their mingled vows,
Make their communions sweet

Thus on the heavenly hills
The saints are blest above
Where joy, like morning dew distils
And all the air is love (Commuck 10).

Commuck writes of their personal characters, how they spend time together, their belief in heaven, and importantly, their connection with nature. The fact that in the same stanza referencing the Flatheads’ beliefs, nature is entwined, exemplifies the fact that while Native Americans before and in Commuck’s time may have converted to Christianity, they have not lost their roots in the process. Everything here is positive and represents one Native American’s view, of a fellow Native people. In this way, Commuck not only uses Indian Melodies as a form of expression, he also uses it in a way that positively asserts Native Americans.  

Looking at Commuck’s Indian Melodies in comparison with a few others written from around the same time, to more modern collections, one is able to see what exactly makes Commuck’s book so important in the history of written music publications. In 1907, the first copy of The Indians’ Book was published. Written by Natalie Curtis, The Indians’ Book is a collection of songs, stories, and art by Native Americans. Many of the songs are written in the tribe’s original language-some with translations underneath. The focus of the collected songs has less to do with religion and context, and more to do with Curtis's own enjoyment in collecting songs from Native American people: “The unstudied song of primitive man is as soulful in its purpose as developed art, but its simple expression of far simpler things” (xxvi). This statement displays how, while Curtis sees the importance of preserving Native American songs, they were not considered equal to other “developed art” of her time.

In contrast to Curtis’s view, over 50 years prior Commuck wrote and published a collection of Native American songs and asserted himself as a man of purpose and intellect. This author appears as an individual who could hold his own in a white world. Curtis makes remarks such as, “Let us pause in the stress of our modern life to listen to the ancient lore of our own land” (xxix). In Indian Melodies, Commuck’s language is eloquent and displays how vocally aware and active Commuck is in the modern world; while The Indians’ Book, highlights creative expression, it does so without the assertion of equality. Curtis’s book is beneficial because it brings to light the talent and beauty of Native American artistic expression via songs and stories, but is still filtered through the eyes of a culture who still see Native Americans as being a race needing to catch up to modernity.

Music in America: An Anthology from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Close of the Civil War. 1620-1865 was published in 1964 by W.W. Norton & Company. It is a collection of songs, and their histories in America. The first three chapters consist of “Psalmody in New England,” “First Instruction Books and Singing Schools,” and “Music of the Ephrata Cloister and the Moravians,” but the latter half of the book pertains to Commuck’s time. Chapter four is entitled “Native American Composers” yet not one of the composers listed is an actual Native American. Instead, they are men, at least second generation, of Europeans who happened to be physically born in America. Commuck and these American born composers have similarly named their songs based on people, places, and events. They also both write of religious experience and hope, but their differences lay in their context. Francis Hopkinson wrote the song, A Toast, in order to show respect for “George Washington, emerging as the military and political leader of our new nation” (Gleason, et al 97). All of the composers in Music in America write their songs based on the white man’s experience in their “new nation.”

Commuck makes the point that, “As the tunes in this book are the work of an Indian…the tunes therefore will be found to assume the names of noted Indian chiefs, Indian females, Indian names of places, &c. This has been done merely as a tribute of respect to the memory of some tribes that are now nearly if not quite extinct; also as a mark of courtesy to some tribes with whom the author is acquainted” (vi). Both the English-American born composers and Commuck write songs of hope, respect, and historical and religious significance, but men such as Hopkinson are celebrating their “new nation” while Commuck’s hymns are holding onto the existence of one that’s being threatened.

Collections of English-American music as well as Native American music have been written and published by white men and women from before Commuck’s time to today, but Indian Melodies has been a continual oversight. Commuck’s collection, authored by a Native American regarding Native Americans, asserted himself in a world dominated by English psalmody. In the midst of oppression and after years of colonization and Christianization, Commuck’s book displays how the oral tradition of songs and hymns asserts Native Americans as academic, creative and religious equals.

Works Cited

Brooks, Joanna. American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Bross, Kristina, and Hilary E. Wyss. Early Native Literacies in New England: A Documentary and Critical Anthology. Univ of Massachusetts Press, 2008.

Commuck, Thomas, Thomas Hastings, and Samson Occom. Indian Melodies: By Thomas Commuck. Harmonized by Thomas Hastings. G. Lane & C.B. Tippett, 1845.

Contributors, See Notes Multiple. A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs; Intended for the Edification of Sincere Christians, of All Denominations. By Samson Occom, Minister of the Gospel. [Text]. Gale ECCO, Print Editions, 2010.

Curtis, Natalie. Indians’ Book. Dover Pub. Co., 1968.

Kellaway, William. The New England Company, 1649-1776: Missionary Society to the American Indians. Barnes & Noble, 1962.

Love, William DeLoss. Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England. Syracuse University Press, 1899.

Marrocco, William Thomas, and Harold Gleason. Music in America: An Anthology from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Close of the Civil War, 1620-1865. W.W. Norton, 1964.

Moore, MariJo. Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing. Nation Books, 2003.

Spinney, Ann Morrison. Passamaquoddy Ceremonial Songs: Aesthetics and Survival (Native Americans of the Northeast: History, Culture, and the Contemporary). 1st ed. Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2010.

Troutman, John W. Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934. University of Oklahoma Press, 2012.

Indian Walls - Narragansett Tribal Stonemasons in New England. 2008.

“Brothertown Indians.” F576 W81 (January 1, 1998).

“Divine Hymns, or Spiritual Songs; for the Use of Religious Assemblies and Private Christians."

 

 

Creator

Commuck, Thomas

Source

Print copy reprinted by:

Brucker, Rosie.
All About your Biz.4569 North 105th Street Wauwatosa, Wisconsin 53225

Online copy: Google Books scan itself from Columbia University.

Date

1845

Contributor

Michelle Hahnl UNH '12

Language

English

Type

Document

Format

jpeg

Identifier

DV-271

Geolocation

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