While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The investigations described in the introduction to the first part of this
volume included the work of collecting dance and medicine songs. The greater
part of these came from the Creeks of Taskigi town, one of the tribal
subdivisions of the Creek Nation. A smaller number of songs were obtained from
the Yuchi.
Frequent reference will be made in the following pages to the account of the
Yuchi in Part I of this volume. Reference will also be made to an account of the
Creeks by the author, published in the Memoirs of the American Anthropological
Association, Vol. 2, No. 2. The last named paper will be designated M. A. A. A.
The Creek songs were all sung by Kabítcimála,
"Raccoon Leader" (the late Laslie Cloud), a prominent leader and shaman; the
Yuchi songs by Fagoεonwī'
"Comes out of the thicket," Kūbn "Creek
Indian," Ekīlané
"It has left me," and Jim Tiger. A few Shawnee love songs, obtained incidentally
from Charley Wilson, who belongs to the small band of Shawnees who consort with
the Yuchi, have been included. The songs were all recorded on the phonograph,
the syllables and texts being taken down independently with accompanying
explanations at the time when they were sung.