The so-called Indian medicine-songs cannot be understood without a thorough insight into the habits and superstitions of these peoples, and it would only fatigue you were I to repeat them to you.
I prefer to turn to some of the less esoteric productions of the native muse, to some of its expressions of those emotions which are common to mankind everywhere, and which everywhere seek their expression in meter and rhythm.
A recent German traveler, Mr. Theodore Baker, furnishes me with a couple of simple, unpretending but genuinely aboriginal songs which he heard among the Kioway Indians. One is a
SONG OF A KIOWAY MOTHER WHOSE SON HAS GONE TO WAR.
Young men there are in plenty,
But I love only one;
Him I’ve not seen for long,
Though he is my only son.
When he comes, I’ll haste to meet him,
I think of him all night;