Folk Song Studies in Idaho
by Jan Harold Brunvand
Western Folklore, Vol. 24, No. 4, The Idaho Number (Oct., 1965), pp. 231-248
Folk Song Studies in Idaho
JAN HAROLD BRUNVAND
1917-1937
THE STUDY OF FOLK SONGS IN Idaho had an auspicious beginning in 1917 when George Morey Miller became head of the Department of English at the University of Idaho. Holding a B.A. from Indiana University (1892), an M.A. from Harvard (1898), and a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg (1911), Professor Miller was well trained in "philology," including folklore, as it was studied at the time. His great love, second only to Shakespeare, was British ballads, and he had earlier published a notable contribution to the "communal origins" theory which is credited with influencing F. B. Gummere's ideas in 1907 in The Popular Ballad.[1]
As head of the department, until his death in 1937, George Morey Miller was legendary as a colorful figure on the campus and an inspirational teacher. Some of the anecdotes about him still circulate orally-his somewhat eccentric dress and habits, his dramatic flair in the classroom, his ballad singing both in class and out, and his unanimous rating by generations of students
as their favorite teacher.[2] Beginning in 1923, when an M.A. in English was first given, six theses that dealt comparatively with British or American ballads were approved under him.[3]
One of Professor Miller's students, Leona Nessly Ball, wrote the only article devoted entirely to Idaho folklore that has appeared in the Journal of American Folklore; it described the survival of play parties in North Idaho.[4] Beginning with her professor's statement that, "It is possible [that play parties] may still be found in ... rustic neighborhoods," [5] Miss Ball published
some two dozen Idaho texts, many with tunes. The format was an account of a typical Idaho rural "school entertainment." She also listed numerous titles of other play parties known in the region.
The most interesting folk song thesis done under George Morey Miller was that of Thomas Edward Cheney, submitted in 1936: "Folk Ballad Characteristics in a Present-Day Collection of Songs." Cheney, now an active western folklorist in the English department at Brigham Young University, wrote that, after having his interest fired by a seminar in 1933, he collected for some two and one-half years in southeastern Idaho. He turned up seventy-one ballads and ballad-like pieces which he classified and discussed in relation to their similarity or dissimilarity to the Child canon. Most of his informants were elderly and had never seen the songs they sang in print; no tunes were collected. The songs ranged from a version of a Child ballad (No. 4, "Lady
Isabel and the Elf Knight") to British broadsides (e.g., "The Rich Irish Lady"), native ballads, (e.g., "Frankie and Johnny," and "Charles Guiteau") and songs about cowboys, railroad men, and Mormons. Finally, there was a group of miscellaneous, mostly sentimental, "parlor" and music hall songs such as "Do Not Put My Mother's Picture up for Sale" and "You Are Starting, My Boy, on Life's Journey." Two of Cheney's texts are given below, "To Be a Buckaroo," probably a local song, and "In Defense of Polygamy," one on a theme of much local interest.
TO BE A BUCKAROO
(Cheney thesis No. 26, p. 117. Collected from Cornelius Campbell, Swan Valley, Idaho. "When, where, or how this bit of song came into existence I know not.... He said he knew no other names aside from the local insertions.")
To be a buckaroo
I left Victor town,
I camped in Pine Creek Canyon;
They called hand me down.
Now Bill says to me,
"There's a gray that I own
Corralled in the next canyon
With a sorrel and a roan."
My rope I threw on him;
My saddle I fixed;
He lit into bucking;
I felt rather mixed.
I grabbed for the leather
And "squoze" out its juice,
Or else that gray brute
Would have "shooken" me loose.
Hal Dean was my herder;
Damn little he did
But set there and holler,
"Stay with her, kid!"
I stayed with the devil,
The devil I did;
I stayed with the devil
Till I shot over his head.
Now you can brag of your riding
In any old town
But [put] her to practice
And hand me down.
IN DEFENSE OF POLYGAMY
(Cheney thesis No. 37, p. 133. Collected from W. H. Avery, Blackfoot, Idaho.)
There is a bunch of whiskey bloats perluding our fair land;
They are here to see our country laws enforced;
They say that the laws, there ain't enough to punish Mormon crime,
And for more, they are always on the yelp.
They say that if the Mormons will polygamy deny,
Like themselves take to houses of ill fame,
They will call them friends and brethren and will take them by the hand;
But in this, I think, they'll find they are lame.
Chorus: Murry holds the reins; the whip belongs to Zane,
Ole Ireland and his aid will go below;
And old Dixon will do well to engage a case in Hell,
For the road he is on will take him there, I know.
They say that the Mormons are a set of low-down dragons,
And they're going to rid the land of such a crew,
Or they will build pens large enough to hold Mormon men,
And in them they will shove the women, too.
But the Mormons do not fear their threats and always will be found
To their God and to their constitution true;
They will supportC olumbus'sc ausea nd defend Columbus'sla ws;
Then with righteousnesst his nation will be blessed.
(A variant of this ballad, "Governor Zane," differs considerably. See Lester A. Hubbard, Ballads and Songs from Utah [Salt Lake City, 1961], pp. 456- 457.)
Perhaps the greatest long-term benefit that resulted from George Morey Miller's interest in folk songs was to the university library. For the twenty years of his Idaho career, he saw to it that new folklore publications, especially song collections, were acquired, and many of his personal books also went to the library eventually. Since 1937 the subject has been kept
up-to-date, forming a surprisingly complete folklore research collection. 1937-1962 In the years since Professor Miller's death, there has been a trickle of activity in Idaho folk song studies. The WPA Federal Writers' Project volume, Idaho Lore, that Vardis Fisher edited in 1939, contained eighteen texts (no tunes). But few have the ring of genuine oral tradition, and no informants
are identified.[6]
Fisher's editorial criteria for the songs is suggested by a note to the effect that only songs with a distinct Idaho slant were chosen, that profane or lewd songs were rejected, and that some of the printed texts are not known to be traditional.[7] Actually, none of the texts is a verifiable, oral-traditional, folk song; most of them are pseudo-literary in tone, and there are only a few passing references to Idaho in verses which may have had some oral life in the state. The song "Ida-Ho" or "The Girl Named Ida-Ho" compares various states, and it is a piece found elsewhere, at least in manuscripts (see below). "Eagle Rock," using the old name for Idaho Falls, is a rhyme of local boosting, containing such verses as:
It's pleasant to play in Paris
Where gaiety gains renown,
But Oh! when it comes to living,
Give me that dear Idaho town.
"Kamiah Springs" is said to commemorate an Indian battle, in October, 1879, presumably near the present town of Kamiah, and it sounds reasonably authentic. Similarily, a verse of "Pioneer Song," which may be a folk song, is given as follows:
My mother and father were very poor people,
They lived by a church which had a high steeple.
They raised apples but sold them so low,
They made no fortune in Idaho.
Finally worth noting is a piece called "The Trail of Idaho," about the unfaithful sweetheart of a wandering cowboy who is off riding on the Idaho trail.
The late Blaine Stubblefield of Weiser, Idaho, who originated the National Old-Time Fiddlers' Contest, held there annually in June, was an enthusiastic folk song collector and singer. Alan Lomax recorded his singing of sixteen songs in the Recording Laboratory of the Library of Congress. Mrs. Rae Korson, Head of the Archive of Folk Song, reports that in April, 1938, Stubblefield recorded "The Old Chisholm Trail," "The Persian Cat," "She Had a Dark and Roving Eye," "Nine Times a Night," "Nelly at the Wake," "Way Out in Idaho," "The Farmer's Curst Wife," "If He'd Be a Buckaroo," "The Keyhole in the Door," "Brennan on the Moor," and "Devilish Mary," all accompanied by guitar. In January, 1939, he recorded "Bryan O'Lynn," and "Poor Miner" unaccompanied and "It's Hard Times, Boys," "Ta-jibuggeroo," and two versions of "The Lowlands Low" with guitar.[8]
Recently, two western folk song collectors have recorded their versions of songs collected in Idaho. Mrs. Rosalie Sorrels sings twelve songs learned in Idaho on Folk Songs of Idaho and Utah (Folkways FH 5343): "Brigham Young," "Death of Kathy Fiscus," "I'll Give You My Story," "Empty Cot in the Bunkhouse Tonight," "The Wreck of the Old Number Nine," and "The Philadelphia Lawyer" (all learned from a fish and game warden in Cascade); and from other informants, "The Lineman's Hymn," "My Last
Cigar," "The House Carpenter" (Child No. 243), "The Wild Colonian [sic] Boy," "I Left My Baby," and Blaine Stubblefield's version of "Way Out in Idaho." [9]
J. Barre Toelken published five texts from Idaho in an article in Northwest Review in 1962:10 "Sawtooth Peaks" ("Tyin' Knots in the Devil's Tail"), "Judge Duffy," "When I was a Younger Fellow" (an apparent translation from German), "Too Ree Ama" (loggers' brag song), and "Off to Boise City" ("Way Hay Jerusalem"). The last three songs are recorded by Toelken on A Garland of American Folksongs (Prestige/International 13023).
THE PRESENT
A regular undergraduate course in American Folklore (English 174) was initiated at the University of Idaho in summer school, 1963; thereafter it was scheduled for each spring semester and occasionally in summer school and in extension. The number of Idaho folk songs collected either by students or as a result of student leads has been considerable. One of the first collecting
ideas that classes responded to was the dissemination of folk song texts in published or written sources. Several clipping files, scrapbooks, notebooks, old-record collections, and one songster were found, indicating that folk songs have come into Idaho through every usual medium except broadside printing.[11]
Two newspaper sources of folk songs have reached into Idaho from Spokane, Washington, since the 1920's and 1930's, The Twice-A-Week Spokesman (now The Spokesman-Review), and The Idaho Farmer (one of five regional papers published biweekly by the Northwest Farm Paper Unit). The Spokesman no longer carries a song column, but an extension student
from Troy, Idaho, turned in a representative group of sixty-seven clippings that can be dated from 1921 to 1923 because of incidental references on the reverse side of some clippings to Harding's presidency. Included were the Child ballads, "Lord Lovel," "Barbara Allen," "Andrew Bardeen," and "The House Carpenter" (Nos. 75, 84, 167, and 243), as well as such English
songs as "Froggie Went a Courting," and "Erin's Green Shore," and many American songs, including "The Cumberland Crew," "The Jam at Gerry's Rock," and "Little Sod Shanty on the Claim."
The Idaho Farmer and corresponding newspapers in Washington, Oregon, and Utah continue to publish the column "Songs of Days Gone By," which was announced in the issue of July 2, 1931 (Vol. XLVIII, p. 4), and manuscript files maintained in the editorial offices have proved to be a rich lode of folk songs known in the whole region. In the summer of 1963, Professor and
Mrs. Austin E. Fife extracted some 500 cowboy and other western texts from this source, retyping and binding them into three volumes for their massive western folk song archive. During the same summer the Fifes located a personal collection of several thousand newspaper clippings and hand-written texts in Kamiah, Idaho, which are now being classified for eventual addition
to their collection.[12]
Recently, this writer spent three days going through the files and extracting all folk song and folk poetry texts, in particular those submitted from Idaho. "Songs of Days Gone By" functions mainly as an informational service for readers who wish to be reminded of the words of old songs they once knew. A reader sends in his request with a title, sample line, or stanza. The requests are filled from the office file whenever possible; otherwise a query is published. When a response comes in, the original letter is sent to the requesting reader, but a copy of the text is kept. In the past, informants' names or addresses were seldom preserved, but now this information is regularly recorded. All extra copies of texts are filed alphabetically by title in ream-size boxes with variants clipped together, and cross-references inserted when similar songs turn up with different titles. There is no formal index for the collection, nor are there tunes for more than a few of the songs; bits of verse, quotations, recitations, etc. are simply interfiled. Some 450 song texts, in nearly 600 variants, came into the Idaho Folklore Archive from this source alone, to form the nucleus of the classified materials described below.
Except for three general folders marked "Camp Songs," "High School Songs," and "College Songs," the individual folk songs in the Idaho archive have been identified in reference sources and filed according to types and titles. The collection contains some 730 songs in something over 1000 versions. Since materials from The Idaho Farmer constitute about two-thirds of this total, there are relatively few tunes recorded-only about 70 at present. (There is also a tape recording of 22 fiddle tunes.) Because of the preponderance of songs from manuscript or printed sources, the folk song collection is less a representative group of traditional Idaho songs than a basis for building such an archive eventually. The newspaper texts are interesting to compare
with field-collected songs throughout the circulation area of the Northwest Farm Paper Unit. Therefore, a survey of the archive should be useful to other collectors in the region, and to students of American folk songs generally.
The proportions of print to oral tradition, and texts to tunes, in the folder of Child ballads, is typical of other sections of the file. The archive contains 49 versions (36 printed or manuscript, 13 oral) of 19 different Child ballads; only 5 with tunes. The ballads represented are Child numbers 2, 3, 4, 12, 18, 46 (frag.), 73, 75, 79, 84, 85, 167, 209, 243, 274, 277, 278, 286, and 289.
Using the two Laws indexes, we have identified 57 native American ballads in 83 versions, and 41 British broadsides in 71 texts. The ballads represented are as follows:
Native American:
A. War (5, 8, 14, 15, 18)
B. Cowboy and Pioneer (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10,
27, 41)
C. Lumberjack (1, 13, 14, 17, 25)
D. Sailors and the Sea (4, 27)
E. Outlaws (1, 3, 4, 5, 11)
F. Murder (1, 2, 5, 13, 16, 20, 28, 31)
G. Tragedies (1, 2, 14, 16, 17, 22, 26, 30, 51)
H. Various Topics (1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 15, 23, 26, 31)
I. Negro (16)
11, 14, 18, 24,
British Broadside:
J. War (none)
K. Sailors and the Sea (10, 12, 13, 28, 36)
L. Crime and Criminals (16B, 20)
M. Family Opposition to Lovers (4, 25, 32)
N. Lovers' Disguises and Tricks (7, 20, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43)
0. Faithful Lovers (3, 4, 32, 36)
P. Unfaithful Lovers (1A, lB, 9, 14, 17, 21, 24, 27, 35)
Q. Humorous and Miscellaneous (1, 3, 4, 14, 15, 17, 20, 26, 27, 32, 34)
Immediately following the two groups of Laws-ballad folders are one folder each of other American and other British ballads, either positively identified as such, or classified tentatively by internal evidence. The titles of these items are as follows:
Other American Ballads
Archie Brown
Billy Richardson's Last Ride
Bobtail Cannonball
Chicago Fire
Death of Albert Johnson
Death of Ellsworth
Death of John Dillinger
Dingy Miner's Cabin
Fate of the Fleagle Gang
Panhandle Jack
Preacher and the Bear
Prison Fire
Remember the Maine
Richmond on the James
Roame County
Salmon River Diggin's
Sinking of the Submarine S-4
Sinking of the Submarine S-51
George Nidiver (The California Hunter)
Haunted Woods (or The Haunted River)
Huntsville Jail
James Rogers (Murder of Mr. Swanton)
John Kelley (Kelley's Lament)
Judge Duffy (Old Judge Duffy)
Morro Castle Disaster
My Good-Looking Man
Oklahoma Charlie
Old Blue the Outlaw
Sucker Flat
Tune the Old Cow Died On
When Sherman Marched down to the Sea
Willie Moore
Wreck of the No. 52
Wreck of the Prairie Bell
Wreck of the 1256
Wreck of the Virginia Train No. 3
You'd Better Quit Kickin' My Dog
Around (Ole Jim Dawg)
Yuba Dam
Other British Ballads
Bonaparte (The Isle of St. Helena)
Butter and Cheese and All
Darby Ram
Donnelly and Cooper
Frog's Courtship
Grace Darling
Mush Mush
Off to Philadelphia
Rosy
Three English Blades
Three Jolly Welshman (The Fox Hunt)
Willie Ray
The remaining texts are filed in seventeen subject folders, and one marked (inevitably) "Miscellaneous." Categories have been borrowed from major printed collections or invented as needed; all texts are arranged alphabetically within these groups.
Courtship Songs
"I Wouldn't Marry" and
"Wish I was Single" Songs
Nursery and Children's Songs
General Western Songs
Parodies of "Beulah Land"
Songs about Idaho
Cowboy Songs
Loggers' Songs
Farmers' Songs
Songs of Gamblers, Drinkers, Ramblers
Nonsense Songs
Song Parodies
Comic Dialect Songs
Mnemonic Songs
Play Party and Dance Songs
Folk Lyrics
Sentimental Ballad-Like Pieces
Among the miscellaneous ballads and songs are the following items which seem particularly interesting:
Bingen on the Rhine Life is But a Game
Cat Came Back Name Song (Longest Name Song)
Coast Artillery Song Old Tobacco Box
Daddy's Whiskers Puttin' On the Style
Ella Ree Quaker Down in Quaker Town
Four Thousand Years Ago Union Prisoners from Dixie's Sunny
Hard Times Land
Johnny Kerbeck Whistling Rufus
Let's All Go Around to Mary Ann's
The question that ultimately arises when a regional archive is established is, "Which of these items has a genuine local origin, or at least shows some local influence?" The answer for folk songs, of course, is usually "Mighty few." Still there are a fair number of texts that, clearly enough, must have originated or have been significantly modified in Idaho; not all of these,
however, have had oral circulation, or at least they are on file now only in versions from the farm newspapers.
The Northwest folk song "collector's dilemma" appears from this archive to be about as Toelken has described it: "While the region is exceptionally rich in folklore of all kinds that originated elsewhere, one finds very few ballads of local origin." [13] The most familiar ones in Toelken's article occur here with few significant variations; "Acres of Clams," for instance, was sent
in by one Oregon and two Washington readers with little more deviation from the original text than what Toelken found, except that two further descriptive verses are preserved. Likewise, the ballad "Judge Duffy" which Toelken heard attributed to the old mining town of Florence, Idaho, was sent to The Farmer by four Washington and Oregon readers whose texts differ only in particulars. They establish nothing further about the song's origin. Printed circulation is strongly suggested for this ballad, especially when one correspondent wrote, "This song was found in a collection of old songs and ballads a while back." (No name or date recorded.) The following text of "Judge Duffy" came in from Bremerton, Washington, and only nine of its sixteen lines vary at all from Toelken's; the changed words are italicized.
OLD JUDGE DUFFY
Old John Martin Duffy was judge in a court,
In a small rising town in the west;
Although he knew nothing 'bout rules of the law,
For Judge he was one of the best.
One night in the winter a murder occurred,
And the blacksmith accused of the crime.
They caught him red-handed and though he'd two trials,
The verdict was guilty each time.
Now he was the only good blacksmith we had,
And we wanted to spare him his life,
So Duffy rose up in the court like a lord,
And with these words ended the strife.
"I move we discharge him; in town,"
And he spoke out the words that have gained him renown,
"We have two Chinese laundrymen, everyone knows,
Why not save the poor blacksmith and hang one of those."
Several interesting items that one would like to call "northwest traditional ballads'" were sent to The Farmer, but a strong measure of faith is required to accept them as such; in fact, some of these must be judged probably neither "northwest," "traditional," nor even "ballads." A piece called "Out in the Great Northwest," for instance, begins:
I'm going way out west
To where the buffalo used to roam;
I'm going to try to settle down,
And build myself a home,
Out in the great Northwest,
Way out in the great Northwest.
The song continues for twelve verses of commentary-some of it somewhat inappropriate to the region-and a second version differs only in language. Both of them are anonymous carbon copies. Another song called "Oregon Mist" is, at least, more accurate in details, beginning:
It's raining again, or maybe it's yet,
And all the wide world seems eternally wet.
It showers at night and it rains in the morning,
The sun starts to shine, then it pours without warning.
However, this song tells no coherent story, and the three coastal webfoots who sent it in wrote nothing further that would establish its oral life. Songs submitted in only single versions may be intriguing, especially one like "The Salmon River Diggins'," in which the tone is folksy and the place names (southwest Oregon, northern California in the Siskiyou mountains)
are accurate; this came from a reader in Paisley, Oregon. Another, in Rainier, Oregon, sent an equally fascinating piece-seemingly a true outlaw ballad that deserves to be fully printed in hopes of locating parallels:
ARCHIE BROWN
I am a bold highwayman,
My name is Archie Brown.
I've robbed in every country,
Both city and in town.
I've robbed the rich and poor alike,
As you may understand,
'Twas down in California
I was captain of a band.
I came to Portland City,
To see that lively place.
I purchased there some blankets
Which proved my great disgrace.
I instantly did pay for them,
And that without delay,
Unto a noble broker
Whose name was Walter Shay.
As he was counting out my change,
I, with my glancing eye,
Stood looking through the showcase,
Some jewelry I did spy.
From underneath my coat sleeve
Cold iron I did haul,
Three raps I gave him on the head,
Which made him quickly fall.
As Walter lay upon the floor,
All bleeding in a gore,
I robbed him of his jewelry,
But still I wanted more.
I hunted for his money
But didn't have long to stay,
But five gold watches I did take
To tell my time of day.
Swartz, myself and Johnson,
As we were all the same,
Swartz being young and cowardly,
He failed to play the game.
'Twas off to California
Poor Johnson ran away,
But soon was overtaken
To become the hangman's prey.
And now we are three prisoners,
All in the county jail,
All loaded down with iron
Our sorrows to bewail.
Farewell, my loyal heroes,
'Tis you I still adore.
I'm of the strong opinion
That I shall rob no more.
Farewell, my loving mother
To you these lines I write.
I'm almost broken-hearted;
I write by candle light.
When you receive these deadly lines,
The tears you can't forbear,
As you peruse them over
You'll find my tearstains there.
Farewell, my loving comrades,
The time is drawing nigh,
When you look upon the scaffold
Your captain you will spy.
'Twill cause you all to sigh, my lads,
But it's little you'll have to say.
I'll sing you Old Tom Rogers
Upon that fatal day.
Farewell, my loving brother,
Relations, too, likewise,
When you receive this letter
It may you all surprise.
My work is done, my race is run,
My robbing days are o'er.
One prayer, my loving brother,
Poor Archie is no more.
Certainly the woes of herding sheep make an appropriate folk song topic, but when two individual readers, one in Washington and one in Oregon, send in almost identical twelve-stanza texts of "The Sheepherder's Lament," the effect of printed, rather than oral, circulation is felt. The song begins:
I have summered in the tropics,
With the yellow fever chill;
I have been down with the scurvy,
I've had every ache and ill.
I have wintered in the Arctic,
Frostbitten to the bone;
I've been in a Chinese dungeon,
Where I spent a year alone.
I've been shanghaied on a whaler,
And was stranded on the deep,
But I never knew what misery was
Till I started herding sheep.
A song on the same theme that begins "There's a pretty spot near Boise/ Where the sage and saltgrass grow," exists in the file only in one anonymous carbon copy; it too laments the life of the sheepherder with such pathetic lines as:
A tear runs down his wind-tanned cheek,
And a sob that shakes his frame,
For he's just a poor sheepherder
And has sheep on his brain.
Another common topic among the regionally inclined songs is parody of Chinese language and culture; four of these pseudo-Chinese dialect songs, in ten versions, are on file, three from the memories of living Idaho informants. The most popular seems to be one in which a poor, lonesome Chinaman leaves Chinatown and serenades a white lady he admires, only
to suffer either having her throw things at him from her window, or this treatment:
The ladies of the very next town,
Came up the hill to roll him down;
From top to bottom they all began,
To toss and tumble this Chinaman.
Although this would seem to be humor of an earlier generation, one Idahoan wrote, "My mother used to sing this song to us as long ago as I can remember. I sang it to my children when they were little, and now I am singing it to my grandchildren." [14]
A search for purely Idaho folk songs is almost unrewarded. Sister M. Alfreda for her two-volume Pioneer Days in Idaho County searched as hard as anyone ever has in one part of Idaho for authentic local traditions. The only folk composer she heard of whose works bore the hallmarks of familiarity with oral tradition was "Seven Devil's Johnson," credited with composing songs such as "Seven Devil Song" which begins with these stanzas:
Come all ye bold adventurers
And listen to my song,
About the Seven Devil mines,
I will not keep you long;
Those mines of wealth that's lately found
Display the ore bright,
And millions yet beneath the ground
Is bound to see the light.
Chorus: Then dig boys, dig let us the ore find,
And open up in handsome style the Seven Devil mines.
And when you pack your old cayuse,
And start to make a raise,
And stop upon a grassy plot
To let the equine graze,
You're liable at any time
To meet the rattle bug.
Then don't forget the snake bite cure,
Corked up in the brown jug.[15]
Whether anyone ever has sung this can only be guessed, but one could sing it to several familiar ballad tunes without straining text or tune. Another doubtful but interesting item is "Lost River Desert," a six-stanza parody of "Red River Valley" describing an Idaho scene. Two readers sent it in, and the texts differ only in that the one from Mackay says a "cowboy who welcomed you there," and the one from Spencer says "a ranger." Parodies of "Beulah Land" are ubiquituous beyond the hundredth meridian, and the archive has them in abundance for Dakota-land, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon (a wet version), desert-land, and for Idaho, one positive and one negative version. Since the typical text is about "the land of wind and heat/Where nothing grows for man to eat," here, for variety, is a localboosting version sent in by a reader from Caldwell:
GRAND IDAHO
Kind Providence our lot may cast,
And yet we have to choose at last.
If you're inquiring where to go,
Come down to southern Idaho.
Chorus: Oh, Idaho, grand Idaho,
It's just the place for you to go,
With climate fair and sunny skies,
Where mountains rich in grandeur rise,
Where fruit in great abundance grows,
Down here in southern Idaho.
The farmers here may be at ease
And work amid fruit-laden trees;
Whate'er he plants is sure to grow,
And make a crop in Idaho.
For genial showers you need not wait,
You only have to hoist the gate
And let the waters ever flow,
Our valleys rich in Idaho.
Now you who would contentment gain,
Help build the state with brawn and brain,
To mine the hills, or reap or sow,
You're welcome here in Idaho.
An abundance of copies of sentimental songs and poems about the state sent to The Idaho Farmer prove only that this, like most other states, has plenty of homespun poets with lots of local pride. These are not folk songs, and there is no point in doing more than listing titles:
Grand Idaho
Idaho, Oh Idaho
Idaho ("nestled among the lofty My Idaho, My Idaho mountains")
Our Idaho
Idaho Jack (about a rodeo cowboy)
Our Own Home State
Idaho Magic
Pal Pinto and Ida-Ho
Finally, three songs survive the panning process to remain as possible golden bits of Idaho folk song.
1). Three separate residents sent in three varying texts of a song about a "Girl Named Ida-Ho"; all of these only generally match the one Fisher printed in Idaho Lore. While their tone and style suggest popular songs, their variations make some oral tradition at least a possibility.
2). The fragment of "A Prospector's Song," collected by a student in 1963, from a seventy-eight year-old resident of Lewiston, Idaho, is described as a folk song by the informant, a retired sawmill worker and farmer. It contains, in its chorus, echoes of the song "Salmon River Diggin's" already mentioned:
A PROSPECTOR'S SONG
I looked to the east,
I looked to the west;
I saw a John Chinaman a-coming.
With a big sack of rice,
And a rocker on his back,
Trudging his way to the Salmon.
Chorus: Save your money boys
To pay your way through
If you don't like the Salmon,
You can go to Caribou.
Don't get hasty and get the "golden fever,"
We'll all make a fortune
When we get to Salmon River.
Which of several Salmon Rivers in the West is being referred to here is by no means clear.
3). In the last analysis, it is probably only "Way Out in Idaho" that remains a well-attested original Idaho ballad. Blaine Stubblefield's version (as sung by Rosalie Sorrels)[16] is a first-person narrative song developing into a complaint about bad working conditions on a railroad job; it has the chorus:
Way out in Idaho, way out in Idaho,
A-workin' on the narrow gauge, way out in Idaho.
Only the ending of this ballad-where the suffering laborer promises to return to marry his Mexican sweetheart-is echoed in this undated version sent to The Idaho Farmer:
Remember what I promised you,
As we sat side by side,
Beneath the big persimmon tree;
I said I'd be your bride.
Chorus: Way out in Idyho,
We're coming to Idyho,
With a four-horse team we'll soon be seen,
Way out in Idyho.
Farewell, it's mother and child,
I'm off to stay for a while;
So won't you kiss me before I go,
And call me your darling child?
An even simpler version was collected by a student in 1964 from his eighty-five year-old grandmother in Boise:
Way out in Idaho,
Way out in Idaho.
To Idaho we're bound to go,
Way out in Idaho.
We're going to Idaho,
We're going to Idaho.
A four-horse team will soon be seen,
Way out in Idaho.
But in at least one American version of "The Twa Brothers" (Child 49) the line is nothing more than a kenning for "far, far away":
"O, what shall I tell your true love, John,
If she inquires for you?"
"O, tell her I'm dead and lying in my grave,
Way out in Idaho." [17]
One would hope that this example will not typify the straying of Idaho pioneer songs and ballads from their original vitality to a point of no return, lost amid the profusion of imported folklore. Certainly this Idaho collection of folk songs, as it now stands, suggests this disconcerting possibility, although the presence of so many other recognizable folk songs is at the same time a
compensation. If nothing else, the Idaho collection should encourage some long-overdue systematic fieldwork throughout the state; perhaps in the process more regional ballads and songs will be discovered.
University of Idaho
---------------------------
Footnotes:
1"The Dramatic Element in the Popular Ballad," University Studies of the University of Cincinnati, Ser. II, Vol. I, No. 1 (Jan.-Feb., 1905). See D. K. Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship Since 1898 (New Brunswick, N. J., 1959), pp. 11, 44.
2 See Rafe Gibbs, Beacon for Mountain and Plain (University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, 1962), pp. 129-131, 169.
3. Evlyn Rosenberger Clark, "The Conception of the Family as Shown in the Simple Ballads" (1923); Dorothy Carolyn Hall, "A Comparative Study of Popular Ballads of England and America" (1923); Lillian Olga White, "The Folksongs of the American Negro and their Value Today" (1925); Pauline Lamar, "The Function of Incremental Repetition in the English and Scottish Popular Ballads and in the Literary Ballads" (1930); Bethel Packenham Poulton, "The Epic Elements in the Robin Hood Ballads" (1932); and Thomas E. Cheney's thesis which is discussed below. Three songs from Cheney's current personal collection are given in Richard M. Dorson, ed., Buying the Wind (Chicago, 1964), pp. 527-530 and 532-535.
4 "The Play Party in Idaho," JAF, XLIV (1931), 1-26.
5. Miller, "Dramatic Element," p. 31.
6 (Caldwell, Idaho, 1939), pp. 217-237.
7 Idaho Lore, p. 217.
8 The index numbers for the 1938 session run from 1633 Al through 1636 B2; for the 1939 session they are 1848 A and B, and 2505 Bi through 2506 B. An excerpt of "Brennan on the Moor" appears on LC record L 49, The Ballad Hunter.
9 Mrs. Sorrel's singing of "The Lineman's Hymn" is also included on the Folkways recording The Unfortunate Rake (FS 10 3805).
10. Northwest Traditional Ballads: A Collector's Dilemma," NR, V (1962), 9-18.
11 Seven scrapbooks of printed and written songs have been found by students in their family's possession. The collectors have described the books in detail, listing titles and copying sample texts from each. Dates run from the 1890's to the 1930's; the contents range from a dozen songs to several hundred. Most of the books were old composition books or scrapbooks, while others were ledgers or printed books with blank sheets and clippings pasted in. The songster is a tabloid-format newsprint collection of tunes and texts; the paper is extremely yellowed and margins are badly torn. There is no date, but the address of a New York City publisher is given. Folk songs included are "Old Dan Tucker," "The Wabash Cannon Ball," "Little Joe the Wrangler," "The Dreary Black Hills," "The Days of 49," and "Utah Carroll." Bill Sutton of Midvale, Idaho, a folklore student in spring 1964, brought in part of a collection of Edison 78 rpm discs which he acquired from a neighbor, and I made taped copies of such items as Ernest V. Stoneman's "Wreck of the C. & O." and "Sinking of the Titanic" (51823), Vernon Dalhart's "The Wreck of Number Nine" and "The Mississippi Flood" (52088), Fiddlin' Powers' "Sourwood Mountains" and "Cripple Creek"
(51789), and Frank Luther and His Pards's "Barbara Allen" and "Butcher's Boy" (52377).
12. This material is mentioned on pp. 41 and 43 of an article by the Fifes in The Folklore and Folk Music Archivist, VII (Spring, 1964).
13. Toelken, "Northwest Traditional Ballads," p. 9.
14 See Hubbard, Ballads and Songs from Utah, pp. 170-171 for two similar anti-Chinese songs from the West.
15. Vol. II (Caldwell, 1951), 309.
16. See Kenneth Goldstein's comments on her text in notes with the Folkways recording described above.
17 Louise Pound, "Traditional Ballads in Nebraska," JAF, XXVI (1913), 351-366; "Brought to Nebraska from Nodoway County, Missouri, by its contributor" (p. 353). Reprinted in Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs (New York, 1922), pp. 45-46 and MacEdward Leach, The Ballad Book (New York, 1955), pp. 166-167.