William Bartram
Travels and Other Writings
Library of America; 1996
William Bartram (1739-1823), artist, naturalist, “philosophical pilgrim”, traveled through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas in the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, describing the landscape, flora, fauna, and people of the region.
What a man - free of religious and racial bigotry, modestly courageous (he shows us there is such a thing), ever sensitive to beauty, kindness, and nobility, and desiring above all to live in peaceable harmony with all earthly creatures. He fights ravenous alligators bent on consuming him, meditates on the peaceful nature of the rattlesnake, and engages Muscogulges (Creeks and Seminoles), Chactaws, and Cherokees in civil discourse and remembers them with clear-eyed respect:
“The males of the Cherokees, Muscogulges, Siminoles, Chicasaws, Chactaws, and confederate tribes of the Creeks, are tall, erect, and moderately robust; their limbs well shaped, so as generally to form a perfect human figure; their features regular, and countenance open, dignified and placid; yet the forehead and brow so formed, as to strike you instantly with heroism and bravery; the eye rather small, yet active and full of fire; the iris always black, and the nose commonly inclining to the aquiline.
Their countenance and actions exhibit an air of magnanimity, superiority and independence.
Their complexion, of a reddish brown or copper colour; their hair long, lank, coarse, and black as a raven, and reflecting the like lustre at different exposures to the light.
The women of the Cherokees, are tall, slender, erect and of a delicate frame; their features formed with perfect symmetry, their countenance cheerful and friendly, and they move with a becoming grace and dignity.”
So many descriptions and stories. But for the purposes of this blog, two extended passages on dance may prove useful:
“This prologue being at an end, the musicians began, both vocal and instrumental; when presently a company of girls, hand in hand, dressed in clean white robes and ornamented with beads, bracelets and a profusion of gay ribbands, entering the door, immediately began to sing their responses in a gentle, low, and sweet voice, and formed themselves in a semicircular file or line, in two ranks, back to back, facing the spectators and musicians, moving slowly round and round. This continued about a quarter of an hour, when we were surprised by a sudden very loud and shrill whoop, uttered at once by a company of young fellows, who came in briskly after one another, with rackets or hurls in one hand. These champions likewise were well dressed, painted, and ornamented with silver bracelets, gorgets and wampum, neatly ornamented with moccasins and high waving plumes in their diadems: they immediately formed themselves in a semicircular rank also, in front of the girls, when these changed their order, and formed a single rank parallel to the men, raising their voices in responses to the tunes of the young champions, the semicircles continually moving round. There was something singular and diverting in their step and motions, and I imagine not to be learned to exactness but with great attention and perseverance. The step, if it can be so termed, was performed in the following manner; first, the motion began at one end of the semicircle, gently rising up and down upon their toes and heels alternately, when the first was up on tip-toe, the next began to raise the heel, and by the time the first rested again on the heel, the second was on tip toe, thus from one end of the rank to the other, so that some were always up and some down, alternately and regularly, without the least baulk or confusion; and they at the same time, and in the same motion, moved on obliquely or sideways, so that the circle performed a double or complex motion in its progression, and at stated times exhibited a grand or universal movement, instantly and unexpectedly to the spectators, by each rank turning to right and left, taking each others places: the movements were managed with inconceivable alertness and address, and accompanied with an instantaneous and universal elevation of the voice, and shrill short whoop.”
“Their music, vocal and instrumental, united, keeps exact time with the performers or dancers.
They have an endless variety of steps, but the most common, and that which I term the most civil, and indeed the most admired and practised among themselves, is a slow shuffling alternate step; both feet move forward one after the other, first the right foot foremost, and next the left, moving one after the other, in opposite circles, i.e., first a circle of young men, and within, a circle of young women, moving together opposite ways, the men with the course of the sun, and the females contrary to it; the men strke their arm with the open hand, and the girls clap hands, and raise their shrill sweet voices, answering an elevated shout of the men at stated times of termination of the stanzas; and the girls perform an interlude or chorus separately.”
Too bad there weren’t more like William Bartram. But perhaps we still have time to learn.
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