Researcher captured early songs of American Indians

At a bustling St. Louis fair in 1904, a refined Minnesota music teacher from Red Wing in her mid-30s leaned in close to listen to an American Indian legend humming a tune.

Geronimo, the Apache warrior, was 75 and signing autographs — carefully printing his name on cards he sold to passersby at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

“I stood behind him,” Frances Densmore later recalled, “and noted down a melody that he hummed.”

http://www.startribune.com/researcher-captured-early-songs-of-american-indians/364029831/