Minnehaha, Laughing Water

DESCRIPTION: "Minnehaha, Laughing Water, Cease your laughing notes for aye," because "savage hands are red with slaughter Of the innocents today." The singer's home is on fire. His wife and children are dead. He wishes he were dead also
AUTHOR: Words: Richard H. Chittenden / Music: Frank Wood (died 1899)
EARLIEST DATE: 1863 (according to Dunn)
KEYWORDS: death homicide river Indians(Am.)
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Rickaby/Dykstra/Leary-PineryBoys-SongsSongcatchingInLumberjackEra 53, "Minnehaha, Laughing Water" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Peg Meier, _Bring Warm Clothes: Letters and Photos from Minnesota's Past_, Minneapolis Star/Tribune, 1981, p. 100, "(no title)" (1 text)
Roud #29014
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Haunted Wood" (approximate plot) and the extensive notes there on the relationship between the two songs
NOTES [206 words]: At the time I entered "Haunted Wood" into the Index, there was no evidence that this song had gone into tradition, and so I put all my research about "Minnehaha, Laughing Water" into the notes on that song. They're at least as relevant to this one, though, so I'd advise you to look them up. One small excerpt:
According James Taylor Dunn, "A Century of Song: Popular Music in Minnesota," Minnesota History magazine, Winter 1974, pp. 124-125, "[T]here is at present no reason to doubt that Frank Wood's 'Minnehaha' was the first song by a Minnesota to find local publication.... It followed Wood's initial composition by eight months, appearing in October, 1863. The words -- 'Minnehaha, laughing waters, cease thy laughing now for aye' -- were written by Richard H. Chittenden, a captain in the First Wisconsin Cavalry, who took part in the Sioux Uprising. The song is dedicated 'To the memory of the victims of the Indian Massacre of 1862.' It deals in lurid words the terrors of the Indian revolt and was as close to the Civil War as any of the local music came."
I would add (as the "Haunted Wood" notes make clear), there is no truth in this story. There was violence during the Dakota Conflict -- but not *this* violence. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: RDL053

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