Chickasaws On The Mississippi: A Song History

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"Chickasaws On The Mississippi" is one of the sixteen original duets for mountain dulcimer and Native American flute in DulciFlute, a book by John Keane and Karen Keane published by Fingers Of Steel; the flute part is written out in notation, the dulcimer part is given as chords, and the authors recorded every tune.[1] The listing does not say which of the two wrote this one.[1] The Keanes, from Shreveport, Louisiana, both earned music education degrees at Northeast Louisiana University, now the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and have published several books of original music for the dulcimer and Native American flute.[2][3] The sources consulted here say nothing of what inspired the tune.[1][2][3]

Blue cyanotype of a wide river with sandbars and a steamboat, seen from a wooded bluff

Henry P. Bosse, No. 34. From Bluffs at Merrimac, Minnesota Looking Down Stream, cyanotype, 1885. A river view in Minnesota, far north of the Chickasaw homeland; it has no connection to the tune.

The Chickasaw Nation describes its historic homeland as country now within north Mississippi, northwest Alabama, west Tennessee and southwest Kentucky.[4] Chickasaw territory eventually extended west as far as the Mississippi River itself.[5] As a result of the Indian Removal Act, the Chickasaws were forced to leave the homeland for Indian Territory; by the Treaty of Doaksville of 1837 they bought from the Choctaw Nation the right to settle in a district of their own within Choctaw lands.[6][7] In 1856 the Chickasaws separated from the Choctaws and formed their own government, with its capital at Tishomingo, in the new homeland the Nation places in south-central Oklahoma.[6][7]

Our book that contains the song "Chickasaws On The Mississippi"

Sources

  1. Fingers Of Steel: "John Keane And Karen Keane, DulciFlute".
  2. DulcimerDownloads: "John Keane".
  3. DulcimerDownloads: "Karen Keane".
  4. The Chickasaw Nation: "Homeland".
  5. Mississippi Encyclopedia: "Chickasaw".
  6. The Chickasaw Nation: "Removal".
  7. The Chickasaw Nation: "History".
  8. Image: Henry P. Bosse, No. 34. From Bluffs at Merrimac, Minnesota Looking Down Stream, cyanotype, 1885. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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