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Sad story [Sioux Indians]

Before the Civil War, the great Prairie was not considered as a place worthy of settlement. It was inhabited by tribes of nomadic Indians and great herds of Buffalo. In the 1840s and '50s gold was discovered in California and a great tide of immigrants flocked to the far West. Their 2000 mile journey, including crossing over the great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and huge expanses of desert, became famous as the Oregon trail. I found this description of the plight of many travelers in "The Ballad of America" by John Anthony Scott. "Unimaginable hardships attended the Travelers. Day after day the sun beat down from a cloudless sky; storms of hail and sleet swept down from the Hills. When streams had to be forded, animals were swept away, or wagons sank axle deep in mud..... sickness took a heavy toll on children's lives. Indian bands prowled around the caravans and sometimes attacked, decimating the number of pioneers, plundering their possessions, and stampeding their cattle."
"Sad Story" more commonly known as "Sioux Indians" recounts one such journey. I learned my version from Maggie Hammons which is missing some of the detail of the longer version sung by Alex Moore but it has a great melody and together with the fiddle part from Sherman Hammons it makes a lovely piece.

lyrics

Sad Story

I'll tell you a story might be a sad one
of the troubles and trials when we first begun
it's leaving our country in sorrow to mourn
to take a trip over those mountains to roam

We traveled by daylight we traveled by night
to the top of Droop Mountain where we bedded down
there the miners had built them a nice little town
it was my first beginning my prospecting to find

We dug on the mountain no gold could we find
we dug on the mountain beneath the green waving pines
when they came all down on us with a whoop and a yell
at the crack of our rifles they was wounded and fell

We shot the bold chief at the head of their band
he died like a warrior with his gun in his hand
they gathered all-around him he laid dying in his gore
they whooped and they yelled and we saw them no more

We mounted our horses and shouldered our guns
one more bloody battle now we had to run
but there's nothing that's grieving or troubling my mind
but leaving my sweetheart my sweetheart behind

credits

from Green Are The Woods, released June 13, 1999
Learned from a field recording of Maggie Hammons

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Helena Triplett Faust Wellington, New Zealand

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