forty-nine dance

forty-nine dance, social dance and song repertoire that developed among Native American peoples in the southern Great Plains region of the United States during the early 1900s.

Origins

The musical style and the name of the forty-nine dance have been attributed to various sources. Early studies identify the war-expedition songs of the Kiowa of Oklahoma as the stylistic—particularly, the rhythmic—basis of the forty-nine dance songs. The war-expedition songs, however, were used to recognize war exploits and to honour their heroes, while contemporary forty-nine songs and dances often serve as vehicles for playful teasing and flirtatious commentary.

Many have linked the name forty-nine dance to the traveling festivals, or carnivals, of the American Southwest in the early 1900s. Such festivals typically included a “ ’49 dance hall,” a “ ’49 camp,” or a similarly named “ ’49” event that was intended to evoke the spirit of the California Gold Rush of 1849. According to one origin story, a group of Native American youths wanted to enter a sideshow—billed as either “Days of Forty-nine” or “Girls of Forty-nine”—at the Caddo County Fair in Anadarko, Oklahoma (the centre of the Kiowa and Comanche populations since the mid-19th century). When they were unable to come up with the price of admission, one young man reportedly said, “Let’s have our own forty-nine,” and so the dance acquired its name. Another version of the name’s etymology dates its use to 1924, when the movie In the Days of 49 was particularly popular in the Anadarko area. A separate origin story presents the name forty-nine dance as a commemorative reference to a group of 50 warriors who went to battle with only 49 returning or, conversely, with only one returning and 49 killed.

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Setting and style

Forty-nine dancing may take place as an independent social event or in conjunction with a powwow as an extracurricular evening activity. The timing of a forty-nine dance in relation to a powwow is important; given the many protocols that govern behaviour at a powwow, the forty-nine dance offers a space within which to engage freely in flirtatious courtship, and—in some cases—other activities, such as the consumption of alcohol, that lie outside the purview of the main powwow event.

Participants in a forty-nine dance include a group of male and female dancers, supported by a separate group of male and female singers who also play hand drums or a large powwow-style drum (played with sticks by multiple musicians). Viewed from above, the dance formation appears as a series of concentric circles, all moving clockwise in time with the drumming, which sounds a double beat, with a strongly accented second beat (one-TWO, one-TWO). The dancers bring their right foot down on the first beat and their left foot down on the second. In terms of its overall style, the forty-nine dance is comparable to other common powwow dances, particularly the round dance and two-step. In keeping with their origin in Oklahoma, many forty-nine dance songs are sung in the Native American musical style of the southern Plains, typically emphasizing the lower, more resonant range of the male voice (as opposed to the much higher-pitched range of the northern Plains style). Women commonly sing one octave above the men.

Vocables—nonlexical syllables, such as “hey,” “ya,” and “yo,” that are used to convey a melody—are central to the lyrical content of forty-nine songs, and they form the basis of the division of the repertoire into three fundamental types: (1) vocable songs, (2) songs combining vocables and Native American languages, and (3) songs combining vocables and the English language. Although vocables do not have a strict linguistic meaning, singers use them to communicate with and motivate the dancers.

Beyond the vocables, the lyrics of the songs suggest an indigenized form of blues music in that they contain stories of love and loss. These stories may be told indirectly or through explicit lyrics, as exemplified by three songs included on the sound recording “49” Songs with English Lyrics compiled by Millard Clark and Tom Ware (1990). “If You Were Only Here” offers an explicit expression of such sentiment:

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Oh my dearest sweet loved one
How I miss you my dear
If you were only here
But you’re so far away
If you were only here
I’d be OK

An indirect—or implicit—message of love and loss is contained in “Blackjack Daisy”:

Oh my Blackjack Daisy
She got mad at me because I said hello to my old timer
But that’s just OK with me

Similarly implicit is the amorous message of “To Hell with Your Old Man”:

To hell with your old man
Come up and see me sometimes

Issues of alcohol

Associations between forty-nine dances and alcohol have prejudiced many onlookers—both within and beyond the Native American community—in their perception of the genre. If the forty-nine dance does indeed have its roots in the traveling fairs of the early 20th century, this may account for the tradition’s link with alcohol. Liquor typically flowed freely at the “ ’49” events at these fairs, because the women who worked the dance floor there were compensated not for their dancing but for the volume of liquor purchased by their male dance partners at the adjacent bar. In any case, the ultimate association of Native American forty-nine dancing with alcohol led in some measure to the condemnation of the tradition as a rebellious activity—by both Native and non-Native American observers. Ironically, as with many other forms of popular culture, the perception of rebelliousness helped ensure the popularity of forty-nine dancing for subsequent generations. However, the advent of sober forty-nine dances, held at powwows across the United States since roughly the turn of the 21st century, reinforces the fact that forty-nine songs and dances—and the audiences who enjoy them—are not intrinsically linked to substance abuse.

Forty-nine dance in contemporary popular culture

Increasingly since the late 20th century, forty-nine dance songs have not only provided inspiration for various popular-music artists but also have served as a conduit for social change. Creek and Kaw (or Kansa) jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper arranged and recorded a forty-nine song under the title of “Newly-Weds Song” on the album Pepper’s Pow Wow (1971). Anishinaabe (an Ojibwa group) singer and guitarist Keith Secola made reference to “singing forty-nine” in the title track of his album Indian Cars (1989). While not labeled strictly as forty-nine dance songs, Kiowa, Comanche, and Cherokee singer Glen Ahhaitty’s No More Lies: Oklahoma Round Dance Songs (2009) reflects a growing trend toward encouraging healthy living within the Native American community through sober singing and social dancing.