Template:Featured Tune

"Seneca Square Dance" has been, and continues to be, a popular tune among regional fiddlers, now widespread and a part of the core "old-time revival" repertory. The origin of the title is obscure. Jim Kimball, a musicologist from Genesco, NY, points out that many Seneca indians (part of the Iroquois nation) were relocated to Oklahoma after the War of 1812, and that there is still a large community of Seneca in the northeastern part of that state, not far from southwest Missouri. They were located between the Wyandot reserve and the Cherokee Nation on the Grand River. The tune may also be called after the town of Seneca, Missouri, in the southwestern part of the state (which may itself have taken its name from the Indian tribe). It appears to have had a long history in the United States, judging from some of the alternate title that suggest pre-Civil War times and hiding from authority. A Civil War connection is made with the alternate title “Shelby’s Mules,” a reference to the Confederate cavalry commander General Joseph Shelby.

Johnson (1982/1988) notes that there is an old hymn set to this tune, but does not give specifics. The melody is known to Irish musicians as "John Hoban's Polka" and appears to be related to the tune “(What Shall We Do with a) Drunken Sailor” and perhaps the gospel song “Rock-a My Soul (in the Bosom of Abraham).” A distanced, somewhat odd although regularly phrased version appears in Pioneer Western Folk Tunes (1948) by champion Arizona fiddler Viola “Mom” Ruth, under the title “Get Away from the Federals” with “Fall of Paris” given as an alternate title (which, as "Downfall of Paris," more commonly belongs to a precursor of "Mississippi Sawyer").

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THE DRAPER'S GARDEN full Score(s) and Annotations and Past Featured Tunes

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X:1 T:Seneca Square Dance M:C| L:1/8 Q:Quick K:G G2A2|B2B4B2| d2B2 AG3|B4 B3d|BA3 G4| B4B3B|d2B3AG2|ABAG E2F2|1G4:|2G6|| |ef|g2{f}g4e2|d2B4ef|ggf2 g3a|b2e4g2-| gaba g2e2|d4 BA G2|ABAG E2F2|G6|