Annotation:Indian Ate the Woodchuck (1)
X:1 T:Indian Ate the Woodchuck [1] N:From the playing of John Morgan Salyer (1882-1952, Salyersville, Magoffin County, eastern Ky.) N:recorded at home 1941/42 by his sons on a disc player M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel Q:"Brisk" D:Berea College Appalachian Center AC003, John Morgan Salyer - D:"Home Recordings 1941-1942" (1993). D:Berea Sound Archives https://soundarchives.berea.edu/items/show/4269 Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:D dB|AGFE DEFA|BeeB e2dB|AGFE DEFA|BABc d2dB| AGFE DEFA|BeeB e2dB|AGFE DEFA|BABc d2:| a2|:fafa b2ae|feee e2a2|fafa b2ae|feBe d2 d2| fafa b2ae|feee e2e2| b4 bc'ba|1feBc d2d2:|2 feBc d2||
INDIAN ATE/EAT THE WOODCHUCK [1]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAAA'BB (Phillips): AABCC (Titon). Jeff Titon (2001) gives its provenance as eastern Kentucky and explains the confusion of titles between the substitution of 'eat' and 'ate' and 'woodchuck', 'woodpecker', 'woodcock' and 'woodhen'. The melody was in the repertoire of Kentucky fiddlers John Salyer (1882-1952), Estill Bingham (1899-1990), Owen "Snake" Chapman, and bluegrass fiddler Kenny Baker (who called it "Indian Killed a Woodcock"). Baker's tune is similar to the tune J.P. Fraley of Rush, Kentucky, plays idiosyncratically called, "Sail away Ladies (4)" (not the tune usually known by that title, and one he obtained from Ed Hayley (1883-1951), who did call it by the "Indian" title--see "Indian Ate the Woodchuck (2)"). Titon seems to think that the Baker/Fraley tune is distanced from the Hayley and Salyer versions, however, and he points out that "Indian Ate the Woodchuck" (and variants) is something of a floating title, noting the similarity, for example to the unrelated "Indian and the Woodhen." Salyer's version is a two-part one that is not as "busy" or 'notey' as Haley's tune. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountains fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. African-American fiddler Frank Patterson recorded the tune under the title "Indian and the Woodchuck" for the Library of Congress around 1942.
