Annotation:Lost Indian (4)
X:1 T:Lost Indian [4] S:Zeke Holdren (Lincoln, Nebraska) L:1/8 M:C| D:Christeson - Old Time Fiddler's Repertory (1976) F:https://www.slippery-hill.com/recording/lost-indian-7 Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:C AB|c2G2 AGEG|c2G2 AGEG|c2d2e2^f2|g^fga g=fed| c2G2 AGEG|c2G2 AGAB|c2d2e2^f2|g=fed c2:| |:G2|"hey"[c4e4]"hey"[c4e4]|+slide+"hey"[e6e6]dc|B2G2 A2B2|cBcd e^fga| "hey"[c4e4]"hey"[c4e4]|+slide+"hey"[e6e6]dc|B2G2 A2B2|[E2c2]cd c2:|
LOST INDIAN [4]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Nebraska. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Apparently not related to other versions, but R.P. Christeson believed it similar to Ford's "Step to the Music Johnny." Christeson often requested fiddlers he collected from play "Lost Indian," and remarked that "I have never heard the same tune twice...It would be difficult to identify and validate any tune as being the original 'Lost Indian'. Various modern fiddlers will play 'Lonesome Indian (The)' (as taken from a commercial recording of the early 1950's) when requested to play 'The Lost Indian'." Bayard (1981) states that his Pennsylvania collected 'Waterford Special (The)' "certainly must be a version" of this setting of "Lost Indian," from Nebraska musician Zeke Holdren.
Despite being apparently an idiosyncratic version (i.e. to source Holdren), Christeson's "Lost Indian" tune retain's the characteristic 'whoop', 'hallo' or yell at the beginning of the second part, in supposed imitation of a Native American war cry. Holdren's fiddled version is tepid compared to other tunes of the same name however, and sounds more 'quadrille-ish'; his 'whoops' are nothing of the sort but rather a half-sung/half call "hey, hey, hey" in the second strain. As disparate and unrelated as the "Lost Indian" tune seem to be, a loose tune family seems to be defined not by musical motifs, but by the 'whoop' in the second strain, and the consistency of the "Lost Indian" title itself.
