Annotation:Choctaw

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 CHOCTAW. Old-Time, Breakdown. A Minor ('A' part) & C Major ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Mark O'Connor helped to popularize this southwest tune among 'contest' fiddlers. An interesting footnote to the Irish faminie of 1847, communicated by Jeffery Erickson, is this from Andrew Carroll's Letters of a Nation: Having learned of the famine taking place in Ireland, and well aware of the suffering caused by hunger, (a group of Choctaw Indians) managed to raise among their small number about $170 -- worth several ''thousand in today's dollars. Col. G. W. Clarke, who had witnessed their'' efforts, later wrote of the to the Arkansas Intelligencer, challenging its readers to match the Choctaws' generosity. Interestingly, this incidence of generosity was revisited in the present day. The Irish group the Chieftains were made honorary chiefs of the Oklahoma Choctaw Nation at a special ceremony at SMY in Dallas, Texas, according to the authorized biorgraphy of the group. The honor, never before bestowed to a non-American Indian group, came about when piper and Chieftains leader Paddy Moloney heard of the original Choctaw gift and contacted the tribe to thank them. "Even Queen Victoria wouldn't lift a finger to help but the Choctaws did," said Moloney, "It was a great honour for them to make me an honorary chief." Moloney appears to be referencing the circulating story that the Queen donated £5.00 towards famine relief, but gave the same amount to the Battersea Dogs Home, lest anyone take the gesture as overly sympathetic. The story is just that, however, and is not true. Source for notated version: Mark O'Connor [Phillips]. Printed source: Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 1, 1994; p. 50.

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