1948: Spend Summer on Reservation -- White Couple Preserves American Indian Dances

1948, Sep 12 Great Falls Tribune 

Crow Agency - Pioneers in an almost single-handed fight to preserve American Indian dances from oblivion are two young members of the white race -- Reginald and Gladys Laubin -- who are living this summer and fall as for several recent summers in a tepee on the Crow reservation.

     During the recent Crow Fair, which attracted members of five tribes, Laubin stained his body each evening, put a wig of straight black hair over his own red-brown locks, donned the traditional Sioux dancer's costume and took part in the dancing under an arbor of cotton-wood and aspen boughs. 

     Few whites among the spectators knew Laubin was not an Indian; all could see at a glance that he was much the best dance in the group. 

     Living with the Indians to study their folkways is nothing new to the Luabins. They have been doing it for years, since the day when they decided, while both were at art school in the east, that this was the contribution they wished to make to American culture; to do all in their power to help preserve the fast-disappearing dances and other folks arts of the Plains Indians.

     Since making this decision, which has completely changed their lives, the Laubins have spent each summer camping on one or another of the reservations. They were adopted by the late Chief One Bull of the Hunkpapa Sioux, who said of them:

     "My white children are better Indians than are our own Indian young people. They know exactly the real Lakota ways, of which this present generation knows nothing."

     Indian young people are not entirely to blame for their lack of interest in keeping tribal traditions alive. For many years Indian agents, bureau officials and white missionaries -- almost all the whites who had contact with the reservation-dwellers -- sought to discourage the Indians from continuing in the old ways. Laubin explains it this way. 

     "After the buffalo and the warpath had vanished, and the Indians were settled on reservations, everything they knew and had lived for was gone. The only thing left was past glory, a past still possible to recall through old-time dances. Missionaries and government authorities attempted to discourage these dances.

     "The hope for a return to the good old days came into full flower with the Ghost dance, which originated in Nevada between 1888-90. This dance preached the elimination of war but promised the return of the buffalo herds and the old way of life.

     "Intolerance and misunderstanding on the part of the whites led to the killing of the great Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, and the massacre of nearly 300 of his followers (mostly old men, women and children) who fled the Standing Rock reservation at the time of his death. This Battle of Wounded Knee shattered the old hope. The Ghost dance, as far as the Sioux and their northern neighbors were concerned, was a dream irrevocably lost. 

     "About this time, also, government authorities issued an edict forbidding ceremonial dances. Although some realized the significance of dancing in Indian culture, even they insisted on banning the dance, believing that the Indian could be civilized only by making a white out of him. The bans were in effect on some reservations as late as 1934." 

     Each winter, the Laubins tour the country, presenting authentic Indian dances at art museums, to college and university students, and at dance festivals. A few months ago they gave a performance for officials of the office of Indian affairs, and of this presentation, Willard W Beatty, director of education for that government agency wrote to the Laubins:

     "I have seen a good many 'Indian programs' presented by whites or Indians, most of which have not impressed me as making any serious contribution to the understanding of our Indian minority. Your work gave me a far different presentation of Indian ceremonialism and your oral comment upon Indian life, past and present, both dignified and true."

     The Laubins have been acclaimed by such dance critics as John Martin of the New York Times and Walter Terry of the New York Herald Tribune. Both have written columns about these interpreters of authentic Indian dances in the metropolitan newspapers they serve.

     Last New Year's eve the Laubins appeared at the final performance of a holiday dance series presented by Fern Helscher in Times Hall, New York city. Of this performance, Terry wrote:

     "Their final program offered social dances, both ancient and modern; stories in sign-talk or song; dances of a ritualistic nature, dances which defined character and dances of sheer beauty of movement, or physical skill. One is hard put to know which to single out for comment.

     "Certainly the sign-talk dance, Sitting Bull's Vision, was fascinating both in movement and in subject. The gestures themselves, though less refined than those of the classic Hindu dance, had a rough eloquence about them, and since the majority of Americans believes that there are always two sides to a story, it was appropriate that we should learn, through dance, of Sitting Bull's version of Custer's last stand."

     Here is one of John Martin's many tributes to the artistry and sincerity of the Laubins:

     "It is no wonder that the Indians themselves are warm in their praise, for certainly no one of their own people has come before the white man with so eloquent and winning a presentation. Entirely apart from the conveying of facts and the correction of false impressions, they succeeded in communicating those overtones of emotional vivification that belong exclusively to art ... 

     "The miracle is that they have not become dry ethnological researchers but have managed to capture the creative spirit that lies deeper than the facts. They perceive, which is more important then knowing. "

     Of the costumes used by the Laubins, Terry wrote:

     "Their costumes are literally gorgeous. In color, in cut and in functional value they are far superior to the work of any single theatrical designer, no matter how gifted he may be. The memory of these beauties, of costume of dance and of spirit, will linger long with all of us fortunate enough to have seen the Lubins on Miss Helcher's fine and rewarding series." ... 

1948, Sep 12 Great Falls Tribune 

1948, Sep 12 Great Falls Tribune 

1948, Sep 12 Great Falls Tribune 

1948, Sep 12 Great Falls Tribune