The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux
“The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux” project reverses negative Native American stereotypes perpetuated by the popular media spanning three centuries.
What if an epic 1923 silent film, “The Covered Wagon,” was retold by a new soundtrack performed by the Boulder Symphony and the Arapaho Eagle drum and singers from a tribal perspective?
“The Covered Wagon,” adapted from a novel by Emerson Hough, is a story about wagon train travelers trekking between Kansas and Oregon. They experienced hot summer heat, winter snow, and conflicts with Native Americans depicted as violent savages.
When the film premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, a live orchestra performed the soundtrack compiled by Hugo Riesenfeld (Reezenfeld). He was a pioneer in silent film score composition and later for talkies.
University of Wyoming Music Professor Anne Guzzo was commissioned to write a new soundtrack that doesn’t change the story but reminds the audience of a different tribal perspective about the westward expansion.
The Arapaho Eagle Drum and singers led by tribal elder Harvey Spoonhunter and the Boulder Symphony under the direction of Devin Hughes will perform the soundtrack.
The screening and performance will be video and audio recorded in front of a live audience for preservation and future distribution.
According to Professor Guzzo, silent film soundtracks were compilations of existing music excerpts.
One way to unravel stereotyping is by setting the scene through the soundtrack.
Cruze wanted to add realism to his movie. He enlisted the services of Lander, Wyoming rancher Ed Farlow to hire tribal members as background actors rather than Filipino, Latino, or white actors in makeup.
Farlow asked future cowboy movie star Tim McCoy to help him select 500 tribal members, mostly Northern Arapaho from the Wind River Reservation, for the production in Utah.
Prior to each “Covered Wagon” screening, Farlow and McCoy emceed an on-stage prologue that featured tribal members in full regalia who provided context to the epic western movie.
Similarly, “The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux” opens with a prologue and a screening of “Beyond Sand Creek,” a documentary about traditional tribal life that came to a halt at the Sand Creek Massacre in southeastern Colorado.
Early in the morning of November 24, 1864, the Colorado Third Cavalry surprise attacked 750 tribal members peacefully encamped along Sand Creek, leaving 200, mostly women and children, dead and mutilated. The conquered tribes were divided and dispersed to reservations in Wyoming, Montana, and Oklahoma.
Arapaho elders, 150 years later, have embarked on a mission to regain tribal lands, including the site of Fort Chambers near Boulder, Colorado, where 100 local volunteers trained before participating in the Sand Creek Massacre.
“The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux” consists of the 1923 film with the updated soundtrack and the “Beyond Sand Creek” prologue. Both provide a safe space for diverse and collaborative voices to support the Arapaho people as they undo negative stereotypes while reuniting their tribal language and ceremonies to their traditional homelands in Northern Colorado.