[2] The Indianist movement could trace its roots to certain trends in nineteenth-century American Romanticism, which was engaging with folk music of many forms.
Examples of music on "Indian" themes can be found dating back to the early years of the seventeenth century.
At least one composer, Anthony Philip Heinrich, a contemporary of these artists, is recorded as having spent some time among the Indians on the American frontiers; he was the first to set Longfellow's Hiawatha to music.
[1] With the rise in studies both in ethnology and in folklore in the late nineteenth century, much information was gleaned and collected about various American Indian cultures.
In 1880 Theodore Baker transcribed songs from a number of tribes, publishing them two years later in a German-language dissertation for his doctorate from the University of Leipzig.
[1] Opera composers also attempted to incorporate Indian themes in their work; among Indianist operas were Poia, by Arthur Nevin; Victor Herbert's Natoma; Charles Skilton's Kalopin and The Sun Bride; Alberto Bimboni's Winona; and Francesco Bartolomeo de Leone's Alglala.
Charles Wakefield Cadman's Shanewis (or The Robin Woman, 1918) was produced in two succeeding seasons by the Metropolitan Opera of New York and was very popular.
As a composer, Farwell did not regard American Indian music as a novelty, but as a profound source of inspiration for his work.