Cultural Area: Indigenous North America
Marsh, Charity. 2009.
"'Don't Call Me Eskimo': Representation, Mythology, and Hip Hop Culture on Baffin Island." (Musicultures 36: 110-129) - Abor. youth in Urban Regina (Saskatchewan) are read either thru neo-colonialist lens as youth in crisis (gangs, drugs, crime, prostitution, poverty, uneducated, lazy, etc.) or thru an essentialist-anti-neo-colonialist lens (invested in "tradition" bound only to "traditional" ways of being, isolated from effects of colonialism, diaspora, globalization, etc.) - hip hop acts as a counter to both narratives and as a means of expression of contemporary urban abor. youth - Inuit group NWA (Northerners With Attitude) create "Don't Call Me Eskimo" and upload to YouTube to counter stereotypes by southerners of Inuit life - author discusses hip hop as a global phenomenon originating out of the US but makes RARE mention of how hip-hop is steeped in Blackness, putting forward the idea that the Inuit NWA aim to make a kind of symbolic alliance with Black Americans by obvious reference to the original NWA
Lassiter, Luke Eric. 2001.
"'From Here on, I Will Be Praying to You': Indian Churches, Kiowa Hymns, and Native American Christianity in Southwestern Oklahoma." (Ethnomusicology 45(2): 338-352) - Throughout southwestern Oklahoma, Indian churches are a significant of Native American community life; class, Indian churches serve a diverse Native population with pan-Indian and tribe-specific congregations - Indian hymns are only one kind of song sung at these Indian churches, however. They share their place in any given service with English hymns (sung from hymnals) and, in some churches, gospel song; Indian hymns generally have no accompaniment, are most often sung while seated, and recalled completely from memory - Native language is fundamental to the essence of "Indian" hymns; The language in hymns, provides not only referents for individual stories; for many people -- especially but not limited to elders -- the sung performance of tribal language in hymns also enacts a larger, shared community experience with God and Christianity, and experiential relationship echoed in many songs.
Hoefnagels, Anna. 2012.
"Aboriginal Women and the Powwow Drum: Restrictions, Teachings, and Challenges." (In AMCC, 109-130) - explores the various issues and considerations regarding the common practice of limiting women's public music making at powwows - historic marginalization of women in academic literature that examines Aboriginal music practices - reviews the lit. on powwow music specifically argues that the assumptions around women not participating in powwows are geographically bounded and often overstated and simplified (and many different reasons dependent on group and setting are given for the discrimination) - argues that contrary to common teachings, women are in fact performing this repertoire (they do strike the drum and perform independently of men) and are being well received in some regions and communities - through a case study of one all-women powwow drum group, argues that these women often perform in these contested roles not necessarily to be feminists or activists but as a means of empowerment and, in some cases, to "reawaken" their voices as singers and as Aboriginal women
Keillor, Elaine. 2002.
"Amerindians at the Rodeos and Their Music." (The World of Music 44(1): 75-94) - IA of the plains region developed a history of (horse-)riding songs after their way of life was irreparably altered by the mass demise of buffalo herds; although older histories regarding the origins of the songs have been lost over time, plains IAs involved in ranching and rodeos continue to sing - original cowboy/rancher culture emanated from middle America where there was a significant Scotts/Irish heritage. This heritage was evident in the herding songs of hired hands at ranches - IAs prowess at riding horses and herding cattle is the result of colonial encounter (Spaniards bringing horses on their conquests) and experience (hunting buffalo); this second wave of encounter (of the new ranching business) created an opportunity for many IAs to become cowhands and cowboys - rodeos and powwows tended to be organized together as a concurrent event; cowboy songs found their way easily into powwow music
Franklin, Robert and Pamela Bunte. 1996.
"Animals and Humans, Sex and Death: Towards a Symbolic Analysis of Four Southern Numic Rituals." (Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 18(2): 178-203) - 4 rituals: rites of passage for menarche and first childbirth (symbolic twins), the Bear Dance, and the Cry - 1= four days of seclusion, dietary restrictions, ends with a bath and some meat (also piercing for some groups); 2= after birth, woman and husband secluded for some days with menarche-like restrictions, ends with a bath and some meat; the symbolism in both rituals comes from mythic story of Coyote hunting geese, falling and eating own smashed brains, coming upon a dead pregnant woman who is his spirit wife, forcing baby (boy) out and caring and nursing him; taboos serve as protecting initiates in question from supernatural forces (nature) during their time of spiritual vulnerability - 3= a kind of courtship dance with a line of men and line of women dancing opposite each other, women "selecting" men, and partners dancing faster and faster until someone falls down, dance based on origin story of man and bear with different variations dependent on group; symbolism is in aligning the spiritual powers of humans and nature and strengthening the sexual powers of both - 4= singing of numerous mourning songs and the offering of valuables in memory of the dead; in this ritual, humans are linked with the mythic animal domain (rather than separated from it like in rituals 1-2)
Belghiti, Rachid. 2009.
"Choreography, Sexuality, and the Indigenous Body in Tomson Highway's 'Kiss of the Fur Queen.'" Postcolonial Text 5(2): 1-17. - argues that the novel employs dance as a visually appropriate form of redress through which the indigenous body carries its colonial anguish and enacts its collective memory in the public sphere of contemporary Canada; presents dance as a political counter-movement that ruptures the linear account of Canada's historiography of exclusion and simultaneously choreographs a counter-narrative of its collective history still untold in the dominant archives of Canadian history. - Weetigo (weasel) represents such spaces as bars, malls, and television, which symbolically devour indigenous people and turn them into beast-like figures full of desire for food, sex, fashion, and images, as well as abuse of boys by Catholic priests in Residential schools - Gabriel is "locked into the role of sacrificial sexual victim [and that his] body is both gift and sacrifice"; dream and memory (individual and community) are central to the novel, along with dance - presents Gabriel's choreography and sexuality as intertwined sites of embodied colonial power through which Gregory seeks to reduce Gabriel's indigenous body to a docile object of Gregory's colonial desire
Diamond Cavanaugh, Beverley. 1992.
"Christian Hymns in Eastern Woodlands Communities: Performance Contexts." (In Musical Repercussions of 1492: Explorations, Encounters, and Identities, edited by Carol E. Robertson, 381-394. Washington: Smithsonian Institution) - "recently, a number of ppl have suggested that Xian and Native religious beliefs are not neces. antithetical" - result = merging of Christian and Native perspectives (adapting Native tunes to Christian texts; Xian hymns received in dreams [Algonquian]; composing Christian lyrics for secular French tunes already popular w/in Native community; using the Cross and the drum as parallel symbols at the head of a procession; "indigenizing" Xian worship [Micmac St. Anne's celebration, patron Saint of the Micmac, gendered hymns];
Willow, Anna J. 2013.
"Doing Sovereignty in Native North America: Anishinaabe Counter-Mapping and the Struggle for Land-Based Self-Determination." (Human Ecology 41(6): 871-884) - examines counter-mapping (contesting the underlying assumptions of pervading/common-use maps, given that maps are more often political tools rather than strictly informational/geographical tools) as a way for contemp. IA to "do" sovereignty; surverys 3 Ojibwe groups' recent use of geog. techniques to communicate their own territorial claims & counter the competing claims of others; sovereignty not an object, but a process - counter-mapping makes use of contemp. geog. and poli. understandings as self-determination (and firm acknowledgment of citizenship of encompassing nation-states entitled to their legal rights); maps based on traditional narratives/ histories/ sacred/ hunting/ environmental grounds
Youngberg, Quentin. 2008.
"Interpenetrations: Re-encoding the Queer Indian in Sherman Alexie's The Business of Fancydancing." (Studies in American Indian Literatures 20(1, Spring): 55-75) - Sherman Alexie's work, however, comes as a glaring example of a body of literature that takes homosexuality as a leitmotif at the very least and, finally, culminates in the full thematic incorporation of the issue of homosexuality into his latest film, The Business of Fancy dancing. - seeks to outline a process in which Alexie "queers" the Native sphere. - through the use of cultural codes endemic to the film's "text," Alexie situates the issue of Indian homosexuality within a nexus of other themes in a way that renders an understanding of sexual conflict as indispensable to understanding the racial tensions in the film. - on dancing: Seymour, the gay male, literally becomes a woman through his performance of the Shawl Dance, a dance that is intended to be exclusively in the cultural sphere of women. In a sense, the viewer who is familiar with the tradition of fancydancing is aware of the theme of homosexuality before a viewer without access to that knowledge; Shawl dance was invented relatively recently as a tool for drawing larger (non-native) audiences to powwows aimed at tourists; Shawl Dance comes as a bearer of the sell-out theme in two senses: that of the Native American poet selling out to the white world outside the reservation, and that of the homosexual male selling out his gender; there is also racial/sexual complexity between Seymour and his white lover Steven
Robinson, Dylan. 2012.
"Listening to the Politics of Aesthetics: Contemporary Encounters Between First Nations/Inuit and Early Music Traditions." (In AMCC, 222-248) - examines the differences among some of the diverse and most important Native music projects and considers the particular kinds of encounter each concert or work stages; through their aesthetic structures and forms, events demonstrate a range of relationships, from the colonizing impulse of integration to agonistic dialogue that aims to make audible the rough edges of differences - classifies mode of encounter in 3 ways: integration; musical trading or presentation; and combination of the other two modes and enacts a progression that begins with extended musical trading and concludes with a single composition that demonstrates musical integration - Giiwedin and Viderunt Omnes case study: 2010 opera composed by Spy Denomme-Welch and Catherine Magowan, follows Anishinabe woman's struggle to protect her ancestral land in the Temiskaming area of NE Ontario from railway expansion, written largely in a neo-Baroque style and integrates Anishinabe singing with references to French Canadian folksong; 1999 electroacoustic composition by Christos Hatzis, combining a recording of Perotin's organum Viderunt Omnes with recording made in Iqaluit, Baffin Island, of Inuit throat singers and "other distinctly 'Canadian sounds, such as the sounds of the loons" - Why was there such a striking increase in encounters b/t First Nations/ Inuit practices and early music in the first decade of 20th cent? Redress misconceptions of Indig. cultural practices as unsophisticated; indicates the degree of FN influence on Canada's musical heritage; national and federal funding under the aegis of "multicultural relevance"; Canada entering an age of reconciliation?
Diamond, Beverley. 2002.
"Native American Contemporary Music: The Women." (The World of Music Volume 44(1): 11-39) - explores issues raised in interviews with traditional and contemporary Native American musicians and recording artists of the 1990s. It exemplifies how they view their roles vis à vis traditional gender structures and community obligations , how they draw upon different media to communicate their messages , and how they use their work as a form of social action - The framework for considering the work of Native American women in popular music is crucial. Should we consider First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women as an ex- tension of the enormous impact of women in 'mainstream' popular music in the late 1990s? - that men and women generally have different but mutually dependent and complementary, and while some women had this experience, others faced the consequences of colonization, forced adoption, missions, etc. - being versatile artists in many mediums to effectively get message out - using music as social action is fundamental
Miller, Susan A. 2009.
"Native Historians Write Back: The Indigenous Paradigm in American Indian Historiography." (Wicazo Sa Review 24(1, Spring): 25-45) - common beliefs: people are seen as families or communities rather than individuals, and "'family" consists of the entire cosmos; reciprocity /balance; everything is deserving of respect; everything in the cosmos, including human activities, is sacred (there is no secular); - important counter against Western narratives is traditional (oral) narratives; that these might change over time is an expected part of the history-keeping; Winona Wheeler (of Fisher River Cree F.N.) has written extensively on oral histories and has shown that the effects of colonialism has caused cases of collective forgetting in several IA communities - IA self-determination is based on kinship rather than "sovereignty," although knowledge of pre-colonial governing systems is limited - de-colonization = not return to old ways, but to sever colonial ties and negative colonial influences - historiography is to serve the community, not just knowledge for knowledge's sake (<-- western concept)
McAllester, David. 1992.
"North America/Native America." (In Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples, Second Edition, edited by Jeff Todd Titon, et al., 12-63. New York: Schirmer Books) - many subsequent editions (5); the chapter anchors primarily on Navajo groups, avoids the "shallow" "survey" approach - aims to dispel stereotypes that plagues IA music by casting it as a complex, living tradition (not one of a "savage" past) - featured example is of a Navajo gospel group, rather than something stereotypical such as a war dance - "country music is a great favorite of IAs - contains several song transcriptions
Howard, James H. 1983.
"Pan-Indianism in Native American Music and Dance." (Ethnomusicology 27(1): 71-82) - Rather than formally borrowing by one tribal group from another, Pan-Indian often involves the appropriation of selected elements generalized "Indian" culture by individuals or groups. The borrowers are usually unaware of the specific tribal origins of the forms being borrowed; instead they view their borrowing merely as the assumption or resumption of something "Indian" as posed to something "White." - The principal vehicle for the diffusion of Pan-Indian music, dance, and costume styles is the intertribal powwow. - Oklahoma has long been recognized as the center and point of origin of Pan-Indianism. Oklahoma, is in many respects a microcosm of the US in general as regards its Indian population, with groups from all corners of the nation living in close association, however, not all Indian groups resident in the state participate in Pan-Indianism to the same degree (slow acceptance among SE-US IA groups)
Lawrence, Bonita. 2004.
"Real" Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press) - "Indian Act" registration "Indian" has historically legally granted identity status as "Indian" with several destructive consequences: Indians vs. non-status Indians (Metis, and eastern Mixed-Bloods); re-gendered Native society by differentiating between Native wo/men who "married out" as women losing their Native status and men keeping theirs, disrupting the traditional gender balance; the Act has forced a re-shaping of Native identity in Canada; Act established residential schools that obliterated Native language and culture - Second half of book focuses on the neglected histories and stories of mixed-blood Natives in Toronto, the descendants of people forced out, in one way or another, of their communities, author (mi'kmaw) uses their stories as a call for unity between non-mixed and mixed Natives
Cain, M. Celia. 2006.
"Red, Black and Blues: Race, Nation and Recognition for the Bluez." (Canadian Journal for Traditional Music 33: 1-14) - Reservation Blues and the film Smoke Signals, which uses Rez Bluez in its soundtrack, have focused attention on the rising popularity of the Native popular music genre Rez Bluez, and concurrently have given further legitimacy to Native musicians who claim that Aboriginals "invented the blues." Although this claim has received scant scholarly attention from musicologists and ethnos, it is a subject of vibrant debate among blues musicians of African-American, Native, and "mixed-blood" descent. This article addresses the debate, considering the importance of the blues in the history of North American popular music, the exclusion of First Nations music from this canon, the affect of historical and contemporary complications and interactions between the First Nations and African-Americans, and the current popularity of the Rez Bluez genre among First Nations musicians in Canada and the United States. - After centuries of intermixing and cultural exchange, is there any way to know which came first, Native "pre-blues" or African-American blues? we do not know if the blues developed gradually or all at once, if its origins are African-American or Native or some combination. All statements about the origins of the blues, to one extent or another, are speculative. But speculation can be empowering and perhaps it is time for music scholars to expand our speculation to include the First Nations in the development of the blues.
Piercy, Mary. 2012.
"Reflecting on Reflexivity: Teaching and Conducting Research in an Inuit Community." (In AMCC, 150-173) - a narrative ethnography; reveals delicate cultural, social, pedagogical, and ethical issues; examines the cultural diversity within Arviat, alert to the ways music may reinforce memory and continuity or constitute a means of innovating or resisting the evolving norms of the community; tells the story of how author came to live, work, and do research in an Inuit community. - chapter deals very little with music, rather presents historical, economic, and social context to serve as a backdrop for analysis and description of musical practices in the lives of the people in question as individuals
Witgen, Michael. 2012.
"Rethinking Colonial History as Continental History." (William and Mary Quarterly 69(3, July): 527-530) - argues that to write accurate and truly representative historical accounts about IAs, historians must change their descriptive lexicon and interpretive lens from a Euro-American standpoint to an indigenous one - historians must stop "trying to write colonial histories that include Indians and start writing early American histories incorporating indigenous cultural categories, political structures, and frames of historical reference. - "The continent was not an unsettled wilderness. It was instead a social world populated by powerful, independent, indigenous social formations."
McLucas, Anne Dhu. 2006.
"Silent Music: The Apache Transformation of a Girl to a Woman." (In Musical Childhoods and the Cultures of Youth, edited by Susan Boynton and Roe-Min Kok, 49-65. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press) - examines the role of silence adopted by girls during 'coming of age' ceremonies in New Mexico - separate but equal balance of gender roles - ceremony is interesting combination of commercial spectacle (bleachers on rodeo grounds with loudspeakers) and tradition (ritual) - hush of an initiate is contrasted with the sounds produced by jingles on her ceremonial dress - Mescalero women, in contrast to their prominent everyday decision-making role, consider silence to be a powerful attribute during times when their identity is in flux; therefore, by remaining silent during this rite of passage, girls observe both an 'important and paradoxical fact' (p. 50)
Farrer, Clair R. 1989.
"Singing for Life: The Mescalero Apache Girls' Puberty Ceremony." (In Southwestern Indian Ritual Drama, edited by Charlotte J. Frisbie, 125-159. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press) - a reenactment of creation; detailed report/analysis of the 4-day ceremony - "as a ritual drama, the Mescalero Apache Girl's Ceremony celebrates and [ensures perpetuation of] the existence of the Mescalero people through the balanced juxtaposition of the female and male forces in the world - better understood as a rite of confirmation rather than a rite of passage - ceremony celebrates menarche, conducted by holy men above reproach - only actual participants in ceremony are allowed to make "noise" which is considered music - girls don't become the "white painted woman," they *are* the "white painted woman" waiting to claim it
Boaz, Franz. 1904.
"Some Traits of Primitive Culture." (Journal of American Folklore 17(64): 243-254) - aims to outline characteristics of certain 'lower' cultures that can't really be explained by lay-persons (uses the example of why a man wearing a hat indoors is innately considered rude) - makes many assumptions based on supposed 'common knowledge' -surmises that strict adherence to customs in primitive groups are due to emotion and mythology rather than logic, reason, or 'history' - also surmises that symbolism to nature is very important in primitive societies
Conlon, Paula. 2010.
"The Native American Flute: Convergence and Collaboration as Exemplified by R. Carlos Nakai." (The World of Music 52(1/3): 118-131) - organological study; A whole new generation of Native American flute players and makers began to emerge and take up the vow that Doc Tate had made to keep the Native American flute alive. The video Songkeepers (1999) looks at some of these contemporary flute players and makers, including Kevin Locke, Sonny Nevaquaya, Tom Mauchahty Ware, Hawk LittleJohn, Richard Payne and R. Carlos Nakai - links "tradition" with contemporary and popular usage, especially of R. Carlos Nakai: R. Carlos Nakai, of the Navajo/Ute tribes is considered by many to be the major Native American flute player of the late twentieth century. - Nakai's willingness to assimilate music of non-Native American cultures into his music did not occur without his share of criticism from his own people: "Many people in my own tribal culture - and within the Native community at large - find my music very threatening because it doesn't fall back on the romantic reality they've gotten involved in for the past 300 years". Nakai's forays into different cultures and styles of music make him an excellent example of convergence and collaboration. It is this flexibility and openness to new experiences that have helped to launch his success world-wide.
McLeod, Norma. 1971.
"The Semantic Parameter in Music: the Blanket Rite of the Lower Kutenai." (Inter-American Institute for Musical Research Yearbook 7:83-101) - highly analytical paper; seeks to attach tangible meanings to musical elements in songs shared by several groups in the blanket rite ritual - more music-anthropological than ethnomusicological (clear example of studying "them"), despite author subscribing to the latter term; harkens to comparative musicology era - Songs may therefore indicate three meaningful statements: the power of spirits, identification of a particular spirit, and relationship between spirits. The way in which these meaningful relationships are established on the cultural level can be illustrated by the actions of the Shaman and the way in which spirits come into the lodge. - use of "informants" and traditional ethno. canon (citing Nettl among others) but no use of native knowledge
Densmore, Frances. 1927.
"The Use of Music in the Treatment of the Sick by American Indians." (Music Quarterly 29: 77-86) - a survey of various IA groups and their medicine-song rituals and associated treatments - contests that IAs believe that the "medicine" is in the spiritual power of the song (its melodies and rhythms) - while she makes many generalizations, she's also deliberate in pointing out the particular agencies of individual doctors - contains printed transcriptions of some songs
George Quincy
- Born and raised in McAlester, OK; composer and conductor, classically trained pianist, graduated from then worked at Juilliard - became known in Europe for his (often electronic) musical scores - composed mini-opera Pocohontas at the Court of James I, Parts 1 and 2: documented life of Pocahontas through song and orchestra - completed his composition Young Woman Warrior Who Came Home on commission from the AZ Opera (2010): based on an old 19th cent. Navajo story; performers included piano and Native flute, opera toured Navajo reservations in 2011
Francis La Flesche
- considered to be the first NA anthropologist of Omaha/Ponca heritage; assisted Alice Fletcher on her work with the Omaha. - eventually earned a master's degree and became a copyist, translator, and interpreter at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington
Sadie Buck (Tonawanda Seneca)
- culture bearer as a Haudenosaunee clan mother, teacher, and community contributor - lead vocalist of the Six Nations Women Singers of Ontario, which she founded in 1965
Indian House Records
- established in 1966 by Tony Isaacs and Ida Lujan Isaacs (Taos Pueblo); Tony recognized Native users didn't like the common "sampler" approach for albums of various artists and traditional genres, buyers instead wanted to buy in-depth records that featured one genre that one singer or group performed - Isaacs' new company usually recorded traditional music outdoors on location in natural settings instead of studio and no extra effects added - compiled thousands of songs and produced over 100 records
Meschiya Lake
- singer-bandleader, lives in New Orleans; brought up in southern Oregon and South Dakota - gravitated toward the city's jazz and swing tradition, "style reminiscent of Billie Holiday" - her band is the Little Big Horns
Littlefield, Daniel F. 1979.
Africans and Creeks: From the Colonial Period to the Civil War. (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies, No. 47. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press) - not written as well as could've been; limited in scope (only archival work done in Alabama) - research drawn from secondary sources (government accounts) as opposed to Creek or African primary sources - serves as a basic history and historiography of the subject during its time
Sandos, James A. 2004.
Converting California: Indians and Franciscans in the Mission. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) - Aims for a non-judgmental account of the history; believes that "Indians and Franciscans together created a mission culture in a complex interplay in which the identification of heroes and villains is as difficult as it is irrelevant"; author's judgmental-fence-sitting analysis makes deeper/critical analysis impossible (e.g. the author maintains Franciscans only meant to convert, not massacre, the natives, but this stance ignores an explicit part of the Spanish program, namely, the genocide of native peoples' indigenous cultures with the Franciscans' "conquista espiritual") - authoritative discussions of music's role in the conversion of the Indians; the meaning of Xtianization encompasses more than a simple discussion of whether or not baptism and communion had much meaning for the Indians. His analysis of the "emotive state" that the competent Indian choristers likely achieved helps to humanize the experience of the missionized Indians
Thomas, David Hurst. 2000.
Exploring Native North America. (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press) - a survey of 18 key archeological sites in North America critical to IA histories; all of the sites are open to visitors and tourists - notes IA wariness of archeologists and conflicts arising from the digging up of bones and stones in sacred sites - contains a great deal of discussion about archeology from an Anglo-American standpoint, with brief, obligatory mentioning of IAs, hardly any no IA perspectives
Pisani, Michael. 2005.
Imagining Native America in Music. (New Haven: Yale University Press) - detailed historical analysis of how non-Indians interpreted or imagined how Native American music sounded. The book's nine chapters include a survey of European and American composers who wrote music that created a musical vocabulary that represented a "Native" sound, the visits to Europe by Native Americans that included musical exchange and/or performance, the concepts of nationalism and how music can reflect folk or ethnic portraits of peoples, and most interesting, how these types of musical caricatures reflect American sensibilities, culture, and history - antebellum years, musical characterizations of of Native America America became "crude," centering around sensationalized versions of "war dances." As a consequence, "music fell far behind the other arts in subtlety of expression" - He addresses how musical language established in the colonial period (sixteenth to twentieth centuries) came to be recognized as "Native" sounding and uses a new and interesting approach to define the process (Dvorak)
Baker, Theodore. 1882.
On the Music of the North American Indians. (Buren, The Netherlands: Frits Knuf) - written by an American in German - original German title had the word "wilden" or "savage" in it, harkening to author's evolutionist views - contains extensive (albeit racist) descriptions and transcriptions of melodies of Iroquois in New York State and Pennsylvania
Ontario Ministry of Education. 2007.
Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework. (Toronto: Queen's Printer for Ontario) - The Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework, as presented in this document, is intended to provide the strategic policy context within which the Ministry of Education, school boards, and schools will work together to improve the academic achievement of the estimated 50,312 Aboriginal students who attend provincially funded elementary and secondary schools in Ontario - The overriding issues affecting Aboriginal student achievement are a lack of awareness among teachers of the particular learning styles of Aboriginal students, and a lack of understanding within schools and school boards of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit cultures, histories, and perspectives. - outlines strategies from a top-down method but doesn't appear to address grassroots efforts or concerns of actual communities; each mission statement subheading starts with "the Ministry of Education/ school boards/ schools will [...]"
Marshall, Kimberly Jenkins. 2011.
Performing Conversion Among Diné Oodlání (Navajo Believers). (PhD diss., Indiana University) - examines the ways that identity is re-imagined in the contemporary Native American context, using 18-mos-worth of ethnographic work with members of an Indigenous Pentecostal movement among Navajos (known in Navajo as Oodlání). - argues that attending to the social "work" being accomplished through the performative space of the tent revival emphasizes a project of cultural discontinuity, articulated as "conversion," despite the local adaptations and relevance of the movement; it is only through an adequately flexible "points of resonance" that we can conceptualize this balance between continuity and discontinuity in ways that will ring true for Navajos who see themselves as both fully Navajo and fully Christian - The Oodlání movement has its historical roots in the Great Healing Revival of the 1950s and 1960s and, with its emphasis on charismatic healing, miracles, and independence for Navajo leadership, this type of Christianity held appeal for Navajos that few other forms of Christianity ever had; Oodlání language ideology continues to value the use of the Navajo language in Christian contexts, and is in fact heavily dependent on the Navajo language for preaching, praying, testifying, singing and communicating; Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on the experiential nature of faith, has adapted more easily to the Navajo contexts than have other forms of Christianity
Hamill, Chad S. 2012.
Songs of Power and Prayer in the Columbia Plateau: The Jesuit, the Medicine Man, and the Indian Hymn Singer (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press) - emphasizes the creative synthesis of indigenous and Catholic spiritual beliefs and practices by the Native community. This synthesis is a two-way street: Native "medicine men" accept Catholicism as complementary to their indigenous understandings, while Father Connolly (Jesuit priest who established the mission of the Sacred Heart among the Spokan) undergoes a parallel "conversion" in recognizing the spiritual validity of indigenous worship.; details how "Indian wakes" and an "Indian mass" represent "a bridge in both directions" - reads as a personal narrative and takes the stance of traditional Native histories as opposed to the standard colonial histories
Giglio, Virginia. 1994.
Southern Cheyenne Women's Songs. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press) - demonstrates that Chey. women have taken a leadership role both in preserving traditional Chey. songs and in experimenting with new musical expressions - takes cues from/seeks to provide much-needed update/review of Frances Densmore's "Chey. and Arapaho Music" (<--- good thing??); succeeded in questioning the assumptions of earlier scholars; nevertheless, highly analytical and more like Densmore's approach than author probably intended (transcriptions using WEAM conventions, subjective musical analysis of songs, etc.)
Wright-McLeod, Brian (Dakota-Anishnabe). 2005.
The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press) - bibliographic dictionary and annotated discography - Following a thoughtful introduction, the author structures the Encyclopedia into seven categories: the Arctic/Circumpolar Region, Chicken Scratch, Contemporary Music, Flute Music, Peyote Ritual Music, Powwow Music, and Traditional/Archival Music. Each section begins with a concise, accessible, and informative overview and history. These introductions give useful context and background. Inspiring readers to learn more. For each musician, the author provides discographies, appearances, and, where applicable, selected film and television appearances. - Substantive discussions of musical style and influence, as well as descriptions of ceremonial context and musical structure, are provided in the chapter introductions.
Rodriguez, Sylvia. 1996.
The Matachines Dance: Ritual Symbolism and Interethnic Relations in the Upper Rio Grande Valley. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press) - book explores colonization, appropriation, hybridization, and the invention of tradition among Indian and Hispano communities in New Mexico; thick descriptions of Taos, Arroyo Seco, and Picuris Pueblo sites; dance related to the historical dramatization of Spanish driving out Moors - ritual is elaborate drama of Spanish colonial encounter w/ indig. ppl; performed by 2 rows of masked dancers and actors representing El Monarca (Montezuma), La Malinche (Cortez's interpreter/advisor and mistress), El Toro, and Los Abuelos (two clowns) - author's 2 questions: What does the dance mean to its participants and those who celebrate it, and what does it reveal about those people? - Answer: while in the past the Matachines dance reenacted Spanish colonization of IAs, now symbolizes Hispano determination to persist against tide of Anglo assimilation for Hispanos; and for Pueblo Indians, the "incorporation of it into their ceremonial cycle gave the Pueblos a measure of control over how the story of their forced conversion would be remembered and told within their own communities."
Vennum, Thomas. 1982.
The Ojibwe Dance Drum: Its History and Construction. (Smithsonian Folklife Studies 2. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. - divided in 2 parts: History (explores Ojibwa music and culture, the origin and history of the dance drum, the Drum Dance ceremony and its function, and the decline of the Drum Dance) and Construction (describes each step in building and decorating a traditional Ojibwa dance drum and its accessories, which include pipes, tobacco boxes, support legs, drumsticks, and covers - book contains photos, drawings, diagrams, maps, and a glossary of Ojibwa terms, and a companion film - Ojibwa Drum Dance originated in late 19th cent., with roots in Sioux Grass Dance, which had evolved from Hethushka Omaha warrior society - integral to Grass Dance ceremony was the large drum used to accomp. songs; Ojibwa received the Grass Dance and viewed drum as sacred object, ascribed anthropomorphic characteristics to it
