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Section Two:Native American Music

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• Eastern Woodlands

– Eastern Sedentary in Canada

– North-east and South-east in USA

• Plains

• Southwest & California

• Great Basin

• Intermountain Plateau (largely in Nevada and Utah)

• Northwest Coast & Far North

– Western Subarctic

– Arctic

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Approximately 1000 tribal units, almost as many languages, and about 60 independent

language families in North America

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Music Contexts

• Religion

• Social dances

• Games

• Calendar rituals and events in the life cycle.

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Supernatural Elements• Some individuals, special relationship with

music

• Form of prayer

• Imparted to the humans by spirit beings– Dreams– Visitations– At the legendary time of the tribe’s origin.

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Music and Function

• Judged less by musical criteria

• More by how well it fulfilled religious and other functions (providing food, etc.)

• Learn through direct experience.

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Music and Dance

• Music and dance are closely related.• Unite members with spirits of their ancestors.• Circular pattern, steps, hand gestures, intricate

designs on costumes or face have symbolic meaning.

• Dancers often sing, use rattles, sound-makers.• The structures of music and dance often

connected.

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Some General Characteristics For Native American Vocal Music

• Monophonic; singing in octaves.

• Vocables.

• Repetition.

• Descending contour.

• Melodies employ small note collections; tendency of “la” to “do”.

• Accompanied by percussion instruments, usually equally spaced beats.

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Much Sharing

• Musical boundaries fluid and permeable

• Powwow music, often glottal tension, pulsations on longer notes, and high-pitch or falsetto singing.

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Traditional Instruments

• Idiophones: rattles, stick instruments, log drums, etc.

• Membranophones: single-headed or double-headed drums; kettledrums, sometimes filled with water.

• Chordophones: almost nonexistent• Aerophone: flute, made of wood, cane, and

sometimes pottery.

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Similarities & Regional Differences

• Rhythms are usually straight and regular, or free and without meter.

• Melodic content of chants is “diatonic,” sung by solo or group.

• Music often tied to other functions.

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Southwest Region• Includes Pueblo peoples such as Hopi, Zuni, and also Apache and Navajo.

• Navajo and Apache singers can sound tense with nasal high vocal style.

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•Pueblo: vocals sound more open, relaxed, longer and complex; words about water, spirit beings, symbolism.

–Hopi Entering Kiva

–Badger Song

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Zuni Sunrise Song

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Modern Music Styles• Ghost Dance songs.

• Fun 49er songs at powwows.

• Chicken Scratch

• Country, Rock & Folk songs.– Blackfoot - 80s hard rock– Joanne Shenandoah - Iroquois

• New Songs that define Indian-ness.

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Modern Music Styles - cont.

• Flute music • Traditional Plains instrument (5 & 6 hole

flute of cedar) and smaller Apache “spirit flute”

• Now used by many tribes and peoples

– R. Carlos Nakai – Shaman’s Call

Cedar 6-hole flute

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Powwows - Contemporary

• Usually Feature Intertribal Styles

• Most associated with Plains music; held throughout the country.

• Powwows in this area: usually mid-November, Native American Arts & Crafts Festival and Powwow, OzarkEmpire Fairgrounds, Springfield, MO; also Southwest Missouri Indian Center, 2422 W. Division, Springfield, MO 65802, phone (417) 869-9550

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Powwows (cont.)More Secular

• More open; various tribes and non-Native peoples.

• Professional singers/composers/dancers, judged primarily by musical criteria.

• Secular with religious undertones; prayers often opening events.

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Pan-Tribal; with “Drum” Groups

• Represent many tribes and music

• Revolve around the ‘drum’, a group of singers seated at large bass drum. Each singer has a drum beater, play and sing in unison.

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Tribal “Drums”

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Navajo Traditions

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Navajo Way of Life

• Largest tribe; communities and reservations in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah

• Have economic impact on region• Sources of livelihood include coal,

uranium, oil, natural gas, lumber; to a lesser degree farming, raising stock, weaving, and silversmithing

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General Characteristics of the Navajo

• Some government support for education, health care, business

• Costume/dress: men, Western, cowboy hats; women skirts and blouses; both wear jewelry

• Houses, modern stucco houses, trailer homes; some old-style circular log & earth hogans

• Ceremonial buildings: circular floors, domed roofs; symbolizes earth, mountaintops, sky

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History of the Dance Among the Navajo

• Until 1940s, dance songs from ceremonials; particularly Enemyway dance songs

• 1990s: recreational pastime: “song and dance”

• Social dancing, dancers judged on costumes and dancing skill

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We will be looking at the music in two popular ceremonial events

• A Yeibichai song from the Nightway ceremony

• The song “Shizhanee” from the Enemyway ceremony

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Yeibichai Song from the Nightway Ceremony

• One of the most exciting kinds of Navajo music

• Yeibichai (YAY-beh-chai) means “gods their grandfathers” and refers to ancestor deities who come to dance at the Nightway ceremony

• Masked dancers impersonate the gods• They bring supernatural power and

blessing to help a sick person

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Yeibichai Song (cont.)

• Features of the music: piercing falsetto; swoops down for more than an octave; primarily vocal music (vocables); sometimes with rattles and drums, and rarely with flutes and one-stringed fiddles; no harmonies; melodic and rhythmic sophistication

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The Singers and Dances

• Teams of men from a particular region, no women singers

• The teams compete, and best receives a gift the family hosting the event

• Will include costumes, masks, a clown figure

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The Ritual

• Dance occurs on the last night of a nine-day ritual

• Will include purification activities, prayer offerings, sand-painting rituals

• Then a reenactment of the myth on which the ceremony is based. Like a complex opera

• Directed by the singer who must memorize every detail; considered an intellectual and ceremonial leader

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Transcription of the

Yeibichai Song

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The Circle Dance Song Shizhané’é

• The Ndaa dance songs are the ‘hit tunes’ of traditional Navajo life

• Shizhané’é is easier to sing with not as many high falsetto sounds, or vocables

• Includes humorous lyrics about woman leaning against a store front

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The Enemyway Ceremony• Curing Ritual for returning to tribal life

• Shizhané’é is one of the songs used in the ceremony

• Sickness is brought on by the ghosts of outsiders who have died

• Often performed for someone who has been away from home among strangers (in the Armed Forces or in the hospital)

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The Ceremony• Ceremony involves two groups of

participants: – Home camp– Stick receiver’s camp, the enemy, who are

custodians of a stick decorated with symbols that include the Enemy Slayer, the warrior deity; and the Changing Woman, his mother

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First Night

• Singing and dancing at the “stick receiver’s camp”

• Begins with Sway songs (courtship songs but often only vocables)

• Then dance songs, “ladies’ choice”• Then a signal song indicates change back to

Sway songs, maybe all night• Stop at dawn for rest and breakfast

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Second Day• After rest and breakfast, gift songs

• “Home camp” people sing outside the main hogan of the “stick receiver’s camp”

• Gifts are exchanged, like war booty

• The “stick receiver’s camp” moves toward the “home camp”

• Another night of singing and dancing

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Third Day• Mock battles

• Circle dance at the “stick receiver’s” new camp; songs like “Shizhanee” are sung

• The “stick receiver’s” go to the “home camp” and sing four songs that mention the name of the enemy

• Night of ceremonial songs (sway songs, dance songs, signal songs, sway songs)

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Fourth Day

• Sunrise blessing ritual, and enemy departs

• Then four days of rest

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Newer Navajo Music• Christian hymns, some Mormon influence;

evangelical Christianity– “Clinging to a Saving Hand” (CD 1:10)

• Native American Church (Peyote Church) – (CD 1:9)

• Country music– “Folsom Prison Blues” (CD 1:7)

• The Native-American Flute Revival• New Composers in Traditional Modes

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HOMEWORK -due Monday, January 30

• ASSIGNMENT 2– Study Questions, p. 66: #1, 2– Compare & Contrast the Sioux Grass Dance

with the Navajo Yeibichai Song; how do these songs compare with the Zuni Blessing/Sunrise Song and “Shaman’s Call” that we listened to in class? Describe Fully.

• ONLINE QUIZ: Chapter 2