Music of Indigenous Americans

In studying the Native American culture, I have found myself drawn to certain parts of the Native American lifestyle, more specifically, it's music making, dances, and history. Today, I will explore three different questions and topics that relate to the Native American lifestyle and culture.

Firstly, I became more interested in learning more about the circle of life idea in Native American culture and how that is reflected in their music and dance. In Native American culture, making music can be a spiritual experience for them, and it is often accompanied by special dances. In my research, I discovered a Native American dance called the "Hoop Dance" which is a dance not performed for the enjoyment of the public eye but performed to provide balance and peace within the participating individual. Performing the hoop dance can give a person a healthy flow of energy and keep them grounded/focused on what is important in life. In order to receive the positive benefits of the hoop dance, the individual has to consistently work on themselves and practice putting out positive energy into the world so that they may receive it. Below is a video that speaks more in depth about hoop dancing. Dallas Arcand, a three-time world hoop dancing champion, speaks on what it is like to live a circular lifestyle and how hoop dancing has provided him with that balance and peace in his own life. He demonstrates the age-old dance and reminds the audience of this discovery, in hoop dancing and in life, what goes around, comes around.

Secondly, through this unit I have become curious about how they make their musical instruments. As far as making musical instruments go, we studied that Native Americans of the past used all natural materials because that was what was accessible to them. But in present day, I am curious about how the creation process has changed. Do they continue to only use natural materials or is there a bit more leeway to use synesthetic/manufactured materials in their instrument making? Has there been any slight modifications in size and tuning over the years? As I did my research, I had a hard time finding answers to my very specific questions, but I did learn a bit more about the resources used (turtle shells, deer horns, etc.) and how they used them to make sound. Because there is such a wide variety of instruments in Native American culture, researchers have placed various Native instruments into four different categories:  idiophones, membranophones, aerophones, and chordophones, with a fifth category called electrophones, describing electronic instruments or Native instruments that require electricity. An article in the Britannica Encyclopedia gives more details on Native American instruments, along with their history and what can be expected in today’s musical culture. Through this article, I learned more about tuning (vibrations of the instruments under the idiophone category) and how synesthetic/manufactured materials are used in the creation of electronic instruments (under the electrophone category). Below is the link providing you more information on Native American instruments:

https://www.britannica.com/art/Native-American-music/Musical-instruments-in-the-Americas

 

Lastly, through this unit I found myself wanting to learn more about the assimilation of Native Americans in boarding schools and what the reality was for children living in these situations. According to Richard Henry Pratt, the mouth piece for Native American boarding schools, the goal of taking in these children and assimilating them to white culture was to, "kill the Indian, save the man". In the process, Native children were stripped of their culture entirely. Given new "white" names, uniforms, new haircuts (which was traumatizing for children as hair was a big part of their identity) and being forbidden to speak or sing in their Native tongue, the children were suppressed from being who they truly were. Dire consequences were given to those children who refused or had a hard time accepting the white lifestyle. As I listened to the stories of survivors in residential boarding schools from years ago, I could not help but weep at the hell they endured for years. The link blow provides more information on survivor's stories as children who survived the Native American boarding schools:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdR9HcmiXLA

Bibliography: 

“Assimilation versus Sovereignty: The Late 19th to the Late 20th Century.” Encyclopædia Britannica,                 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/topic/Native-American/Assimilation-versus-sovereignty-the-late-19th-to-the-late-20th-century#ref968646. 

“Musical Instruments in the Americas.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/Native-American-music/Musical-instruments-in-the-Americas.