MUS11 - Indigenous North American Music

Indian Boarding Schools

forced assimilation, racist cultural ideology drove this; native american children removed from their families and forced to recieve an education in western civilization; hair cut; punished for speaking native language

Society of American Indians

one of the first major intertribal advocacy groups formed; started the american indian movement (activist grp)

Land acknowledgement

taking a moment to acknowledge the land on which were gathered, it has been the home of the Patwin people for thousands of years

Patwin People

steward the land that is now UC Davis and consist of 3 federally recognized tribes; based in califronia

clapper stick

replaces drums; main rhytmic instrument that strikes against your palm

Inupiaq & Yupik people

Both Indigenous groups in Alaska in which drums played a large role during their music production

Otis Ahkivigak

Born in the late 1800s and had his story songs recorded by an ethnomusicologist Laura Bolton

Story songs (boy resting by a river)

young Inupiaq man who was boating by the river and called out to a woman who did not acknowledge him, she then began sinking into the earth and crying for help; cautionary tale of being social with others

Inupiaq frame drum

a central practive that serves as the heartbeat of the community that connects the inupiaq people to the natural world; drum rims were made from driftwood and drum heads made from walrus lining

powwows

contrmporary and intertribal 20th century reinvention of longstanding traditional practices that continue today

mens grass dance

dance performed when men would come back to the village after coming back from a war and would stomp down the grasses to make a ceremonial dance ground

Women’s Traditional Dance

dance was rooted in place, with graceful elegant and strong movements; regalia was made from heavy cloth (buckskin) & had eagle feather fans; told stories about what it means to be a woman

Woman’s Jingle Dress Dance

has roots in Ojibwe people but is now practices everywhere; medicine dance, was seen as a way of healing the sick through the metaphysical vibration of the bells; dance choreography was zig-zaggy and unpredictable; bells handcrafted from tobacco tins

Women’s Shawl Fancy Dance

intricate and fancy dance movements; regalia was flourescent and psychadellic; evoked a butterfly coming from a cocoon

Men’s traditional dance

heavy dance, evokes the emotions of a man stalking an animal; regalia had a bustle: feather in a U shape worn on the back & a head piece called a rooch that havd porkupine quills or feathers to evoke connection to the animal world

Mens fancy dance

had more elaborate regalia than the standard dance, 2 bustles instead of one; movements are a lot more free

Powwow singing style

High head voice with descending & cascading contour

John Angaiak

is a Yupik musician who grew up in SW alaska; served in Alaska and realized a lot of his native classmates did not speak the language; devotes his life to revitalizing those languages

Ak’a Tamaani

from John’s album “Im Lost in the City”; urbanization synonymous with a loss of culture; encouraging his people to use cultural tools to inspire healing

Qacung

Yupik + African American musician; made indigenous music that carried the importance of language

“The Gathering”

Good example of indigenous language use & intertribal community; quadruple meter; modern + classic

Halluci Nation (A Tribe Called Red)

native canadian group; intertribal group. Name was based off of A Tribe Called Quest and Red replaced Quest to reclaim a racial slur used against indigenous people; Halluci Nation was named after an activist who collaborated on a poem with them

Indian City

Influence of powwow dancing shown in the video along with breakdance moves; set in an urban setting; reclamation of being indigenous and urban