Robbie Robertson Americana or Canadian?

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Leigha Daniels

Although it is important to learn the history of ethnography with Frances Densmore and early recordings of Native American music, I find listening to music created by Native Americans specifically shared with the public to have greater impact. In the Akwesasne Notes Magazine, there is a section called Music Reviews by Jill O’Brian. This section of the magazine talks about the Red Road Ensemble and Robbie Robertson. When simply searching up Robbie Robertson we find that he was a Canadian musician and lead guitarist for Bob Dylan. What we don’t see is his Native American background and the group he created called the “Red Road Ensemble,” who created the album, Music for the Native Americans which was used in a television documentary.

Robbie Robertson was a musician, songwriter, and guitarist of Mohawk and Jewish descent. He played a significant role in promoting and preserving Native Canadian/American culture through his music. Robertson incorporated Native American themes and musical elements into his compositions, which helped bring Native American culture to a broader audience.

Let’s take a look into the album Contact from the Underworld of Redboy, which was released in 1998.

“One particular song on the record, Sacrifice, highlighted the plight of Native Americanawk activist Leonard Peltier, who was serving two life sentences in prison for a crime he did not commit. The song mixes traditional singing and drums with Robertson’s own voice singing the chorus and a recording from a phone call with Peltier in prison, where the Lakota man tells his story.”²

It is important that we as students educate ourselves on Native people’s music in order to help preserve and protect traditions, which have been passed down through generations. ³

1Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 2, No. 1. 1996. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_Akwesasne_Notes_1996_11Wnt [Accessed October 26, 2023].

2Rickert, Levi. “Robbie Robertson: A Transcendent Musician Who Bridged Cultures, but Never Forgot His Native Roots.” Native News Online, August 15, 2023. https://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/robbie-robertson-a-transcendent-musician-who-bridged-cultures-but-never-forgot-his-native-roots.

3Farber, Jim. “Robbie Robertson, 80, Dies; Canadian Songwriter Captured American Spirit.” The New York Times, August 9, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/arts/music/robbie-robertson-dead.html.

Government Documents for Indian Boarding Schools

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Noah Schilbe

It can be said that the worst outcomes come from the best of intentions. Of course, we look back in history and find that the definition of ‘best’ is thoroughly different between cultures, backgrounds, classes, races, etc. And obviously, if one were to take the extremely low-hanging fruit, it requires an impressive amount of logic leaps to find the ‘best intentions’ in some of the greatest historical tragedies, such as the Holocaust, any number of catastrophic wars, or the Trail of Tears.

While the history of Indian boarding schools is undoubtedly tragic, the discussion of the goals behind them is surprisingly frank and positive. As a report from a member of the Advisory Council on Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior (one who had the fantastic decency to write his name in an illegible scrawl at the end of his letter to said Secretary of the Interior, at the time Hubert Work; I therefore have absolutely no idea who wrote thing beyond this) notes that the primary goal is to “place the American Indian… upon the same basis as the rest of our citizenship, politically, intellectually, and industrially…” with the disturbance of “community life or tribal or family relationships” no more “than a growing degree of general participation in economic and… political affairs has interfered with… the Negro…”¹

An excerpt from page 2 of a letter written to the Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work

Piercing through the incredible wordiness of this statement, it is perhaps difficult to gauge the true opinion of the report’s author. There is much wiggle-room presented in the goal, particular in the definition of an appropriate level of disturbance, but there does not seem to be explicit mention of disrupting family groups, of squashing heritage, and the like. Indeed, the report author notes that “the average American Indian should be educationally as well equipped and as self-reliant and self-sufficient as the average citizen of any other racial descent.”² A noble goal, if not for the fact that the peoples in question had been self-reliant for well before the arrival of Europe in the New World.

Turning attention to the boarding schools established for the purposes of educating American Indians to the degrees mentioned above, analysis of their curriculum identifies that a significant amount of effort seems to have been put in to ensure a full coverage of all subjects, in science, history, math, and more. One example from the Office of Indian affairs, prepared for use throughout the Indian school service in 1915, dedicates 30 pages in its curriculum overview to Industrial work and over 130 pages to various vocational studies (trade, agriculture, home economics, nursing, etc)³.

A excerpt from the table of contents from curriculum proposed for American Indian students. Note the wide variety of topics available, especially relating to ‘practical’ work.

A section is, of course, dedicated to music. Although there is attention given to the coverage of ‘good’ music (which is something that many others have covered, I will therefore not beat a dead horse), interesting emphasis is placed on proper vocal techniques. Notes to have a “light, pure tone”, with special exercises for “preventing huskiness” and “the elimination of monotones” in the lower grade levels, perhaps were included specifically to ‘correct’ vocal styles that are used for Native American singing ⁴.

A excerpt from the table of contents from curriculum proposed for American Indian students. A guideline for vocal standards lays out what to prioritize while singing.

For example, in an analysis of different pow-wow singing styles, it is noted that the Great Lakes style uses a “medium-high voice, often with a gravelly or rough timbre” while in both the Great Lakes and Midplains style the women’s part is described as “high and tense”.⁵ These assertions are difficult to confirm, as during the early 20th century musical analysis of Native American styles was in its infancy, and unfortunately there is little literature that refers directly to behaviors or tendencies that need to be prevented (which would have been an obvious indicator of this type of connection), but the possibility of a link is still there.

In conclusion, this serves as a slightly different approach, as I was surprised to see that reports regarding Native Americans in the 20th century were not as overtly hostile as I might have suspected, going from history. This, of course, could entirely be fancy political language, and there is the additional factor of the majority not understanding the minority and wishing to impose upon them an idea of ‘correctness’, but I found it interesting regardless.

Works Cited:

1 Member of the Advisory Council on Indian Affairs, Report on Indian Affairs (United States Government, 1923), 1-2. Retrieved from American Indian Histories and Cultures https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_MS_668/3#Chapters (accessed Oct 26, 2023).

2 Ibid

3 Department of the Interior (Office of Indian Affairs), Tentative Course of Study for United States Indian Schools (Washington D.C: Government Printing Office, 1915), Table of Contents. Retrieved from American Indian Histories and Cultures https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_386_U5_1915/5 (accessed Oct 26, 2023).

4 Dept. of Interior, Tentative Course of Study, 111-113.

5 Tara Browner, Judith Vander, et al., Music of the First Nations: Tradition and Innovation in Native North America (University of Illinois Press: 2009), 137-138. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/stolaf-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3413835&ppg=147 (accessed on Oct 26, 2023).

Music Education and Forced Assimilation at United States Indian Boarding Schools

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Mariana Rogan

The first off-reservation boarding school in the U.S. for Indigenous students, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was founded in 1879 by Henry Richard Pratt in Pennsylvania. The founding of the school was overseen by President Rutherford Hayes, under the Indian Civilization Act (ICA), that incentivized the so-called “civilized” education of Indigenous children. Carlisle’s strict, military-style modes of discipline and focus on vocational training that funneled students directly into underpaid manual and domestic labor jobs became a blueprint for several such boarding schools across the country.¹

Since the recent archeological discoveries of mass graves at the former sites of these schools across the US and Canada, the legacy of these institutions designed to “kill the Indian, save the man,” in Pratt’s words, is being examined again with a mind towards restorative justice, acknowledging how these modes of “education” and assimilation were not just physically violent, but also mentally and spiritually violent.²

One would not necessarily expect music to play a central part in the violent assimilationist education of these boarding schools, but a 1915 book giving detailed instructions, down to how much time in the school day should be spent on a subject, for boarding school curriculum suggests otherwise. The book features a chapter outlining the music curriculum, which is extremely telling of the strict assimilationist thinking that was the guiding force for these boarding schools.

The first paragraph seems innocent enough, touting the broader educational benefits of music training, but it quickly takes a turn. The author(s) of this guide state that the first step in a proper musical education is “to permit the pupils to hear only good music.”³ What exactly they mean by “good,” is quickly outlined by a long list of operas such as Aida and William Tell, as well as works from the Western classical canon by composers such as Mozart and Haydn. They also add that “Patriotic songs, as ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’… should, of course, receive special attention.” ⁴

Repertoire suggestions in 1915 book.

Following these narrow and purposefully Euro-centric repertoire guidelines, the author(s) go on to list aesthetic guidelines for the training of the pupils’ voices. The very first rule stated is “Always insist on a good, smooth, sweet, light, pure tone.”⁵ Soon after that, it’s also stressed that the pupils “Pronounce all words clearly, so that a listener can understand them.”⁶ These two guidelines emphasize the enforcement of Euro-centric standards for musical training, as well as complete assimilation to the English language and abandonment of Indigenous aesthetics and language.

With strict guidelines to teach and enforce the European classical canon as the musical ideal, Indigenous children, often as young as four years old, were completely cut off from not only their home and family, but also the musical culture they would have otherwise been surrounded by and raised in. The violence lies not only in hundreds of deaths of children that were torn from their homes, but the systematic way in which they had their culture and traditions torn from them, and the Indigenous music and languages that were lost in the process.

1 Ferris, Jeanne. 2021. “‘LET THOSE Children’s Names BE KNOWN’: THE PARADOX OF INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOLS.” News from Native California 35 (2): 26–32. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=154090702&site=ehost-live.

2 Ibid.

3 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915. Tentative course of study for United States Indian schools. Prepared under the direction of commissioner of Indian affairs. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_386_U5_1915 [Accessed October 26, 2023].

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

Cultural erasure: Western centralsim in Native American boarding schools

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Ian Snider

The Native American boarding school program, more commonly referred to as American Indian Boarding Schools, was a program meant to erase the native American culture from the land. The program coerced Native American families into sending their children to these boarding schools, which were meant to assimilate the children into white American culture. Some of the older kids there did fight back and then were physically punished by being beaten ¹. The younger kids who were brought to the schools were never able to be assimilated into the culture their parents were part of, resulting in their returned being outsiders to their own families.

Rules for the Indian School Service / Office of Indian Affairs

240. Instruction shall be given in music at all schools. Singing shall be a part of the exereises of each school session, and, whenever practicable, instruction in instrumental musie may be given. The formation of school bands should also be encouraged. – Office of Indian Affairs

The important thing to pay attention to in this quote is the erasure of Native American’s own musical traditions. This is very intentional, and we can see it in the quote. Saying “Instructions shall be given in music” and not specifying any particular style of music, therefore implying a Western music style.

Ayer 389 C2 1915-16

There is, too, a vocal department, which includes the classwork and singing exercises, where all are taught the rudiments of music. – Carlisle Indian Industrial School

We can also see this pattern of assuming Western music is the only form of music which is worth teaching in another school’s records. Showing that the Native American children need to be tough music and identify their traditional music as worthless. This careful framing of the education allows the colonizers to morally push away any doubt they had because they see the people they are “educating” as primitive and none of their wisdom as useful.

Bibliography:

Carlisle Indian Industrial School. 1913. Catalogue and Synopsis of Courses, United States Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Carlisle: Carlisle Indian Press. https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/SearchDetails/Ayer_389_C2_C2_1915#.

Office of Indian Affairs. 1898. Rules for the Indian School Service / Office of Indian Affairs. Washington, D.C., United States: Government Printing Office. https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/SearchDetails/Ayer_386_U5_1898?searchText=Music&showSearchMessage=False&performingNewSearch=True#.

1Parker, E. S. (1846). Ely Samuel Parker scrapbooks: Vol 8 (p. 4). https://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/SearchDetails/Ayer_Modern_MS_Parker_VL08#.

Mildred Bailey and American Indian Identity

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Eli Schrubbe

Mildred Bailey, studio portrait, USA, 1949. (Photo by Gilles Petard/Redferns)

Concurrent Resolution No. 49 was filed by the Coeur d’Alene tribe of Idaho in the Idaho House of Representatives in March 2012 with the goal of correcting historical records and reuniting Mildred Bailey¹, one of the first female vocalists in jazz history. “I think it’s not known at all. Hardly nobody knew,” says Coeur d’Alene Tribal Chairman Chief Allan. “Not only being Native, but being a woman in that era, to be so strong and keep pushing and not to give up, that would help a lot of our young tribal members who are looking for a role model,” says Chief Allan².

For background on the Coeur d’Alene tribe, we can find a large monetary exchange between the tribe and the United States government. As a result of the constant stream of settlers into the area, the Coeur d’Alene people effectively transitioned from traditional means of nomadic survival in just fifty years after first making contact with Europeans and adopted static agriculture³. The Coeur d’Alene tribe paid the United States government half a million dollars in 1889 to give up the northern portion of their ancestral lands, as stated in the Indian Commissions Agreement. All Coeur d’Alene families received an equal share of the funds, most of which went into purchasing cutting-edge farming machinery⁴. Mildred Bailey, who was born in 1900 and was nurtured by her Coeur d’Alene mother and a Scotch/Irish father on a farm next to the reservation, portrayed this fast changing environment³.

For over eight decades, Bailey, a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, was mostly recognized as a “white jazz singer.” Conversations concerning the origins of jazz rarely addressed Bailey’s Indian identity; it stayed in the farmlands of Coeur d’Alene, where she learned to move, speak, and sing like a neglected crop. In a 1930s America that was still divided along racial lines, Bailey could easily be pardoned if she decided to conceal her Native American heritage, but she never made the attempt to do so³. On the contrary, she was happy to share it with everyone around her as a source of pride. The reason Mildred Bailey was labeled as “white” was that the jazz narrative she was a part of could not accommodate Indian jazz players. The faulty label of “white jazz-singer” was important for a number of reasons, not the least of which was Bailey’s significant influence on the jazz and pop scenes. Bailey invented the vocal “swing” style that many singers attempted to imitate, including “Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, and Tony Bennett.” (Hamill 33) Bailey chose to attribute her voice sixty years after it was recorded for the final time, to the Indian music of her childhood rather than her contemporaries.³

1“Page 260 Us, Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940.” Fold3, www.fold3.com/image/216137757. Accessed 25 Oct. 2023.

2Robinson, Jessica. “Tribe Seeks to Correct Jazz History on Native Singer’s Heritage.” NPR, NPR, 15 Mar. 2012, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=148715100.

3 Berglund, Jeff, Johnson, Jan, and Lee, Kimberli, eds. Indigenous Pop : Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Accessed October 26, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.

4 Dinwoodie, David. “Landscape Traveled by Coyote and Crane: The World of the Schitsu’Umsh (Coeur d’Alene Indians).” Montana; the Magazine of Western History 53, no. 1 (Spring, 2003): 75. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/landscape-traveled-coyote-crane-world-schitsuumsh/docview/217955660/se-2.

Music in Native American Boarding Schools

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Rachel Christensen

Tentative course of study for United States Indian schools. Prepared under the direction of commissioner of Indian affairs.¹

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States was attempting to assimilate Native American students in the white American culture. This was done in part by placing Native American children in boarding schools, and by 1925, “over 357 boarding schools were being
operated in thirty states.”² The United States government the education of Native American children was the key solution to assimilation. Since that is what the government believed, they also believed that “Only by complete isolation of the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated.”³ A major part of the curriculum when assimilating Native American’s into white culture was music.

The document above is a few pages from a course study made for Native American boarding schools specifically focusing on the music aspect of their education. This document really emphasizes the importance of music in a young person’s education as music “develops all the powers and functions of the human mind.”⁴ This document lists some requirements in educating the students with music. The first requirement listed is that the students are only allowed to listen to “only hear good music, aiming consistently in this way to develop musical appreciation.”⁵ It proceeds to list selections that someone deemed “good” for the Native American students such as the march from the opera “Aida” and William Tell” but “rag time” music is not good since it is mostly enjoyed by the “average person”.⁶ This document states that these students should learn about music by Haydn and Mozart for special occasions, and special attention should be pay to patriotic songs such as “the Star-Spangled Banner.”⁷ It is stated that the purpose of this course study is to lead the children to “an interest in singing” and to “preserve” their voice, “secure the ability to read music at sight” and to perform it correctly and pleasantly, and “to cultivate enjoyment and appreciation of good music.”⁸

In many cultures, music is rooted into their tradition, especially oral tradition. In Native American culture, music is not simply a form of entertainment, it is an essential part of everyday life and ceremony. Where Western tradition focuses primarily on music in terms of entertainment at a distance, Native Americans view music as an active and personal experience, not simply something that is for personal entertainment.⁹

Bibliography

Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915. Tentative course of study for United States Indian schools. Prepared under the direction of commissioner of Indian affairs, page 110-111. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_386_U5_1915

The role of music in assimilation of students at … – gettysburg college. Accessed October 25, 2023. https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1217&context=ghj.

Footnotes

1 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915. Tentative course of study for United States Indian schools. Prepared under the direction of commissioner of Indian affairs, page 110-111. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_386_U5_1915

2 The role of music in assimilation of students at … – gettysburg college, accessed October 25, 2023, https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1217&context=ghj.

3 The role of music in assimilation of students at … – gettysburg college, accessed October 25, 2023, https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1217&context=ghj.

4 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915.

5 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915.

6 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915.

7 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915.

8 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915.

9 Bureau of Indian Affairs. 1915.

Carlisle Indian School Project

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Carter Allen-Weyenberg

While looking for a source to spark my interest in writing this blog post, I found this manuscript seen below.[1] This manuscript was transcribed by Father Emile Petitot, a Roman Catholic Preist.[2] This sparked my thinking of common themes discussed among blog posts in the past. The idea of White Saviorism and the need to record practices from cultures other than your own. Petitot encountered various indigenous tribes in the land we now consider Canada. During these years of contact, he served as a missionary priest to the indigenous tribes. After these encounters, Petitot was convinced that liquor and guns were threatening indigenous culture and began to fervently record their cultural practices. That is how the ‘Chants indiens du Canada Nord-Ouest’ was created, the document you see below.

Cover of Chants indiens du Canada Nord-Ouest by Father Emile Petitot

There are a couple of different things wrong with this document. Most notably, we see once again the attempt to transcribe indigenous musical practices with Western notation. The discipline of Ethnomusicology has seen Francis Densmore[3], W.E.B DuBois[4], and many other musicologists attempt this. A common thread among all these examples is that the attempt is never quite enough to capture the quintessence of indigenous musical traditions. They introduce such complex rhythms, and attempt to give different tempo markings for different parts, and the shoe never quite fits.

(Click on it to see a better image) A syllabus for students going through the Carlisle Indian School

In the document above, you can see an attempt to Americanize indigenous children with this academic plan. This was called the Carlisle Indian School Project, and it was the first government-run boarding school in 1879.[5] Over 180 indigenous children died while attending this conversion school. Notice that in the fall semester of the first year, there is a class based on hygiene. This to me shows that the creators of this curriculum believed the people of indigenous cultures are dirty and need to be taught how to clean themselves. Not very kind and welcoming to my understanding. Below you will see a page outlining the musical education that these kids will receive. They speak of music being a good tool for happiness and religious worship, Christian worship. These kids will also go through the school’s orchestra or band program while having their identities stripped from them.

(Click on it to see it better) Rationale for music education in Carlisle Indian Industrial School

The theme of White Saviorism is not subtle throughout all the sources provided above. We can see it in the work done by Father Emile, and through the Carlisle Indian School Project. It went so far as many students who ‘attended’ the school believed that the only way to save ingenious culture was to shed all practices and dive deep into white culture. Common phrases were “Kill the Indian, Save the man.”[6]

[1] Petitot, Father, Emile. 1862-1889. Chants indiens du Canada Nord-Ouest [manuscript]: recueillis, classés et notés par Emile Petitot, prêtre missionnaire au Mackenzie, de 1862-1882, 1889. [Manuscript]. At: Place: The Newberry Library. VAULT box Ayer MS 715. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_MS_715 [Accessed October 24, 2023].

[2] Moir, John S. 2003. “Biography – PETITOT, ÉMILE – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography.” Www.biographi.ca. 2003. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/petitot_emile_14E.html.

‌

[3] Densmore, Frances. 1929. Pawnee Music. Da Capo Press.

‌

[4] DuBois, W.E.B. 1903. “‘The Sorrow Songs,’ from the Souls of Black Folk.” Teaching American History. 1903. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-sorrow-songs/.

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[5] Carlisle Indian School Project. n.d. “Carlisle Indian School Project | Richard Henry Pratt Carlisle Indian School.” Carlisle Indian School Project. https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/past/.

‌

[6] Ibid

Works Cited

Carlisle Indian School Project. n.d. “Carlisle Indian School Project | Richard Henry Pratt Carlisle Indian School.” Carlisle Indian School Project. https://carlisleindianschoolproject.com/past/.

Carlisle Indian Industrial School. 1915. Catalogue and synopsis of courses, United States Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Carlisle: Carlisle Indian Press. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_389_C2_C2_1915 [Accessed October 24, 2023].

Densmore, Frances. 1929. Pawnee Music. Da Capo Press.

DuBois, W.E.B. 1903. “‘The Sorrow Songs,’ from the Souls of Black Folk.” Teaching American History. 1903. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-sorrow-songs/.

Moir, John S. 2003. “Biography – PETITOT, ÉMILE – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography.” Www.biographi.ca. 2003. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/petitot_emile_14E.html.

Petitot, Father, Emile. 1862-1889. Chants indiens du Canada Nord-Ouest [manuscript]: recueillis, classés et notés par Emile Petitot, prêtre missionnaire au Mackenzie, de 1862-1882, 1889. [Manuscript]. At: Place: The Newberry Library. VAULT box Ayer MS 715. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American Indian Histories and Cultures, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_MS_715 [Accessed October 24, 2023].

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Why music?

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Noah Schilbe

Every decade or so, a different approach to analyzing music comes around, each trying to explain what it is about the idea that develops independently and uniquely across every culture. We’re asked regularly to consider “What is music?” or “Why is music?” as performers, in order to better understand our own art form and convey… whatever we’re trying to in our musical attempt.

Pleasure is something that the author S. ruminates on. As they wrote their letter to the editor of The Monthly Magazine, and the American Review with nothing more substantial for a signature, their identity is entirely up for question. This is not uncommon; the magazine was compiled from letters to the editors, commentary, and bits of philosophic thoughts about all sorts of topics ranging from orations of American Independence to church sermons to shavings (it is quite an interesting read). Specifically, S. focuses on the pleasure of music and where it originates from: the notes themselves or the ideas they incite? S. goes out of their way to talk about how “simple sounds are agreeable or disagreeable according as the vibrations they produce in the ear arrive at, or are above or below the pleasure point of action”¹, which can be summarized by the following example:

For those still confused, S. is essentially theorizing that some sounds are just naturally terrible, that there exists an invisible bar that denotes the bare minimum of human tolerance, and that no sounds below it can exist with any form of musicality. They are, in essence, pointing out these sounds for the only purpose of ignoring them, as nails on a chalkboard (or anything similar) perhaps should never be included in a musical composition.

Therefore, the primary part of S’s argument focuses on ideas that music incites. They theorized that music acts as the starting domino in a long chain, setting off a cascade of ideas. When listening to a piece of music that perhaps invokes ideas of mountain rivers and chirping birds, it is actually the listener that is giving the song those meanings, even if it had been composed with the intent to inspire such ideas. S. notes this is extremely obvious with national music, citing a “Swiss Air that is forbid even to be played to their troops in foreign service, as it always produces the most unrestrainable desire to return [home].” Yet of course, if one has no particular love for the Swiss, they would most likely clap and move right along.

This notion comes to a head with the music of Native Americans. S. discusses this in brief, referring as an example to the Creek nation, which is now known as the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma, where an observed song contained only three notes. To the unenlightened observer, such ‘music’ would have been laughable, however to those who have somber thoughts of war and strife associated with the slow, despondent melody, there is deeper understanding and shared meaning.

Extrapolating this to class readings and conversations, we return to the idea that ‘everyone lacks context’. When Frances Densmore, an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, recorded the traditional songs of Native American tribes during the early 1900s and carefully noted their meanings, there was lost context and understanding. In compilations of early colonist opinions regarding native music, there was lost context and understanding (made even worse by the lack of a shared language). Even recorded songs that can be heard in full inspire new domino-chains of thought that perhaps are not what the original composer or culture intended.

This, perhaps, is not a bad thing, as music can be shared between cultures and grow and change with each new person who ascribes meaning to it. But it lends certain doubt to that traditional sentiment: “Music is a universal language”.

Citations:

1. S. 1800. Letter 2 — no title. The Monthly Magazine, and American Review (1799-1800). 02, pg. 85. https://www.proquest.com/magazines/letter-2-no-title/docview/88855456/se-2 (accessed September 21, 2023).

The entire collection (volumes 1-3) can be found publicly available at HathiTrust at the following URL: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009018879.

“Othering” Native American Music

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Rachel Christensen

Fletcher’s fieldwork collection from observing Sioux and Omaha Native Americans.¹

Alice C. Fletcher is thought to be the first scientist of ethnology to live among the Native Americans in the 1880s.² In this excerpt of an article written by Fletcher, she details her time observing a ceremony done by the Native Americans she was living with. She continues by explaining every detail of what she sees and how she feels throughout the duration of this event.

Fletcher page 1 Fletcher page 2

One of Fletcher’s first feelings upon entering this tent and seeing the ceremony is one of fear. She was “startled by a sudden mighty beating of the drum, with such deafening yells and shouts that [she] feared [her] ears would burst.”³ She describes the women sitting around the drum as being the only people wearing color. She details the bangles they wear around their wrists as “glints of brightness” which “only added to the weirdness of the place.”⁴ Fletcher’s vocabulary usage in her descriptions throughout this article excerpt insinuates a sense of “othering” between her and the ceremony. The impression she gives the reader is one of fear, where the reader might want to be wary of Native Americans and their music.

Fletcher moves on to discuss the music she hears. She states that she was “distressed and perplexed, [her] head was ringing, and [she] was fast becoming mentally distraught.”⁵ The visuals of the ceremony, the dancing and singing, lead her to call upon “every picture of savages [she] had ever seen,” as well as “every account of Indian atrocit[y] [she] had ever heard,” and it “gave her a horrible interpretation to the scene.”⁶ So much so that she would have escaped if she could. Eventually, she states that she comes to her senses and realizes that she was witnessing this very ceremony by her own choice, and she needs to put her personal emotions aside.

Fletcher admits it took her a long time for her ears to adjust to what she was hearing. She even acknowledges that the Native Americans struggled to listen to their music when played on a piano.⁷ They were not accustomed to the piano the same way Fletcher was not accustomed to their singing. It wasn’t until she fell ill and the Native Americans sang to her that she finally began to understand the beauty of their music.

It is really easy to discuss other culture’s music in a way that makes it seem so far away from us. It is so easy to “other” their music as seen here in the way Fletcher writes about how she felt while experiencing their ceremony. Fletcher’s feelings demonstrate exactly why there is misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Native American music. People begin with a preconceived idea and understanding that it makes it difficult to learn about and appreciate local and global music for what it is.

Bibliography

“Alice Cunningham Fletcher.” History of American Women, April 2, 2017. https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2015/05/alice-cunningham-fletcher.html.

Fletcher, Alice C. “INDIAN SONGS.: PERSONAL STUDIES OF INDIAN LIFE.” Century Illustrated Magazine (1881-1906) XLVII, no. 3 (01, 1894): 421, 1-2, https://www.proquest.com/magazines/indian-songs/docview/125523852/se-2.

“Life among the Indians.” Nebraska Press, January 27, 2017. https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803241152/.

1https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803241152/

2“Alice Cunningham Fletcher,” History of American Women, April 2, 2017, https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2015/05/alice-cunningham-fletcher.html.

3Alice C. Fletcher, “INDIAN SONGS.: PERSONAL STUDIES OF INDIAN LIFE,” 1.

4Fletcher, 2.

5Ibid.

6Ibid.

7Ibid.

Wampum and its importance to Eastern Woodland Native Americans

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Calvin Reyes

Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Native American tribes of the Eastern Woodlands. The beads are harvested from the shells of Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clams and are typically white and purple. Native Americans would harvest the clams in the summer and eat their contents before working on the shells. The process of creating wampum was long and hard, usually taking a full day to make just one bead. Shells would be ground or drilled down very carefully using rocks. Not only was the process difficult, but it was also somewhat dangerous, fine dust from the shaved off shells could cut up the lungs if ingested so Native Americans would often use water to limit the dust.

Wampum belt made of shell beads, buckskin, & ribbon. Anthro #A738.1

After the beads were made, they were placed on strings made of either plant fibers or animal tendons. They were often worn decoratively and sometimes even formed into belts which were used to tell stories and mark agreements between peoples. There were usually only two colors of wampum, white and purple, each having their own meanings. White wampum usually denoted purity or light while purple wampum typically represented war, grieving, and death. The two colors would often be combined to represent the duality of the world.

Wampum strings and belts had many uses such as currency, gifts, and a means of telling stories. Tribes would often trade wampum with each other in exchange for other goods. Due to the meaning of each color of bead, wampum was also used as a gift, white wampum being given to celebrate things like births or marriages and purple wampum being used for condolences after the loss of loved ones. Moreover, mixed belts, which represented the duality of the world, were given as peace treaties and used to tell stories to others and future generations.

The worth of wampum was also recognized by many European settlers. A letter written to Thomas Penn from James Logan in 1937 shows that the Europeans knew the significance of wampum. In a proposal to meet the chiefs of the Six Nations at Albany, Logan proposed that Governor Gooche accompany his letter with 2 to 3 fathoms of wampum as a peace offering. Wampum beads and belts even became a commodity in Europe. In a receipt written from Isaac Low in 1769, a paper bundle of wampum was sold to someone in Europe for £15 11s. 6d.

Although the significance of wampum has dwindled for non-Native Americans, wampum and the process of making it is still unquestionably important to the culture and traditions of Native Americans. This video shows the traditional process of making wampum by hand, still followed by Native Americans today.

References:

Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. “Letter to [Jelles Fonda, Caghnawaga]” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2022. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b8a373ad-28d8-942d-e040-e00a18065263

Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. “Letter to the Proprietary [Thomas Penn]” New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 23, 2022. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/bb4ebb8a-0e86-c85e-e040-e00a18063bc4

Scott Dressel-Martin. Wampum belt. 7/26/2010. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://dmns.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/detail/DMNSDMS~4~4~11333~100798. (Accessed September 20, 2022.)

Traditional Wampum Belts. PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/video/traditional-wampum-belts-gy05in/.

Tweedy, Ann C. “From Beads to Bounty: How Wampum Became America’s First Currency-and Lost Its Power.” ICT. ICT, October 5, 2017. https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/from-beads-to-bounty-how-wampum-became-americas-first-currencyand-lost-its-power.

Wallace, Anthony F C. “The Iroquois Wampum Belts.” Anthropology News (Arlington, Va.) 12, 4 (1971): 7–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/an.1971.12.4.7.2.

Wampum Belt. 1682. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, https://dlgadmin.galileo.usg.edu/iiif/2/dlg%2Fguan-dpla%2Fartsus%2Fguan-dpla_artsus_in26%2Fguan-dpla_artsus_in26-00001.jp2/full/1000,/0/default.jpg. (Accessed September 20, 2022.)

Learning Culture Through Immersion

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Zane Ross

Francis Densmore was an ethnomusicologist working in the early 20th century to try and save American Indian music which she thought was going extinct. We criticize Densmore’s ethnographies of American Indian music because it uses Western musical notation and form, as well as statistics, to try and describe music which it does not reflect accurately. Native musics cannot be accurately represented by Western standards because the songs were not, in the slightest, based on Western musical practices.

So the question arises: how can we more accurately describe Native American musicking? How do we more accurately describe any historical practice that has been put through a process of Westernization? As practitioners of Western musical notation, form, and math ourselves, we may be at a loss for how to represent music, or any of the aforementioned “historical practices” we wish to learn more about or preserve in a way that is true to the culture from which it came without imparting our unconscious bias, embedded in the way that we learn, onto the culture of another. We must do this not for the mere respect of peoples whom the majority of Americans owe our stolen land, but because we must provide more accurate information based of the findings of people like Densmore. We could not do the work we do without the information that she and others like her have gathered, and at the same time we must make this data more accurately represent the history of the culture from which it came, in a way in which we can understand, if we truly believe in the pursuit of the truth.

So, how do we more accurately describe and learn about American Indian music, given that using Western notation does not accurately reflect these cultures? Furthermore, to expand (and with the aim of avoiding generalizations), this goes for the music of individual tribes as well as American Indian music on the whole as well as any music for which Western music does not accurately represent.

If we choose to avoid Western methods, then what should we use? The first thing that comes to mind would be to use the methods which Native Americans themselves use to learn, teach, and depict their music. Pow-wow, for example, is a way in which members of certain tribes pass along information through generations.

Wendake Pow-wow, 2019

Another method that Native Americans use to depict their music is through pictographs.

Kokopelli Pictograph

By learning what we are able from a certain culture’s portrayal or demonstration of their own art, we can create scholarship about a different culture while avoiding shoehorning their customs into the dimensions of another. While it may not seem like we can glean much from pictographs, or maybe even pow-wows at first, opening our minds to different expressions of art and culture immerses us more deeply in the lives of other people. It is necessary to go through this process of experiential learning in order to give the correct context for what we discover, not only because it greatly reduces the chances of Westernizing something that is not but also to come to more accurate conclusions.

https://books.google.com/books?id=HyZ6EAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Click to access PowWows.pdf

The Cannon: Educational Fundamentals, or Cultural Genocide?

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Sophia Kushner

The original building housing the Cherokee National Female Seminary, which burned down in 1987.

In 1951, the Cherokee Nation – having recently been forcibly moved to Oklahoma and re-formed their government in Tahlequah – opened the doors of the Cherokee National Female Seminary.¹ The school was run by the tribal government and was extremely well regarded, generally considered better than the public school systems of several nearby states.² On the Kaw (or Kanza) land³ that would one day become Northeastern State University, young Native women had what essentially amounts to a liberal arts education, including the study of music.

Music curriculum at the Cherokee National Female Seminary (Ayer 1906, 24)

The school’s music curriculum, depicted here, was collected by Edward Ayer, a Field Museum of Natural History benefactor who evidently had some interest in salvage anthropology and Native cultures, and donated to Chicago’s Newberry Library in 1911.⁴ The text itself states that this donation was for the benefit of the Native peoples whom the school served – that is, in support of preserving their histories. Thankfully, Native communities seem to have been involved in assembling these texts, according to the collection itself, but I’m a touch skeptical of our white sponsor’s benevolence. What seems most likely to me is that this, like Frances Densmore’s work, is a product of good intentions, but would be taken less than positively if produced today. This is supported by the casual white-saviorism of the historical statement that opens the book; a statement which describes a European education as the “seed of civilization” and thereby strongly suggests that the curricula were a product of “civilizing” influence. Really the curriculum is quite similar to what a young piano student might begin with today, assuming their teacher were willing to center their education on the European canon; several technique and method books are employed, and the progression from grades I-VI moves from simple Clementi sonatinas to Chopin etudes and ballades.

Therein lies the interest of this artifact. As beloved as this school may have been to some attendees and some members of its community (according to the testimony at the beginning of the Ayer collection, that is), there seems little doubt that the Cherokee National Female Seminary was complicit in the whitewashing of Cherokee students following the Trail of Tears. If the curriculum is indisputably Eurocentric, implicitly devaluing the Native musical traditions which would have surrounded these students growing up, and taught exclusively by white teachers, how could it be anything else? It was a victory for the community, in a way, but one that was only necessitated by the awful realties of the white man’s westward expansion. The existence and community status of schools such as this adds another shade of nuance to the consideration of education as a tool for cultural erasure during this time period.

What I can say, however, is that this artifact makes a strong case for the rejection of the cannon that’s happening in music education today. If the cannon is part of what we now consider to be a heinous cultural genocide, how could we possibly justify not expanding our musical borders and changing our approaches to pedagogy from the very first days of a student’s musical life? Exclusion of a student’s cultural traditions from their music curricula, while it isn’t on the level of the violence inflicted on too many children at too many white-run boarding schools over the past several centuries, is an act of cultural violence. Music education must be rooted in a student’s internal musical self, in the music of the student’s community, to avoid the racist, classist valuation of music that’s persisted for centuries in the western world. Some pedagogical methods, like Kodaly, incorporate elements of this belief, and are gaining significance in the pedagogical world. But we have a long way to go yet toward the goal of making music education more equitable, just, and culturally inclusive.

Footnotes

1 U.S. Department of the Interior. (2019). Cherokee Female Seminary, OK (U.S. National Park Service). National Parks Service. Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://www.nps.gov/places/cherokee-female-seminary-ok.htm

2 Brad Agnew, “Cherokee Male and Female Seminaries,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=CH018.

3 I attempt to name the original tribe here out of respect for the land’s origins and to acknowledge (first steps) the settler-colonial history of the US. But a quick Google search will reveal that even the Kaw people may have immigrated to this area from the east coast in the 1600’s, and it’s difficult to trace the history any farther back than that. I include this footnote as a form of full disclosure and to encourage any interested reader to do some more digging into the topic.

4 Ayer, Edward E. 1906. An illustrated souvenir catalog of the Cherokee National Female Seminary, Tahlequah, Indian Territory, 1850-1906, Printed Book; Tribe Record. N.p.: Indian Print Shop. http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_F389_T128_c522_1906.

The role of the Medicine Man in Native American Music

Posted on September 17, 2019 by katrinandrusick

A Native American Medicine Man standing beside a sick woman, c. 1870. Photographed by O.C. Smith (American, active 1860s – 1870s).

In almost every Native American tribe, there is a medicine man or healer, as seen in the picture above. These men, and occasionally women, had to go “beyond human power” to use their herbs and chants to heal ailing tribesmen. A medicine man gained his power to heal through dreams, visions, and even during the song, as discovered in class while looking through many primary sources. During visions and encounters with the Great Spirit, healers were told how to heal ailments and advised on which herbs, roots and plants to use, and which to avoid. To aide their power, healers often lived in quiet seclusion to be in tune with nature its power sometimes giving them the name “forest folk”.¹

A traditional medicine mask used to scare off evil spirits and disease in tribe members. https://indianspictures.blogspot.com/search/label/Navajo%20indians

Ely S. Parker, born in 1828, was from the Iroquois tribe and in newspapers, recounts the practices of the medicine man through public and private ceremonies. Native American medicine men treated the sick and ailing in public ceremonies followed by a private meeting. The public ceremony was attended by tribesman of high power and influence and took place over several days. During those public and private healing sessions, the medicine man may have told narratives, chanted, and sing. A “sacred song” is chanted only by one medicine man. If anyone else chants the “sacred song,” it is expected that evil events will follow.² To further aide him, he may have used tobacco pouches and the herb of choice sent to him by the Great Spirit. There are times when the the medicine man is not able to heal the sick, but this is viewed as the will of the “Great Spirit” who is asked to “guide the red man and choose for his best, always.”

Most songs were accompanied by a regular drumbeat, dubbed as the heartbeat of the Earth, to help calm and relax the sick. Additionally, the drumbeat expanded the mind of the medicine man to the awareness of self and spirit. Other instruments like the rattle, shook away disease, and bells borrowed from Christianity invoked God’s healing power.³It is told that “he who holds the medicine has time to die.” That is, they can choose their successor because their death is never sudden and “has time to die.” This background of the medicine men’s rituals which were alien and exotic to foreigners such as John Smith helps shed a light on what outside visitors encountered.

1 Hofmann, Charles. American Indians Sing New York: John Day Co., 1967. 46

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2 Ely Samuel Parker scrapbooks: Vol 11, 1828-1894, © The Newberry Library, 96 http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Images/Ayer_Modern_MS_Parker_VL11/55?searchId=c2aa61ad-bbdf-48e6-a160-bba150f8d14e#VisualMaterials

3 Cohen, Ken. 1998. Native american medicine. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 3, (6) (11): 45-57, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.stolaf.edu/docview/204813987?accountid=351 (accessed September 16, 2019).

The Choctaw Hymn Book and Native American Hybrid Music

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Lauren Brazeau

While we weren’t able to take much time on it, I was intrigued by the article we looked at in class on Native American hybrid music. In my research, I happened upon the names of a few hymn books, but the one that interested me the most was the Chahta Vba Isht Taloa Holisso of the Choctaw. I was also able to find corresponding letters from the missionaries who had shared their hymns with them, which I found interesting.

Chahta Vba Isht Taloa Holisso : Choctaw Hymn Book. Richmond, Va, 1872. Print.

The hybridization of Native American music and Christian hymnody adds complexity to the oftentimes oversimplified narrative of the erasure of Native American culture. While the Choctaw welcomed the missionaries and adopted the tradition of hybridized music, other groups reluctantly converted, and “…people [who] had initially pretended to convert in order to survive, went on to ask, ‘At some point, did we forget we were pretending?’”[1] Such practices oftentimes came about through generations of forced acculturation; however, for some groups, they were accepted into the culture, expanded upon with original works and have been ingrained within their practices to the point of becoming a part of their musical tradition.

“MISSIONARY PARAGRAPHS.: AGENCY TO THE MEDITERRANUEAN. BOOKS IN THE CHEROKEE LANGUAGE. HYMNS IN THE CHOCTAW LANGUAGE. BOOKS IN THE SENECA LANGUAGE.” Christian Watchman (1819-1848), Nov 13, 1829

“MISCELLANEOUS.:CHAHTA VBA ISHT TALOA. CHOCTAW HYMN BOOK, 18MO, PP. 84. BOSTON: CROCKER & BREWSTER. ALPHABET.” American Annals of Education (1830-1839) 1, no. 11 (11, 1831): 537

While we’ve been talking in class about the “Vanishing Indian” trope in the context of 19th century classical music, I believe the same ideas of misplaced nostalgia and oversimplification are prevalent today and relevant to the delegitimization of modern Native American culture. As hinted at in some of the letters above, Choctaw were thought to be more receptive to conversion due to the available access of their language in printed form. This aspect might have aided in their conversion; however, it also aided in the preservation of their language and the transmission of what is now seen by them as their own traditional music. The collection and performance of these hymns, original and translated, have helped the Choctaw maintain its ethnic identity through frequent meetings and the continued use of native language [2]. While these hybrid forms were born out of the gruesome history of Native American genocide and cultural erasure, to invalidate this living tradition due to its western sound is, in my opinion, just as problematic as the commodification of a curated characterization of what this music ‘should’ sound like.

_____

“Musical Interactions.” Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 3 – The United States and Canada. Ed. Ellen Koskoff. Routledge (Publisher), 2000. 510-20. Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Database. Web.
STEVENSON, G. W. (1977). The Hymnody Of The Choctaw Indians Of Oklahoma (Order No. 7802869). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302857576).

Works Cited:

Chahta Vba Isht Taloa Holisso : Choctaw Hymn Book. Richmond, Va, 1872. Print.

“MISSIONARY PARAGRAPHS.: AGENCY TO THE MEDITERRANUEAN. BOOKS IN THE CHEROKEE LANGUAGE. HYMNS IN THE CHOCTAW LANGUAGE. BOOKS IN THE SENECA LANGUAGE.” Christian Watchman (1819-1848), Nov 13, 1829, 1, https://search.proquest.com/docview/127208190?accountid=351

“MISCELLANEOUS.: CHAHTA VBA ISHT TALOA. CHOCTAW HYMN BOOK, 18MO, PP. 84. BOSTON: CROCKER & BREWSTER. ALPHABET.” American Annals of Education (1830-1839) 1, no. 11 (11, 1831): 537. https://search.proquest.com/docview/89620393?accountid=351.

“Musical Interactions.” Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 3 – The United States and Canada. Ed. Ellen Koskoff. Routledge (Publisher), 2000. 510-20. Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Database. Web.

STEVENSON, G. W. (1977). The Hymnody Of The Choctaw Indians Of Oklahoma (Order No. 7802869). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302857576).

Skulls: a 19th-Century Justification for Racism in Music

Posted on September 16, 2019 by Abigail Hansen

Anyone could read this short passage and recognize that the author is approaching music with a problematic, racist mindset, but I had no idea the undercurrent of “science” propelling these opinions until I dug a little deeper…

The pseudoscience of phrenology was running rampant in mid-19th century society. Racist beliefs and actions were justified through this “science.”[1] Phrenologists argued that a person’s character, intelligence, and opinions could be deduced from the shape and size of their skull.[2] This was fodder for 19th-century minds to be opposed to whole races and ethnicities, solely based off the external shape of their skulls. Samuel George Morton wrote Crania americana; or, A comparative view of the skulls of various aboriginal nations of North and South America[3] in 1839. Crania americana allowed racism to reign in 19th-century thinking under the guise of science, as the book was published in great quantities and spread across the continent and across the ocean to Europe.[4] Through drawings like the ones below, Morton provided “reasoning” for the acceptability of racism against Native Americans. Phrenology directly influenced how people viewed Native American music and musicians.

Looking back at the first excerpt,[5] it is easy to witness how this undercurrent of phenological thought influenced the cultural norms of the 19th century about racism towards Native Americans. This passage comes from the American Phrenological Journal, a publication by scholars of this pseudoscience. Much to my chagrin, this journal would have held great authority over its original audience, an audience well-accustomed to phrenological thought. American Phrenological Journal deems the music of the “wild Indian” to be lesser, because they believed that a Native American’s brain did not physically have the same capacity for music making as a European did. Before even hearing the music, phrenologists had deduced the music to be less advanced than “Christian” music, purely because of the shape of the musicians’ skulls. Along with making assumptions about the music before listening to it, the author makes conclusions about the whole people group based off of the music. They say that “it is a fact” that people can be judged by their music, and that this serves as confirmation that white European-descendants are “superior,” as organs and pianos are a testament to.

[1] SciShow. “Victorian Pseudosciences: Brain Personality Maps.” YouTube. YouTube, December 1, 2016. Accessed September 14, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBv1wKinQXw.

[2] Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Phrenology.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Accessed September 16, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/phrenology.

[3] Morton, Samuel George. Crania Americana, or, A Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America to Which Is Prefixed an Essay on the Varieties of the Human Species. Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1839.

[4] “Skulls in Print: Scientific Racism in the Transatlantic World.” University of Cambridge, March 19, 2014. Accessed September 13, 2019. https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/skulls-in-print-scientific-racism-in-the-transatlantic-world.

[5] “MUSIC, AS A PHYSICAL AND MORAL AGENT.: MYSTERIES OF MUSIC. 1. MUSIC AS A PHYSICAL AGENT. 2. MUSIC AS A MORAL AGENT. 3. MUSIC AS A COMPLEX AGENT. MUSIC AS A CIVILIZER.” American Phrenological Journal 43, no. 4 (April 1866). https://search.proquest.com/docview/137924894?accountid=351.

The “Vanishing Indian” Materializes Before Audiences

Posted on September 15, 2019 by Reed Williams

The opening imagery of Daniel Blim’s conference paper “MacDowell’s Vanishing Indians,” that vividly describes the setting of Chicago World’s Fair and Columbian Exhibition, stuck with me after class. What would it be like to walk down a corridor in the natural history museum to have real people and animals stare back at you? Historical newspapers and current scholars describe these events as half circus, half Night at the Museum.

Blim’s article introduced the idea of the “vanishing Indian,” a symbol of Native America(ns) that “could be reappropriated in the national imagination as a nostalgic figure rather than a living oppositional force.”¹We know that Native Americans were (literally) put on display at the 1893 World’s Fair, but in what other instances were Americans, and other nationalities in the case of the World’s Fair, witnessing and consuming Native American culture? Based on research via newspaper archives from the 19th-century, World’s Fairs, International Expos, and museums were the primary contexts in which non-Natives could interact with actual tribes.

To further investigate the “vanishing Indian” trope, I found an article originally printed in Scientific American in 1898. The article, titled “the Omaha Exposition and the Indian Congress,” described the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898. After quickly mentioning the technological advancements of fireworks, the author lays out the newest and most attractive addition to the Expo ⎯ the Indian Congress. The Indian Bureau of Washington, D.C. allocated $40,000 to find, deliver, and enclose 35 distinct Native American tribes. Nearly 500 members of these tribes were camped out over four acres of Expo premises. For three months, anthropologists, sociologists, and the general public could observe Native American musics, rituals, and all modes of living in between as if they were zoo animals.

“Representative Indian Chiefs, Indian Congress, Omaha Exposition.” from left to right: Four Bulls, Assiniboin; Antoine Moise, Flathead; Different Cloud, Assiniboin; “Killed the Spotted Horse”, Assiniboin; Eneas Michel, Flathead

The article, read by thousands across the U.S. every year during this time, delivered the story triumphantly:

It is a curious and interesting fact that less than half a century ago the same docile Omaha Indians who peacefully doze by the camp fires within the Exposition gates were waging the war of the tomahawk and arrow on these very grounds, which is gratifying proof of the triumphal march of civilization.²

No wonder the “vanishing Indian” trope was recognized by music consumers and the general public ⎯ the only times Native Americans were presented as apart of American society were part of a curated experience:

The agents were instructed to send old men, and, as far as possible, “head men,” who would typically represent the old-time Indian, subdued, it is true, but otherwise uninfluenced by the government system of civilization… some [tribes] have become so civilized, like the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, and Seminoles, that their presence would add little interest from an ethnological point of view; so the government did not assemble it most civilized proteges at Omaha, but the tribes it has conquered with the greatest bloodshed are the most important at the congress.³

Not only curated, but curated to show their defeat and vulnerability in the face of America’s power.

1 Dan Blim, “MacDowell’s Vanishing Indians,” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Vancouver, BC, November 4, 2016.

2 “The Omaha Exposition and the Indian Congress,” Scientific American, October 15, 1958, 248.

3 “The Omaha Exposition and the Indian Congress,” Scientific American, October 15, 1958, 248.

Ute Bear Dances and Notched Sticks

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Rosie Nanz

Initially, I hoped to research the topic of symbolism in relation to Native American instruments, but that line of researching did not take me far, so I instead settled on looking at the scholarship on their instruments in general. In Clark Wissler’s informational text, The American Indian, there is a section on Native American music which turns to musical instruments, claiming that the two most common instruments are drums and rattles. His survey meanders across the Americas, discussing the cultural varieties of such instruments, emphasizing the dominance of calabash (gourd) rattles, the importance of which, he claims, is only approached by the notched stick¹. The footnote attached to this observation, citing anthropologist Robert Lowie, led to where my research ultimately landed.

Lowie has a fair number of entries in another collection of anthropological papers on Native American societies edited by Wissler, one of which examines the “Dances and

Ute Musicians. From left to right: Brookus Sibello 1890, Dick Sibello 1882, Henry Myore, and two young boys. Using notched rasps and rubbing sticks, for music.

Societies of the Plains Shoshone,” within which he describes the Bear Dance, a prominent Ute ceremony. Although he has never seen a Bear Dance himself, Lowie draws upon several first hand accounts of the ceremony to explain the basic function and structure of Bear Dances: a social event lasting four days at the end of winter/beginning of spring in a circular enclosure of branches, where men and women form two lines designated by sex and the women approach whichever men they want to dance with, and the dancing commences². Watch this video of a Southern Ute Indian tribe Bear Dance, recorded in 1988, to get a better idea. The music produced in the Bear Dance is what brought me to the ceremony, as the principle instrument used in the ceremony, besides singing, is the notched stick (or rattle) mentioned in The American Indian.

Ute Indians perform the Bear Dance on at the Bear Dance Festival. The Bear Dance welcomes the Spring of the year. (1920)

The notched stick, pictured at right, has two parts. The first is a stick about a foot or

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924012929372;view=1up;seq=868

Notched sticks and rasps used in Ute Bear Dances (Lowie)

more in length and “throughout its entire length it is whittled flat, and transverse notches or grooves are cut across this flattened portion.”³ The second part is a “rasp”, usually either a bone or rod. The notched stick is held against the ground or similar surface in one hand, while the other holds the rod and “is moved rapidly up and down the grooved portion so as to make a rattling sound.”⁴ Multiple sets of these are played alongside vocals, setting the dance into motion.

But why is it called the Bear Dance? According to Verner Reed, who in 1893 was invited to a Bear Dance by a Southern Ute tribe in Colorado (one of the first hand accounts Lowie cites), the Ute people “believe their primal ancestors were bears; after these came the race of Indians, who, on dying, were changed to bears” and the Bear Dances are meant to reinforce their friendship. The ceremony is held around the time bears awaken from hibernation and the dance is supposed to “cast the film of blindness from their eyes” when the bears wake.⁵

1 Wissler, Clark (1917). The American Indian. (New York: McMurtrie, Douglas C.), 147, http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_10_W8_1917 (Accessed February 19, 2018).

2 Lowie, Robert H. (1912-16). “Dances and Societies of the Plains Shoshone,” in Societies of the Plains Indians, ed. Clark Wissler (New York: The Trustees), 823-27, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001632127 (Accessed February 19, 2018).

3 Hawley, E. H. (1898). “Distribution of the Notched Rattle.” American Anthropologist, A11: 344–346. doi:10.1525/aa.1898.11.11.02a00010, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1898.11.11.02a00010/epdf (Accessed February 19, 2018).

4 Hawley, E.H. —

5 Reed, Verner (1896). “The Ute Bear Dance.” American Anthropologist, A9: 237–244. doi:10.1525/aa.1896.9.7.02a00020, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1896.9.7.02a00020/epdf (Accessed February 19, 2018).

(Mis)representation: The Westernization of Native American Music

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Teiana Nakano

It is difficult to determine exactly when influence from another culture turns into misrepresentation. Edward MacDowell, a white American composer wrote the piece Woodland Sketches, Op. 51: No. 5: From an Indian Lodge which was published in 1896. The piece begins with a fortissimo, perfect 5th interval, an interval which was often used to categorize “exotic” music. This is just one way in which MacDowell exhibits an inaccurate representation of Native American music. MacDowell’s composition undoubtedly brings up issues, both in his inaccurate, westernized representation of it, but also in his use of Native American culture without permission.

Chickasaw Composer, Jerod Tate

This conjures up the questions, is it always wrong to misrepresent a certain culture’s music by westernizing it? What if the composer is someone of that culture? Could that even be considered “misrepresentation”? Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate is a self identified citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and works to make Native American music relevant within the classical music world. One of his pieces, “Oshta”, written for the solo violin is loosely based upon Choctaw hymn 53.

Choctaw Hymn 53 came into existence as a consequence of Christian missionary work done in Native American land. Work to evangelize Native Americans was done essentially since the first Europeans came to the Americas. Religion was one way in which Europeans felt superiority, which often lead to a desire to teach Native Americans about Christianity in order to help them escape their “savagery”. Missionary work and evangelization is what lead to the creation of things such as the Choctaw Hymn Book, a bigger collection of hymns with Choctaw Hymn 53 comes from. Composed by Native American citizens, these hymns were considered a type of “hybrid music”; a combination between western hymns and a Native American style of music.

Choctaw Hymn #53 (2/2)

Choctaw Hymn #53 (1/2)

As seen in the images of Hymn #53, the words are all in Choctaw. Listening to this recording of the hymn, characteristics including the occasionally present dissonant harmonies distinguish it from traditional Christian hymnal music. The group singing is a characteristic which is also comparable to many other Native American music.

Listening to both Tate’s piece as well as the hymn it was inspired by, it is clear that they are vastly different, not only in their instrumentation, but in their melody and structure as well. Interestingly enough, Tate’s piece exhibits a perfect 5th double stop about 15 seconds in, making it possibly more similar to MacDowells’s intro than to the intro of the original hymn. Tate was clearly influenced by Native American music, much like MacDowell, but took it and made it his own.

To answer the questions I posed earlier, I would argue that no, a person like Jerod Tate cannot misrepresent his own culture, even if he is creating a sort of fusion between it and western culture. To argue with this, one might say that an implication of this fusion music is that it is a way of giving into assimilation by actively westernizing Native American culture. In reality, one cannot grow up in the United States without being exposed to western culture. I argue that even within one’s own identity, it is impossible to completely separate the western side from one’s ethnic and cultural heritage. Composers like Jerod Tate musically represent that dual identity within their work, thus making the Native American-Western fusion a presentation of pride of their culture and identity rather than a misrepresentation.

Sources:

Choctaw Hymn 53: Chahta vba isht taloa holisso. Choctaw Hymn Book, Richmond, Presbyterian committee of publication, 1872.
MacDowell, Edward. Woodland Sketches, Op. 51: No. 5: From an Indian Lodge. Barbagallo, James. Naxos 8.559010, 1994. CD.
Mill, Rodney, Frank Oteri, and Susan Feder. “Orchestral music.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Accessed February 18, 2018. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002224888?rskey=tPlwS5&result=2
Stock, Harry. “A history of congregational missions among the North American Indians”. The Newberry Library, 1917. http://www.aihc.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Ayer_MS_835
Tate, Jerod. “About: Artist’s Biography.” Jerod Tate. Accessed February 18, 2018 http://jerodtate.com/about/
Vba isht Taloa #53, Choctaw Hymn Book. Chahta Anumpa Aiikhvana: School of Choctaw Language.

The Privilege of Romanticizing

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Claire Questad

Louis Arden Schuch (1876-1944) was a composer. Born in Germany, immigrated with his parents to the United States and settled in Auburn New York. He composed his problematic work titled “Mineola” in 1904. “Mineola” which translates to “pleasant place” in the Algonquian language. The piece’s alternative title is “The Wedding of the Indian and the Coon”. The piece is subtitled: “A Characteristic Indian Serenade”. The text is as follows:

“Mineola or the Wedding of the Indian and the coon” cover art

Out near the town named the Needles
There lives a pretty Indian maid
She is the Pride of the Kickapoo Indian
and her skin of Navajo shade
While out way up on a vista
A Coon perchance the maid to meet
and to her he took a fancy
… every night and day
this Coon to her would say,

[chorus]
Won’t you be my Indian baby?
Love you yes indeed I do
I will make you happy, happy
Babe, now that I’ll be true
…
On the Indian reservation
Say you’ll be mine, don’t decline
the wedding of the Indian and the Coon

Told him she hadn’t thought of marriage
although she loved him heap much so
And if he expected her to Marry
To the Big Chief he would have to go
….
The ask’d what shall I say to him
In reply says dear don’t worry
have nerve drink some Tom Gin
As he said good bye that day
… to her did say

Where to even begin? Right off the bat, we have the term “coon” used to describe an African American man. This term came from the Spanish word barracón which was a large building constructed to hold merchandise, where slaves were kept for sale. This word was later anglicized into “barracoon” then shortened into the slag: “coon”. The first verse sexualizes the Native American woman emphasizing her skin tone. In the chorus begins “Won’t you be my Indian baby? Love you yes indeed I do” to be followed later in the piece by “Told him she hadn’t thought of marriage” which leads me to question motives/consent. Last but not least, the final verse mentions how the gentleman caller would need to ask the “Big Chief” referencing the Chief of that Indian tribe. Additionally, this piece says the love interest was from the Kickapoo tribe. This tribe was believed to be located in the part of the country that is now Oklahoma and Texas. I find it hard to believe that Schuch had any contact with this tribe in Auburn, NY. This piece is a whole new level of problematic. Written by a German immigrant, a love song between two people of cultures to whom the composer does not belong nor know enough about to compose a piece of music. This is just scratching the surface on how people can completely abuse traditions they are not educated on.

Work Cited

Schuch, Louis Arden. Mineola or the Wedding of the Indian and the coon. Sheet Music Consortium, Duke Music Libraries. Auburn, NY. 1904. link

Schuch, Louis Arden Jr., Find A Grave.com link

Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 145. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. 1953.

The Misrepresentation of Native American Culture in Mass Media

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Garrett Bond

In the modern day of 2017, so much of our lives are spent online. We as people have the universe at our fingertips – with so much information out there, what all can be considered trustworthy? An issue with the concept of Mass Media is that anything and everything can be found somewhere online. Anyone who is able to access the internet is able to contribute their information and knowledge. Like moths to a flame, we are instantly bound to the first bit of information we see and accept it as fact. This leads to many issues spanning across many topics. In the past few years, the concept of “Cultural Appropriation” has exploded across everywhere and everything. To be correct when describing, defining, or demonstration any form of culture is so incredibly vital that issues arise when someone does this incorrectly. With it being so easy to misappropriate a culture in Media, what are we able to trust and how does the mass media change our perception of different cultures through their ideas of appropriation?

Native American culture is found in the roots of this country’s foundation. Often, when considering American history we forget that America was populated BEFORE 18th century colonization. The culture of Native Americans is one that has been appropriated for hundreds of years, through music, art, dance, etc. Because of this, our concept of this culture has been warped by pop culture and media as demonstrated in this cartoon…

This cartoon presents the problem of misappropriation. This boy only identifies “Indians” as the overly stereotypical form displayed in movies, sports teams, or cartoons. To him, this girl who looks “normal” doesn’t fit that stereotype and thus he questions her cultural authenticity.

Another example of this kind of appropriation occurs in cartoons. One example in particular is in Seth Macfarlane’s TV cartoon comedy “Family Guy”. In the episode The Life of Brian the episode begins with Stewie and Brian running from a band of Indians in a modern day city. They explore and make racist remarks about their ways of transportation, medicine, clothing, and music.

These two clips, both from the same episode, demonstrate the racist humor that Macfarlane is demonstrating. Examples like having the doctor at the hospital stand in a bunch of poses to try to cure disease, using smoke signals instead of phones, and having their most popular song be mono-tonal unison chanting are prime examples of Native American Appropriation. This kind of appropriation Macfarlane uses can even be found in other forms of music, such as Dvorak Symphony No 9 movement 2, largo. In this movement he references Native American tribal melodies. Of course, what he notates is only a small, itemized fraction of what the actual melody would have been and what it was to represent. Was Dvorak trying specifically to be incorrect, probably not, but still – some find this use of melody an unfair representation of the true culture.

In 2017, being able to rid our minds of ignorance and to be able to fully understand and be aware of the sensitivities of other cultures is imperative. The massed media and pop culture has shaped our minds around what being a Native American or an “Indian” means. These stereotypes are preventing us as a nation from knowing the rich and long history of Native Americans and their culture. As Russell Means says in this video: “A nation that does not know its history, has no future”

Sources

Kanke, Marie. “The Harm of Native Stereotyping.” Blue Corn Comics — The Harm of Native Stereotyping: Facts and Evidence. August 08, 2006. Accessed September 25, 2017. http://www.bluecorncomics.com/stharm.htm.

TheUlleberg. “Family guy – Native American/Indian Radio.” YouTube. March 07, 2014. Accessed September 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=octtLcjJshw.

Jinpaul11. “Family Guy – Native Americans.” YouTube. May 07, 2017. Accessed September 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGcW3kjcFSU.

Diesillamusicae. “Dvořák: Symphony №9, “From The New World” – II – Largo.” YouTube. September 02, 2011. Accessed September 26, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASlch7R1Zvo.

Framesinmotion2007. “How Hollywood stereotyped the Native Americans.” YouTube. October 31, 2007. Accessed September 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJFi7SRH7Q.

William F. Cody: A Brief Story of America’s First Potential Sell-Out

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Nicholas Love

After The Songs of Hiawatha was “dropped” in the 1850’s, there was a general divide in the act of preserving, viewing, and conceiving the Native American-European settler dynamic in the late 1800’s: one that was rooted in trivializing various tribes, and one that focused on a scientific interest in Native American culture. While notable musicologists, such as Alice Fletcher, focused on the latter of the divided cultural conquests, American bison hunter/showman William F. Cody, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill, led the charge on the belittlement side of the coin with his “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” variety show. With a bison-hunting career that quickly turned into a celebrated and brief scouting stint with the Fifth Army, Cody was slowly transformed into the star-studded cowboy he is considered today through various “vaudeville-esque” shows, inexpensive pulp-fiction magazines, and investments in hotels, mines, coal and forms of tourism.

Although Cody was known as a strong supporter of the “fair” treatment of Native Americans, his entire career was based off of creating a romanticized, Western-based reality that exploited countless stereotypes. This notion can find it’s needed support in the study of Cody’s entire career as a sell out, cowboy performer, but I, in an attempt to showcase the extremity of trivialization, will prove my point with the cover page of an 1881 Wild Bill dime novel entitled: “Heroes of the Plains.” One of the first details to take note of is in the front-piece title page, where a descriptive list of the characters is given. Listed in bold and bright text towards the top of the page is a list of seven white, heroic character names, while the only mention of the “celebrated Indian fighters” is found in much smaller text below in the “and other” category of characters. Cody, while exploiting his respect for the Native American community by referring to their characters as “celebrated,” also is clearly portraying the white, American cowboys as the heroes of the story, giving the Native Americans the stereotypical role of the villains. 19^th century Americans east of the Mississippi lacked the cross-cultural contact between Native Americans and Europeans, and it was through these trivial, typecast “Buffalo Bill” adventure stories that they developed a misconstrued conceptual framework of the various tribes and cultures. This “heroes vs. villains” theme can also be seen through the artwork displayed on the cover page. While the two stars of the story, Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill, are presented in ornate, golden frames, the only Native American shown clearly is brandishing a threatening dagger towards a hunched over, white settler, defending himself from an attack. In a devastatingly bloody history of white men conquering, conforming, and destroying Indian tribes, it’s hard to imagine a Native American as a “savage foe,” but in a culture built upon shows such as Cody’s, it is still, to this day, a reality.

Bruel, James. 1881. Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill. Heroes of the plains, or, lives and wonderful adventures of Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill… and other celebrated Indianfighters.” http://www.americanwest.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/Graff_467

Music 345: Race, Identity, and Representation in American Music

Student Blogs and Library Exhibit Companion

Tag Archives: Native American

Robbie Robertson Americana or Canadian?

Government Documents for Indian Boarding Schools

Music Education and Forced Assimilation at United States Indian Boarding Schools

Cultural erasure: Western centralsim in Native American boarding schools

Mildred Bailey and American Indian Identity

Music in Native American Boarding Schools

Carlisle Indian School Project

Why music?

“Othering” Native American Music

Wampum and its importance to Eastern Woodland Native Americans

Learning Culture Through Immersion

The Cannon: Educational Fundamentals, or Cultural Genocide?

Footnotes

The role of the Medicine Man in Native American Music

The Choctaw Hymn Book and Native American Hybrid Music

Skulls: a 19th-Century Justification for Racism in Music

The “Vanishing Indian” Materializes Before Audiences

Ute Bear Dances and Notched Sticks

(Mis)representation: The Westernization of Native American Music

The Privilege of Romanticizing

The Misrepresentation of Native American Culture in Mass Media

William F. Cody: A Brief Story of America’s First Potential Sell-Out