Resources on Native music

Cross-posted to music and teaching blogs for potential use in HUM 221 (Native American cultures) in the spring of 2007.

A valuable article in the Jan.-Feb. 2003 issue of Sharing Our Pathways, newsletter of the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative at UA-Fairbanks. It's by Vivian Martindale, and it's titled "Native American Songs as Literature." In addition to an ANKN (Alaska Native Knowledge Netword) article on the Athabascan peoples, it mentions Joy Harjo, Canyon Records and other resources on Native cultures in the lower 48.

Says Martindale:

Classrooms don't have to be boring. Literature classes especially can be enhanced through the medium of song. In David Leedom Shaul's article "A Hopi Song-Poem in Context", he claims that the listener is similar to an audience during storytelling, in that the listener is also interacting with the music. The listener, as a participant, is not passive; the listener is hearing rhythms, words, patterns and much more. The listener does not have to understand the Native language in order to appreciate the song. Shaul calls attention to the genre called "song poems." These songs are in a category by themselves, separate from poetry and prose. "The text of song-poems in Hopi culture, like much poetry, seemingly create their own context by virtue of minimalist language" (Shaul 1992:230Ð31). Therefore it would be interesting to include the concept of song poems or poetry as music into a curriculum.

She quotes this from a Joy Harjo/Poetic Justice song called "My House is the Red Earth." (Poetic Justice is Harjo's band.):

My house is the red earth. It could be the center of the world. I've heard New York, Tokyo or Paris called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For instance, that fool crow picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy scraps of fat. Just ask him. He doesn't have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter.

She also has tips and caveats on teaching traditional Native American music.