Samuel Mathis

16 April 2010

Beat the Drums:

The Changing Rhythm of Native American Music

            In my first research journal, I examined the importance of song in African American novels, specifically Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.  I intended to follow the same format for my second journal in looking at the importance of music in a Native American novel, but I found that these novels did not portray music as important to their culture.  Therefore, I had to revise my search to find out the importance of music and song to the Native American culture and not just novels dealing with the American Indians.  How did music become important to Native Americans?  Has the function and use of music changed over time?  What is the future of the American Indian music?  Finally, what is the importance of music to this cultural minority?  These questions became my focus as I did my research into the history, current usage, and future prospects of Native American music.  I searched to find out what role music and song plays in the lives of this American Minority.  This research journal will discuss the answers to my two questions in conjunction with my research descriptions, and answer the final questions as the ultimate question of my journal.

            My first research goal was to search out the history of Native American music and how it has been used in the past.  This led me to Nicholle Dragone’s discussion of American Indian poets in her essay “Lest We Forget… Remembering Through The Song Of the Resilient Spirit.”  Dragone explains the use of musical qualities in poetry as a remembrance of the beginnings of songs with the tribes that first lived in America.  The original songs of the Indians were given first to the Peacemaker, a man who joined together the five great tribes of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois people, by the “Little People” (Dragone 196).  Dragone gives further details as she states that these songs “would become the enduring, resilient songs of the Confederacy” and would help solidify the treaty formed between these five peoples (196).  Music, then, was initially created to “help the Haudenosaunee retain their identity as sovereign peoples…into the future and beyond” (Dragone 198). 

            Singing helped to maintain the Native American identity as the future progressed.  John Carlos Rowe details the use of the Ghost Dance used in the late 19^th century as an example of how the Indian culture used song and dance to bring them together against a common enemy.  This enemy was the United States military that was forcing them to relocate to alternate reservation sites, yet the fact remains that this dance

“drew many desperate and curious native Americans to performances across the Great Plains. The famous Lakota holy man Nick Black Elk describes his own performance of the Ghost Dance and his fight with Army soldiers at Wounded Knee in the account of his life he gave to John Neihardt in Black Elk Speaks (1932)” (Rowe 200).

This dance brought together a people that would have otherwise been divided during this time.  The song and belief that their ancestors were nearby and willing to help them created the appearance of pagan savages to the American public, but it built the faith of a desperate and hounded people.

            Michelle Wick Patterson claims that the military was afraid of any alternate religious views that might have created an unruly populace among American Indians.  That is why they attempted to stop the Ghost Dances in the past and currently allow the ancient war songs and dances to be performed in public ceremonies.  She claims that current “traditional” song and dance performed are “Taken out of its intended context…[and have] lost its spiritual meaning and its real importance for Native Americans” (Patterson 9).  Patterson continues by asserting that “Music and dance meant to embody deep spiritual meaning and connections to nature, the land, and other Native people became little more than fancy propaganda in the hands of the SAI [Society of American Indians]” (9).  According to Patterson, the current use of American Indian song and dance is nothing more than a crowd pleaser at “Wild West Shows” and Cultural festivals.  By only allowing these songs and dances to be performed for a white audience, the dominant culture has “denied Native artists and musicians the hard work they put into their creations” and reinforced stereotypes of the savage Indian (Patterson 9). 

            Despite the fact that music and song has changed from its original purposes into a commercialized event, there remains hope for future American Indian artists.  My research showed that music originated for use in storytelling, healing, and even battle preparation, but through the years it morphed into something done to appease the dominant society.  However, John W. Troutman argues that “American Indians have also manipulated and refigured other forms of music…to perform their identities as indigenous peoples” (42-3).  He asserts that the younger generations of Native Americans are “fusing tribally derived music with that of Anglos and African Americans”, and this has created “far-reaching opportunities through which Native peoples could deliver politically charged anthems before audiences” (Troutman 43).  Troutman’s claims and explanations of how Natives Americans are asserting their voice in all forms of American popular music give hope to notion that music is not dead in their culture.  While the music may not be what it originally was played and performed, music is still being used to raise issues and speak to a dominant culture proclaiming the existence of an overlooked minority. 

            Native American music is continually changing and will continue to adapt and change with the times.  Their music is a means of expressing themselves and maintaining their cultural identity.  I believe Troutman’s claims that American Indian music will continue to thrive and adapt to the mainstream music of today, and I see how this adaptation is a means of protecting the importance of the message.  The message of a cultural identity is too important to be hindered by stereotypes and beliefs of how a people should behave in a modern world.  By using the mainstream music to proclaim politically charged messages, Native Americans are asserting themselves as people who should not be excluded from the dominant culture.  They are no longer the “savages” that history portrays them as.  They are modern people in a modern world that demand to be treated as such.  In this, I hear their cry and respond, “I hear and accept you as you are. 

Works Cited

Dragone, Nicholle. "Lest We Forget ... Remembering through the Song of the Resilient Spirit." Studies in the Humanities 33.2 (2006): 186-221. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Apr. 2010.

Patterson, Michelle Wick. "'Real' Indian Songs: The Society of American Indians and the Use of Native American Culture as a Means of Reform." American Indian Quarterly 26.1 (2002): 44-66. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Apr. 2010.

Rowe, John Carlos. “Buried alive: the native American political unconscious in Louise Erdrich’s fiction.” Postcolonial Studies. 7.2 (2004): 197-210. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.

Troutman, John W. "Indian Blues: The Indigenization of American Popular Music." World Literature Today 83.3 (2009): 42-46. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Apr. 2010.