LibGuides: Indigenous Music Resources: Indigenous Music Books

Dances and Stories of the American Indian by Bernard S. Mason
Call Number: E98.D2M3
Publication Date: 1944
Describes the highly skilled routines of many of the Indian dances.
Indian Story and Song from North America by Alice C. Fletcher
Call Number: E98. F6F6 1970
ISBN: 9780404078805
Publication Date: 1977-01-01
This unique presentation not only demonstrated the scientific value of these aboriginal songs in the study of the development of music, but suggested their availability as themes, novel and characteristic, for the American composer. It was felt that this availability would be greater if the story, or the ceremony which gave rise to the song, could be known, so that, in developing the theme, all the movements might be consonant with the circumstances that had inspired the motive. In response to the expressed desire of many musicians, I have here given a number of songs in their matrix of story.
Material like that brought together in these pages has hitherto appeared only in scientific publications, where it has attracted the lively interest of specialists both in Europe and America. It is now offered in a more popular form, that the general public may share with the student the light shed by these untutored melodies upon the history of music; for these songs take us back to a stage of development antecedent to that in which culture music appeared among the ancients, and reveal to us something of the foundations upon which rests the art of music as we know it to-day.
Many of the stories and songs in this little book are now for the first time published. All have been gathered directly from the people, in their homes, or as I have listened to the earnest voice of the native priest explaining the ancient ceremonials of his fathers. The stories are close translations, losing only a certain picturesqueness and vigour in their foreign guise; but the melodies are exactly as sung by the Indians.
Indian myths embodying cosmic ideas have passages told in song, tribal legends have their milestones of song, folk-tales at dramatic points break into song; but into these rich fields I have not here entered. This collection reveals something of the wealth of musical and dramatic material that can be gleaned outside of myth, legend, and folk-lore among the natives of our country.
Aside from its scientific value, this music possesses a charm of spontaneity that cannot fail to please those who would come near to nature and enjoy the expression of emotion untrammelled by the intellectual control of schools. These songs are like the wild flowers that have not yet come under the transforming hand of the gardener.
The Indians' Book: An Offering by the American Indians of Indian Lore, Musical and Narrative, to Form a Record of the Songs and Legends of Their Race by Natalie Curtis Burlin
Call Number: M1669.B87I5 1968
ISBN: 1290301018
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
A book created wholly by the American Indian - songs, myths, drawings and decorations based on traditional designs - The Indians' Book is a treasury of lore for general readers, for teachers, for folk singers. Its musical and folk material derives directly from the Indian oral tradition and is presented exactly as Miss Curtis recorded it.The 149 songs - the traditional music of 18 tribes - are today irreplaceable; so much of this material has disappeared since Miss Curtis collected it. Songs of war and love, hunting songs, barter songs, songs to cure the sick, corn-grinding songs, "hand game" songs, cradle songs, holy or "medicine" songs and ceremonial songs were collected by Miss Curtis from Plains, Lake, Northwestern, Southwestern, and Pueblo Indians: Wabanaki, Dakota, Winnebago, Pawnee, Kwakiutl, Acoma, Navajo, Apache, Pima, Hopi, Yuma, Arapaho, Kiowa, Mojave-Apache, Zuñi, San Juan, Laguna, Cheyenne. The texts are written out in both the native language and English, and the melody for each song is provided. Indian myths have been faithfully taken down directly from Indian story tellers. There are creation myths; myths explaining the origin of corn, the sun and moon, the four winds, and other natural phenomena; folktales and animal stories of unusual charm. Full-age drawings, designs for title pages, and decorations all created by the Indians themselves, and 23 photographs (rituals in progress, families, individuals) taken by the editor illustrate the book.
North American Indian Music: A Guide to Published Sources and Selected Recordings by Richard Keeling
Call Number: ML128.F75K44
ISBN: 9780815302322
Publication Date: 1997-03-01
Keeling's unusually valuable bibliographic work provides guidance for researchers and students to scholarly writing on Native American music. The coverage of the literature is comprehensive (more than 1,000 items), listing works as early as Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (1768) and as recent as 1994, as well as a number of significant or historically important recordings. The bibliography lists works devoted exclusively to Native American music and more general publications that contribute significantly to the subject. Three features are particularly helpful: (1) a 50-page introduction gives the history of ethnomusicological and anthropological research on Native American music; (2) extensive annotations describe content and usually avoid explicit evaluation; and (3) comprehensive indexes provide separate listings for persons, tribes and languages, and subjects. The author is a well-known ethnomusicologist with a record of publications on Native American music. - B. Nettl; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Native American Music Directory by Greg Gombert
Call Number: ML156.4. I5G66 2004
ISBN: 9780964445499
A great one of a kind edition for world music fans, this book offers buyers a complete discography of over 1,300 currently available Native American music recordings in traditional genres, a complete listing of radio stations which regularly play Native American music, and record label information. The book details ethnomusicologist Greg Gombert's fascinating history of the recording of Native American music, from early ethnographic field recordings on reservation lands, through the current commercial record industry trends. This volume was originally released in 1994 as Guide to Native American Music, and immediately established itself as the single comprehensive listing of Native American music, used by schools, universities, radio stations and consumers.
The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet by Brian Wright-McLeod
Call Number: ML156.4. I5W75
ISBN: 0816524475
Publication Date: 2005-04-01
Want the word on Buffy Sainte-Marie? Looking for the best powwow recordings? Wondering what else Jim Pepper cut besides "Witchi Tai To"? This book will answer those questions and more as it opens up the world of Native American music.In addition to the widely heard sounds of Carlos Nakai's flute, Native music embraces a wide range of forms: country and folk, jazz and swing, reggae and rap. Brian Wright-McLeod, producer/host of Canada's longest-running Native radio program, has gathered the musicians and their music into this comprehensive reference, an authoritative source for biographies and discographies of hundreds of Native artists.The Encyclopedia of Native Music recognizes the multifaceted contributions made by Native recording artists by tracing the history of their commercially released music. It provides an overview of the surprising abundance of recorded Native music while underlining its historical value.With almost 1,800 entries spanning more than 100 years, this book leads readers from early performers of traditional songs like William Horncloud to artists of the new millennium such as Zotigh. Along the way, it includes entries for jazz and blues artists never widely acknowledged for their Native roots--Oscar Pettiford, Mildred Bailey, and Keely Smith--and traces the recording histories of contemporary performers like Rita Coolidge and Jimmy Carl Black, "the Indian of the group" in the original Mothers of Invention. It also includes film soundtracks and compilation albums that have been instrumental in bringing many artists to popular attention. In addition to music, it lists spoken-word recordings, including audio books, comedy, interviews, poetry, and more.With this unprecedented breadth of coverage and extensively cross-referenced, The Encyclopedia of Native Music is an essential guide for enthusiasts and collectors. More than that, it is a gateway to the authentic music of North America--music of the people who have known this land from time immemorial and continue to celebrate it in sound.
On the Music of the North American Indians by Theodore Baker; Ann Buckley (Translator)
Call Number: ML3557.B2 1977
ISBN: 9780306708886
Publication Date: 1882
The first major published work on the music of Native Americans. Theodore Baker lived and was initiated into the Seneca tribe in New York State.
North American Indian Music by Rick Ench; Jay Cravath
Call Number: ML3557. E53 2002
ISBN: 9780531117729
Publication Date: 2002-03-01
An excellent introduction to Native American studies, Indians of the Americas weaves together the people, culture, traditions, crafts, food, history, and struggle for survival of some of the first groups to call America home. Fascinating and comprehensive, each book in the series draws from primary source materials as well as historical archives to address the topics most frequently covered in social studies and American history curricula.
Delving into early American history, the authors trace the uses of music by Native Americans since ancient times and explains the unique beat, rhythm, and melody that characterize much Indian music.
American Indians Sing by Charles Hofmann; Nicholas Amrostia (Illustrator)
Call Number: ML 3557.H68
ISBN: 9780381996086
Publication Date: 1967-01-01
The American Indians had songs for everything that happened in their lives. In this book we will discover why and how the Indians made music and why these songs and ceremonies were so important to their lives and their daily living.

Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies by Dylan Robinson
ISBN: 9781452961255
Publication Date: 2020-05-12
Reimagining how we understand and write about the Indigenous listening experience Hungry Listening is the first book to consider listening from both Indigenous and settler colonial perspectives. A critical response to what has been called the "whiteness of sound studies," Dylan Robinson evaluates how decolonial practices of listening emerge from increasing awareness of our listening positionality. This, he argues, involves identifying habits of settler colonial perception and contending with settler colonialism's "tin ear" that renders silent the epistemic foundations of Indigenous song as history, law, and medicine. With case studies on Indigenous participation in classical music, musicals, and popular music, Hungry Listening examines structures of inclusion that reinforce Western musical values. Alongside this inquiry on the unmarked terms of inclusion in performing arts organizations and compositional practice, Hungry Listening offers examples of "doing sovereignty" in Indigenous performance art, museum exhibition, and gatherings that support an Indigenous listening resurgence. Throughout the book, Robinson shows how decolonial and resurgent forms of listening might be affirmed by writing otherwise about musical experience. Through event scores, dialogic improvisation, and forms of poetic response and refusal, he demands a reorientation toward the act of reading as a way of listening. Indigenous relationships to the life of song are here sustained in writing that finds resonance in the intersubjective experience between listener, sound, and space.
Indigenous Pop: Native American Music from Jazz to Hip Hop by Jeff Berglund (Editor); Jan Johnson (Editor); Kimberli Lee (Editor)
Call Number: ML3557. I63 2016
ISBN: 9780816509447
Publication Date: 2016-03-10
Popular music compels, it entertains, and it has the power to attract and move audiences. With that in mind, the editors of Indigenous Pop showcase the contributions of American Indian musicians to popular forms of music, including jazz, blues, country-western, rock and roll, reggae, punk, and hip hop. From Joe Shunatona and the United States Indian Reservation Orchestra to Jim Pepper, from Buffy Saint-Marie to Robbie Robertson, from Joy Harjo to Lila Downs, Indigenous Pop vividly addresses the importance of Native musicians and popular musical genres, establishing their origins and discussing what they represent. Arranged both chronologically and according to popular generic forms, the book gives Indigenous pop a broad new meaning. In addition to examining the transitive influences of popular music on Indigenous expressive forms, the contributors also show ways that various genres have been shaped by what some have called the "Red Roots" of American-originated musical styles. This recognition of mutual influence extends into the ways of understanding how music provides methodologies for living and survival. Each in-depth essay in the volume zeros in on a single genre and in so doing exposes the extraordinary whole of Native music. This book showcases the range of musical genres to which Native musicians have contributed and the unique ways in which their engagement advances the struggle for justice and continues age-old traditions of creative expression.
Music and Modernity among First Peoples of North America by Victoria Lindsay Levine (Editor); Dylan Robinson (Editor)
Call Number: ML3550. M88 2019
ISBN: 9780819578624
Publication Date: 2018-12-17
Revisioning Indigenous musicology Music and Modernity among First Peoples of North America is a collaboration between Indigenous and settler scholars from both Canada and the United States. The contributors explore the intersections between music, modernity, and Indigeneity in essays addressing topics that range from hip-hop to powwow, and television soundtracks of Native Classical and experimental music. Working from the shared premise that multiple modernities exist for Indigenous peoples, the authors seek to understand contemporary musical expression from Native perspectives and to decolonize the study of Native American/First Nations music. The essays coalesce around four main themes: innovative technology, identity formation and self-representation, political activism, and translocal musical exchange. Closely related topics include cosmopolitanism, hybridity, alliance studies, code-switching, and ontologies of sound. Featuring the work of both established and emerging scholars, the collection demonstrates the centrality of music in communicating the complex, diverse lived experience of Indigenous North Americans in the twenty-first century and brings ethnomusicology into dialogue with critical Indigenous studies.
Aboriginal Music In Contemporary Canada: Echoes and Exchanges by Anna Hoefnagels and Beverley Diamond
Call Number: ML3563.6. A154 2012
ISBN: 0773587128
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
First Nations, Inuit, and Métis music in Canada is dynamic and diverse, reflecting continuities with earlier traditions and innovative approaches to creating new musical sounds. Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada narrates a story of resistance and renewal, struggle and success, as indigenous musicians in Canada negotiate who they are and who they want to be. Comprised of essays, interviews, and personal reflections by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal musicians and scholars alike, the collection highlights themes of innovation, teaching and transmission, and cultural interaction. Individual chapters discuss musical genres ranging from popular styles including country and pop to nation-specific and intertribal practices such as powwows, as well as hybrid performances that incorporate music with theatre and dance. As a whole, this collection demonstrates how music is a powerful tool for articulating the social challenges faced by Aboriginal communities and an effective way to affirm indigenous strength and pride. Juxtaposing scholarly study with artistic practice, Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada celebrates and critically engages Canada's vibrant Aboriginal music scene. Contributors include Véronique Audet (Université de Montreal), Columpa C. Bobb (Tsleil Waututh and Nlaka'pamux, Manitoba Theatre for Young People), Sadie Buck (Haudenosaunee), Annette Chrétien (Métis), Marie Clements (Métis/Dene), Walter Denny Jr. (Mi'kmaw), Gabriel Desrosiers (Ojibwa, University of Minnesota, Morris), Beverley Diamond (Memorial University), Jimmy Dick (Cree), Byron Dueck (Royal Northern College of Music), Klisala Harrison (University of Helsinki), Donna Lariviere (Algonquin), Charity Marsh (University of Regina), Sophie Merasty (Dene and Cree), Garry Oker (Dane-zaa), Marcia Ostashewski (Cape Breton University), Mary Piercey (Memorial University), Amber Ridington (Memorial University), Dylan Robinson (Stó:lo, University of Toronto), Christopher Scales (Michigan State University), Gilles Sioui (Wendat), Gordon E. Smith (Queen's University), Beverly Souliere (Algonquin), Janice Esther Tulk (Memorial University), Florent Vollant (Innu) and Russell Wallace (Lil'wat).
Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America by Kyle T. Mays
Call Number: ML3531. M29H57 2018
ISBN: 9781438469461
Publication Date: 2018-04-01
Expressive culture has always been an important part of the social, political, and economic lives of Indigenous people. More recently, Indigenous people have blended expressive cultures with hip hop culture, creating new sounds, aesthetics, movements, and ways of being Indigenous. This book documents recent developments among the Indigenous hip hop generation. Meeting at the nexus of hip hop studies, Indigenous studies, and critical ethnic studies, Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes argues that Indigenous people use hip hop culture to assert their sovereignty and challenge settler colonialism. From rapping about land and water rights from Flint to Standing Rock, to remixing traditional beading with hip hop aesthetics, Indigenous people are using hip hop to challenge their ongoing dispossession, disrupt racist stereotypes and images of Indigenous people, contest white supremacy and heteropatriarchy, and reconstruct ideas of a progressive masculinity. In addition, this book carefully traces the idea of authenticity; that is, the common notion that, by engaging in a Black culture, Indigenous people are losing their traditions. Indigenous hip hop artists navigate the muddy waters of the politics of authenticity by creating art that is not bound by narrow conceptions of what it means to be Indigenous; instead, they flip the notion of tradition and create alternative visions of what being Indigenous means today, and what that might look like going forward.
This book is incredibly important and will change the fields of Native American, African American, gender, and sound studies. It is the first full-length monograph on the rich, diverse, and complex field of Indigenous hip hop. This is the text against which all other studies in the field will be compared. - Michelle Raheja, University of California, Riverside
Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries: Aboriginal Music and Dance in Public Performance by Byron Dueck
Call Number: ML3563.7. M36D84 2013
ISBN: 0199747652
Publication Date: 2013-11-25
Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries explores several styles performed in the vital aboriginal musical scene in the western Canadian province of Manitoba, focusing on fiddling, country music, Christian hymnody, and step dancing. In considering these genres and the contexts in whichthey are performed, author Byron Dueck outlines a compelling theory of musical publics, examines the complex, overlapping social orientations of contemporary musicians, and shows how music and dance play a central role in a distinctive indigenous public culture.Dueck considers a wide range of contemporary aboriginal performances and venues - urban and rural, secular and sacred, large and small. Such gatherings create opportunities for the expression of distinctive modes of northern Algonquian sociability and for the creative extension of indigenouspublicness. In examining these interstitial sites - at once places of intimate interaction and spaces oriented to imagined audiences - this volume considers how Manitoban aboriginal musicians engage with audiences both immediate and unknown; how they negotiate the possibilities mass mediationaffords; and how, in doing so, they extend and elaborate indigenous sociability.Musical Intimacies brings theories of public culture from anthropology and literary criticism into musicological and ethnomusicological discussions while introducing productive new ways of understanding North American indigenous engagement with mass mediation. It is a unique work that will appeal tostudents and scholars of popular music, musicology, music theory, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. It will be necessary reading for students of American ethnomusicology, First Nations and Native American studies, and Canadian music studies.
Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media by Thomas R. Hilder (Editor); Henry Stobart (Editor); Shzr Ee Tan (Editor)
Call Number: ML3545. M895 2017
ISBN: 9781580465731
Publication Date: 2017-02-15
The essays in this volume offer rich and diverse perspectives on the encounter between Indigenous music and digital technologies. They explore how digital media -- whether on CD, VCD, the Internet, mobile technology, or in the studio -- have transformed and become part of the fabric of Indigenous cultural expression across the globe. Communication technologies have long been tools for nation building and imperial expansion, but these studies reveal how over recent decades digital media have become a creative and political resource for Indigenous peoples, often nurturing cultural revival, assisting activism, and complicating earlier hegemonic power structures. Bringing together the work of scholars and musicians across five continents, the volume addresses timely issues of transnationalism and sovereignty, production and consumption, archives and transmission, subjectivity and ownership, and virtuality and the posthuman.Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media is essential reading for scholars working on topics in ethnomusicology, Indigeneity, and media studies while also offering useful resources for Indigenous musicians and activists. The volume provides new perspectives on Indigenous music, refreshes and extends debates about digital culture, and points to how digital media shape what it means to be Indigenous in the twenty-first century.Contributors: Linda Barwick, Beverley Diamond, Thomas R. Hilder, Fiorella Montero-Diaz, John-Carlos Perea, Henry Stobart, Shzr Ee Tan, Russell WallaceThomas R. Hilder is postdoctoral fellow in musicology at the University of Bergen. Henry Stobart is reader in music at Royal Holloway, University of London. Shzr Ee Tan is senior lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Moving Within the Circle: Contemporary Native American Music and Dance by J. Bryan Burton; Bryan Burton (Photographer); David P. McAllester (Foreword by)
Call Number: ML3557. B87 1994
ISBN: 9780937203651
Publication Date: 1994-09-01
The 36 songs and dances in the second edition are in active use in Native communities and were taught directly to the author by members of the Apache, Haliwa-Saponi, Lakota, Oneida, Seneca and Zuni tribes, to name just a few. Selections for guided listening were contributed by numerous well-known contemporary recording artists including R. Carlos Nakai, Joanne Shenandoah, Keith Secola, Tom Bee and Ulali. Moving Within the Circle offers a unique opportunity for educators to experience a wide variety of styles and genres ranging from traditional cedar flute melodies to a concert recording of a hard-driving rock anthem. The book includes musical transcriptions, flute songs and guided listening experiences. Teaching Ideas are provided for each selection. Dance Instructions are;included. The companion CD includes a recording of essentially every selection in the book.

Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934 by John W. Troutman
Call Number: E98.D2T76 2009
ISBN: 9780806140193
Publication Date: 2009-05-23
From the late nineteenth century through the 1920s, the U.S. government sought to control practices of music on reservations and in Indian boarding schools. At the same time, Native singers, dancers, and musicians created new opportunities through musical performance to resist and manipulate those same policy initiatives. Why did the practice of music generate fear among government officials and opportunity for Native peoples? In this innovative study, John W. Troutman explores the politics of music at the turn of the twentieth century in three spheres: reservations, off-reservation boarding schools, and public venues such as concert halls and Chautauqua circuits. On their reservations, the Lakotas manipulated concepts of U.S. citizenship and patriotism to reinvigorate and adapt social dances, even while the federal government stepped up efforts to suppress them. At Carlisle Indian School, teachers and bandmasters taught music in hopes of imposing their "civilization" agenda, but students made their own meaning of their music. Finally, many former students, armed with saxophones, violins, or operatic vocal training, formed their own "all-Indian" and tribal bands and quartets and traversed the country, engaging the market economy and federal Indian policy initiatives on their own terms. While recent scholarship has offered new insights into the experiences of "show Indians" and evolving powwow traditions, Indian Blues is the first book to explore the polyphony of Native musical practices and their relationship to federal Indian policy in this important period of American Indian history.
Native American Song at the Frontiers of Early Modern Music by Olivia A. Bloechl; Olivia Ashley Bloechl
Call Number: ML3557. B67 2008
ISBN: 9780521866057
Publication Date: 2008-03-27
Olivia A. Bloechl reconceives the history of French and English music from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth century from the perspective of colonial history. She demonstrates how encounters with Native American music in the early years of colonization changed the course of European music history. Colonial wealth provided for sumptuous and elite musical display, and American musical practices, materials, and ideas fed Europeans' taste for exoticism, as in the masques, ballets, and operas discussed here. The gradual association of Native American song with derogatory stereotypes of musical 'savagery' pressed Europeans to distinguish their own music as civilized and rational. Drawing on evidence from a wide array of musical, linguistic, and visual sources, this book demonstrates that early American colonization shaped European music cultures in fundamental ways, and it offers a fresh, politically and transculturally informed approach to the study of music in the early colonial Atlantic world.

A Study of Omaha Indian Music by Alice C. Fletcher; Helen Myers (Introduction by)
Call Number: E51.H337 v. 1 no. 5 1967
ISBN: 9780803268876
Publication Date: 1994-12-01
"Among the Indians, music envelopes like an atmosphere every religious, tribal, and social ceremony as well as every personal experience. There is not a phase of life that does not find expression in song," wrote Alice C. Fletcher. The famous anthropologist published A Study of Omaha Indian Music in 1893. With the single exception of an 1882 dissertation, it was the first serious study ever made of American Indian music. And it was the largest collection of non-Occidental music published to date, ninety-two songs, all from a single tribe. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, her Omaha coworker and adopted son, divided the songs into three categories: religious ones, to be sung by a certain class either through initiation or inheritance; social ones, involving dances and games, always sung by a group; and ones to be sung singly, including dream songs, love songs, captive songs, prayer songs, death songs, sweat lodge songs, and songs of thanks. John Comfort Fillmore, a professional musician, added a "Report on the Structural Peculiarities of the Music." Those interested in a vital aspect of Indian culture will want to own this book, which contains the musical scores as well as the native-language words for the songs.
Enemy Way Music: A Study of Social and Esthetic Values as seen in Navaho Music by David P. McAllester
Call Number: E51.H337 v. 41 no. 3 1973
ISBN: 9780331353877
Publication Date: 2017-11-18
Excerpt from Enemy Way Music: A Study of Social and Esthetic Values as Seen in Navaho MusicWhile it gives me much pleasure to express my gratitude to all of the above, I wish to take full responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation in this paper.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Iroquois Music and Dance: Ceremonial Arts of Two Seneca Longhouses by Gertrude Prokosch
Call Number: E99.I7K8
Publication Date: 1964
First-hand investigation of Iroquois songs and dances by a modern dancer turned anthropologist. Includes descriptions, analysis, and diagrams of dance variants and words and music for dozens of songs and dances.
Ceremonies of the Pawnee by James R. Murie and Douglas R. Parks
Call Number: E99.P3M87
Publication Date: 1981
Of all the American Indian tribes of the Plains, the Pawnee and the closely related Arikara developed their religious philosophy and ceremonialism to its fullest; in fact, they may have developed it more highly than any other group north of Mexico. Ceremonies of the Pawnee is the first and only systematic, comprehensive description of that rich and complex religious life. Written under the direction of the anthropologist Clark Wissler between 1914 and 1920, it is the culmination of the ethnographic studies of James R. Murie, himself a Pawnee, who witnessed and participated in revivals of the ceremonialism just before it finally died out.
Part I presents the annual ritualistic cycle of the Skiri band, giving detailed accounts of the major ceremonies and describing the role of priests, doctors, and bundles in Pawnee religion. Part II is devoted to three major doctors’ ceremonies—the White Beaver Ceremony, the Bear Dance, and the Buffalo Dance—one of the three groups known collectively as the South Bands. The descriptions include, in both the original Pawnee and an English translation, several hundred songs as well as a number of ceremonial chants and speeches that are virtually unique in the literature on American Indian religion and provide invaluable material for linguistic study. Equally valuable is the collection of vision stories that underlie the songs. As a body they provide a new perspective on the vision and its cultural patterning, and allow for a deeper understanding of the cultural and psychological bases of Pawnee religion.
Music and Dance of the Tewa Pueblos by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath and Antonio Garcia
Call Number: ML3557.K875
Publication Date: 1970
Apache Music and Musical Instruments by Gina Laczko
Call Number: ML3557.L28 1981
Publication Date: 1981
Peyote Music by David P. McAllester
Call Number: ML3557.M3 1971
Publication Date: 1971
Ethnomusicology of the Flathead Indians by Alan P. Merriam
Call Number: ML3557.M49
Publication Date: 1967
All people, in no matter what culture, must be able to place their music firmly in the context of the totality of their beliefs, experiences, and activities, for without such ties, music cannot exist. This means that there must be a body of theory connected with any music system - not necessarily a theory of the structure of music sound, although that may be present as well, but rather a theory of what music is, what it does, and how it is coordinated with the total environment, both natural and cultural, in which human beings move.The Flathead Indians of Western Montana (just over 26,000 in number as of the 2000 census) inhabit a reservation consisting of 632,516 acres of land in the Jocko and Flathead Valleys and the Camas Prairie country, which lie roughly between Evaro and Kalispell, Montana. The reservation is bounded on the east by the Mission Range, on the west by the Cabinet National Forest, on the south by the Lolo National Forest, and on the north by an arbitrary line, approximately bisecting Flathead Lake about twenty-four miles south of Kalispell. The area is one of the richest agricultural regions in Montana, and fish and game are abundant. The Flathead are engaged in stocking, timbering, and various agricultural enterprises.For the Flathead, the most important single fact about music and its relationship to the total world is its origin in the supernatural sphere. All true and proper songs, particularly in the past, owe their origin to a variety of contacts experienced by humans with beings which, though a part of this world, are superhuman and the source of both individual and tribal powers and skills. Thus a sharp distinction is drawn by the Flathead between what they call "make-up" and all other songs. Merriam's pioneering work in the relationship of ethnography and musicology remains a primary source in this field in anthropology.
Blackfoot Musical Thought: Comparative Perspectives by Bruno Nettl
Call Number: ML3557.N38
ISBN: 9780873383707
Publication Date: 1989-03-01
Describes the musical culture of the Blackfeet and shows the relationship between music and other aspects of Blackfoot life.
Hopi Music and Dance by Robert Rhodes
Call Number: ML3557.R44
ISBN: 9780912586274
Publication Date: 1977-01-01
Gambling Music of the Coast Salish Indians by Wendy Bross Stuart
Call Number: ML3557.S85
Publication Date: 1972
This is a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music from the University of British Columbia, April 1972.
Slahal is a gambling game played by North American natives on the North Pacific coast. This activity is of particular interest to the ethnomusicologist because of the large body of songs which not only accompanies but also is intimately linked with it. The thesis which follows is a resume of research done over the past two and one-half years and deals with the slahal songs of the Coast Salish.
I begin with a description of the game itself the object of which is to guess the location of two tokens concealed in the hands of the opponents. We soon learn that gambling music, as one may say about music in general, has a certain power -- the ability to elevate the entire game experience into a different and more exciting realm than that of an ordinary game.
The main bulk of the thesis is in the second part where I have presented 77 representative songs out of 194, transcribed from over twelve hours of music. Along with the songs are analyses and comments which are found in summary form in Part III. The concluding section touches upon the significance of slahal inpresent-day Indian culture.
Shoshone Ghost Dance Religion: Poetry Songs and Great Basin context by Judith Vander
Call Number: ML3557. V35
ISBN: 9780252022142
Publication Date: 1997-01-01
The Ghost Dance, which led to the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, was a widespread Native American religious movement. This title demonstrates that it was not a single religion, but had two branches - the Great Basin branch, and the Plains branch.
Drum Dance: Legends, Ceremonies, Dances, and Songs of the Eskimos by Charles Hofmann
Call Number: ML3560. E8H63
Publication Date: 1974
Bella Coola Indian Music: A Study of the Interation Between Northwest Coast Indian Structures and their Functional Context by Anton Frederick Kolstee
Call Number: ML3563.7.B7K6
Publication Date: 1082
This is a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music from the University of British Columbia, July 1977.
This paper describes the ethnographic context and analyses the structural characteristics of Bella Coola songs. Seventy-three original transcriptions which encompass a broad spectrum of Bella Coola ceremonial and non-ceremonial repertoires are included.

Tribal Singing

Muskogean Charm Songs Among the Oklahoma Cherokees by Jack Frederick Kilpatrick and Anna Gritts Kilpatrick
Call Number: ML3557.C5K5
Publication Date: 1967
Songs of the Teton Sioux by Harry W. Paige
Call Number: ML3557.P3
Publication Date: 1970
Singing for Power: the Song Magic of the Papago Indians of Southern Arizona by Ruth Murray Underhill
Call Number: ML3557.U53 1976
ISBN: 9780520032804
Publication Date: 1977-03-01
Songprints: The Musical Experience of Five Shoshone Women by Judith Vander
Call Number: ML3557.V36
ISBN: 9780252014925
Publication Date: 1988-11-01
Songprints explores the musical lives of Native American women as they navigate a century of cultural change and constancy among the Shoshone of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. Judith Vander captures the distinct personalities of five generations of Shoshone women as they describe their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward their music. Ranging in age from seventy to twenty, the women provide a unique historical perspective on twentieth-century Wind River Shoshone life. In addition to documenting these oral histories, Vander transcribes and analyzes seventy-five songs that the women sing--a microcosm of Northern Plains Indian music. As she shows, each woman possesses her own songprint, a repertoire distinctive to her culture, age, and personality, as unique in its configuration as a fingerprint or footprint. Vander places the women's song repertoires in the context of Shoshone social and religious ceremonies as she offers insights into the rise of the Native American Church, the emergence and popularity of the contemporary powwow, and the expanding role of women.

Heartbeat of the People: Music and Dance of the Northern Pow-wow by Tara Browner
Call Number: E98.P86B76
ISBN: 9780252027147
Publication Date: 2002-02-11
"The intertribal pow-wow is the most widespread venue for traditional Indian music and dance in North America. Heartbeat of the People is an insider's journey through the dances and music, the traditions and regalia, and into the functions and significance of these vital cultural events." "Tara Browner comes to the pow-wow as a participant - she is a dancer of Oklahoma Choctaw heritage - as well as a scholar. Focusing on the Northern pow-wow, which derives from the northern Great Plains and Great Lakes region, Browner presents an in-depth discussion of the pow-wow's roots and traditions, protocols, and order of events. She also describes footwork, styles of singing, and the diversity of participants' regalia. Browner centers her discussion of the Northern-style pow-wow around the Lakota Sacred Hoop and the Anishnaabeg Sacred Fire." "Browner traces the history of specific events such as the Grass and Jingle Dress dances and distinguishes among various dance types, including Traditional, Fancy, and "special" exhibition dances as well as ceremonial honor dances, giveaways, and memorials. She also discusses women's changing roles within pow-wow performance and thoughtfully examines how continually changing musical repertories, dance styles and regalia, and customs foster a vibrant state of transformation that coexists, often uneasily, with more traditional Native mores. She closes her study with a series of interviews with members of two families of pow-wow dancers, one Lakota and one Anishnaabeg."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Native American Music in Eastern North America by Beverley Diamond
Call Number: ML3550.D53 2008 - comes with corresponding CD- Comdisc 3976
ISBN: 9780195301045
Publication Date: 2007-11-30
Native American Music in Eastern North America, a case study in the Global Music Series edited by Bonnie Wade and Patricia Shehan Campbell, is one of the first books to explore the contemporary musical landscape of indigenous North Americans. This volume looks at how performance traditions ofNative North Americans have been influenced by traditional social values and cultural histories, as well as by encounters with other indigenous groups and newcomers from Europe and Africa. Drawing on case studies from communities in eastern North America such as the Iroquois, the Algonquian-speaking nations of the Northeast, and the Inuit of the far north, this book discusses the specific histories and locations of Native North American musical practices including intertribal celebrations, contemporary popular music projects, and other expressive domains such as dance, art, and film.The author also looks at how performance contexts and styles have responded to economic, social, and environmental changes brought about by the arrival of non-natives, how technology has mediated contemporary cultural communication, and how traditional ideas about social roles and gender identitieshave been altered through music.Designed to be used as one of several short and inexpensive case study volumes in the Global Music Series, this volume is appropriate for undergraduate courses in world music or ethnomusicology and Native American anthropology. Based on the author's own fieldwork, the text features interviews withtribal elders and First Nations performers, eyewitness accounts of performances, and vivid illustrations. The included 70-minute CD contains examples of music discussed in the text; these include unique and rare recordings.
Music and Dance Research of the Southwestern Indians: Past Trends , Present Activities, and Suggestions for Future Research by Charlotte I. Frisbie
Call Number: ML3557.F8
ISBN: 9780911772869
Publication Date: 1977-08-01
The Crooked Stovepipe: Athapaskan Fiddle Music and Square Dancing in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada by Craig Mishler
Call Number: ML3557. M6
ISBN: 9780252019968
Publication Date: 1993-08-01
Named for a popular local fiddle tune, The Crooked Stovepipe is a rollicking, detailed, first-ever study of the indigenous fiddle music and social dancing enjoyed by the Gwich'in Athapskan Indians and other tribal groups in northeast Alaska, the Yukon, and the northwest territories. Though the music has obvious roots in the British Isles, French Canada, and the American South, the Gwich'in have used it in shaping their own aesthetic, which is apparent in their choice of fiddle tunings, bowing techniques, foot clogging, and a distinctively stratified tune repertoire.
Spirit of the First People: Native American Music Traditions of Washington State by Willie Smyth (Editor); Esme Ryan (Editor); Vi Hilbert (Introduction by)
Call Number: ML3557. S7
ISBN: 9780295977324
Publication Date: 1998-09-01
This book and an accompanying compact disk offer a rare glimpse into Native American sacred traditions of song and dance. Arising from a unique exhibit and live performance at the Northwest Folklife Festival, Spirit of the First People is a collection of personal narratives, stories, and essays on the music of the First People in the region that now encompasses Washington State. From tribe to tribe and reservation to reservation across the state, a wide range of musical genres and individual styles have developed, including social dance songs, game songs, and hymns. Skagit elder Vi Hilbert, a principal adviser to the tribal council and the one who gave the book its name, introduces the collection. Contributors include Bruce-Subiyay Miller (Skokomish), Cliff Sijohn (Spokane, Coeur d?Alene), Jeanette Timentwa (Okanogan) and Rebecca Chamberlain, Virginia Beavert-Martin (Yakima), Brycene Neaman (Yakama), Linda Goodman and Helma Swan (Makah), Loran Olsen, and Willie Smyth. Their narratives provide rich detail about tribal music and its significance, past and present. Roberta Haines (Wenatchee) establishes the historical and political background, noting how spiritual traditions were nurtured by dance and song under conditions of government suppression. Song traditions in the Indian Shaker Church are explored by Pamela Amoss and James Everett Cunningham. Appendixes by Laurel Sercombe, Judith Gray, and William Seaburg outline the work of past ethnographers and describe current efforts to preserve and disseminate the music. This book and compact disk are the result of a multi-year collaboration among the members of Washington State's tribes, Jack Straw Productions, Northwest Folklife, and the Washington State Arts Commission's Folk Arts Program.
Dance and Song Rituals of Six Nations Reserve, Ontario by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath
Call Number: ML3563.K87
Publication Date: 1968
Choreographic and musical survey of Canadian longhouse customs.
Intertribal Native American Music in the United States by John-Carlos Perea
ISBN: 9780199764273
Publication Date: 2013-05-14
The development of a shared musical heritage amongst the various Native American tribes reveals a history fraught with the tension of the give-and-take between cultural maintenance and new cultural creation. In Intertribal Native American Music in the United States, author John-Carlos Pereaexplores this tension and shows how traditional sounds, such as the powwow song and cedar flute, have developed into increasingly recognizable forms, like Native jazz and rock.These older sounds and their modern incarnations form the four themes around which Perea frames his discussion. First, he examines powwows - American Indian social gatherings founded upon an intertribal repertoire of music and dance - and shows how the assemblies of Northern and Southern Plains andNavajo tribes represent a singular performance encompassing disparate stories and sounds. From the relative insularity of the powwow, Perea then looks at the mainstreaming of the cedar flute and its role in introducing Native American music to broader audiences. From there, he surveys Native rockand jazz, considering their roots and their trajectories, as well as the milestone creation of the Best Native American Music GrammyRG Award in 2000. With this book, Perea offers readers the only brief text that makes clear the interconnectedness of Native American music through a lively analysis ofhow it began and where it is headed.Designed to be used as one of several short and inexpensive case study volumes in the Global Music Series, this volume is appropriate for introductory undergraduate courses in world music or ethnomusicology and for upper-level courses on Native American music and/or culture, as well as NativeAmerican Indians courses in Anthropology. The twenty-second volume in the Series, this text is based on the author's own extensive fieldwork and features interviews with performers, eyewitness accounts of performances, and vivid illustrations. The book also features listening activities that enablestudents to engage critically and actively with the text. The included 70-minute CD contains examples of music discussed in the text, and supplementary material for instructors will be available on the companion web site.
Songprints: The Musical Experience of Five Shoshone Women by Judith Vander
Call Number: ML3557.V36
ISBN: 9780252014925
Publication Date: 1988-11-01
Songprints explores the musical lives of Native American women as they navigate a century of cultural change and constancy among the Shoshone of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. Judith Vander captures the distinct personalities of five generations of Shoshone women as they describe their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward their music. Ranging in age from seventy to twenty, the women provide a unique historical perspective on twentieth-century Wind River Shoshone life. In addition to documenting these oral histories, Vander transcribes and analyzes seventy-five songs that the women sing--a microcosm of Northern Plains Indian music. As she shows, each woman possesses her own songprint, a repertoire distinctive to her culture, age, and personality, as unique in its configuration as a fingerprint or footprint. Vander places the women's song repertoires in the context of Shoshone social and religious ceremonies as she offers insights into the rise of the Native American Church, the emergence and popularity of the contemporary powwow, and the expanding role of women.

Native American Courting Flute by Tim Tingle
Call Number: Indigenous Curriculum Collection - First Floor: MT358. C68B35 2012
ISBN: 9781929572229
Publication Date: 2013-01-05
This manual teaches techniques of playing the flute for both the absolute beginner as well as the seasoned player. Using the CD that accompanies this manual, readers will be able to learn the basic skills needed to play.The author describes the history of the modern Native American Flute and includes the traditional legend of how it became an integral part of the courting ritual. Also included are instructions for maintaining your flute, numerous graphs and illustrations of scales to practice, advice on how to choose the best flute for you, songwriting tips, practice songs, and blank composition sheets. The instructional CD features samples of Jeff Ball's bestselling recordings. Beautiful color photos of both flute players and flutes accompany the text.
The Art of Native American Flute by Carlos Nakai
Call Number: MT358.N38N35 1996
ISBN: 9780786628988
Publication Date: 1997-01-21
This nicely designed and illustrated book deals with the playing and care of one of the most evocative and expressive instruments in the world- the Native American flute. This volume will delight the novice or advanced player alike with both fundamental instruction and a significant number of transcriptions from R. Carlos Nakai's various recordings. This unique book includes a fingering chart, information in performance technique, style, rhythm conventions, ornaments, and history - plus an analysis of Mr. Nakai's role in contemporary Native American culture. All exercises, solos, and duets (with Boehm flute and E flat alto sax) are written in standard notation. A comprehensive discography and probing essay on The Question of Authenticity close this outstanding book.
The Ojibwa Dance Drum: Its History and Construction by Thomas Vennum
Call Number: ML1035.V46
ISBN: 9780874749410
Publication Date: 1983-05-01
Nearly all North American Indian cultures possess at least one type of drum as part of their song instrumentarium or collection of ceremonial objects. Only the rattle is more widespread and found in more varied guises thoughout the United States. Despite dozens of ethnographies and hundreds of recordings, little is known of the function and use of the drum in many Indian societies. For example, no broad-scale study of drum performance practices has been presented to date. The present volume helps to fill this gap in Indian musical instrument studies, as an investigation of the dance drum in Ojibwa culture and compendium of data pertaining to the dance drum as used by other Great Lakes and Plains Indian peoples.
The present study, developed through the collaboration of an Ojibwa drummaker/singer, William Bineshi Baker, Sr., and a non-Indian commentator, Thomas Vennum, Jr., provides an introduction to one type of drum-the dance drum-used by the Ojibwa. It is also a beginning step toward a comparative study of sound instruments used by North American Indian cultures.

Weave Little Stars into My Sleep: Native American Lullabies by Neil Philip (Editor); Edward S. Curtis (By (photographer))
Call Number: Indigenous Curriculum Collection - First Floor PM197. E3W433 2001
ISBN: 9780618088560
Publication Date: 2001-08-17
These beautiful and tender lullabies combine Native American themes with universal concerns of parenthood. Collected from the Native American peoples of the Northeast (Ojibwa), the Plains (Arapaho, Kiowa, Pawnee, Crow), the Southwest (Hopi, Acoma, Yuma), the Northwest (Kwakiutl, Haida, Tsimshian), and the Arctic (Inuit), the lullabies are illustrated with the gorgeous photographs of Edward S. Curtis, printed in duotone. Simply expressed yet deeply felt, these brief poems offer an intimate look at Native American family life.
Native Musicians in the Groove by Vincent Schilling
Call Number: ML3929. S35 2009
ISBN: 9780977918348
Publication Date: 2009-04-01
From the melodic sounds of a classical guitar or the wailing of an electric guitar to country music and punk rock, these musicians deliver. They offer a wide selection of musical styles as diverse as the music industry itself. Read about the lives of these outstanding performers who represent the fresh new sounds from Native American today. The music of these talented artists transcends borders and cultures to speak directly to the hearts and minds of listeners. But it was not always easy for them to reach their goals. Shane Yellowbird (Cree) - Canadian country recording artist Mary Youngblood (Seminole/Aleut) - Flutist Blackfire (Navajo) - Punk rock and traditional Dine' (Navajo) music Jamie Coon (Creek/Seminole) - Singer/songwriter Gabriel Ayala (Pascua Yaqui) - Classical guitarist Mato Nanji (Nakota Sioux) - Lead guitarist and singer for Indigenous Four Rivers Drum - Vibrant drum group Leela Gilday (Dene) - Folk artist Michael Bucher (Cherokee) - Composer and vocalist Crystal Shawanda (Ojibwe) - Canadian vocalist/songwriter The Native Trailblazer Seriesshines a spotlight on the contributions of Native Americans and First Nation Canadians who provide inspirational role models for young readers. High interest text and easy to read format is ideal for teen and adult literacy programs.
Great Musicians from our First Nations by Vincent Schilling
Call Number: ML3929. S334 2010
ISBN: 1897187769
Publication Date: 2010
Music is their passion. Follow the journeys of ten talented musicians from the Native community as they make their way to the top. All of them, whether their music is traditional drumming or mainstream rock, bring their own cultural traditions to their music.

Rising stars Shane Yellowbird and Crystal Shawanda are steeped in country music. The Blackfire band combines punk rock with Dine’ music, while Four Rivers Drum has been drumming at powwows for more than fourteen years. Leela Gilday is an award-winning folk artist and Michael Bucher's music protects sacred sites. Contrast classical guitarist Gabriel Ayala with rock guitarist Mato Nanji and learn about the talents of jazz vocalist Jamie Coon and Native American flutist Mary Youngblood.

Educational/Teacher Resources

Myth, Music and Dance of the American Indian, Grades 4-12 by Ruth DeCesare; Sandy Feldstein (Editor); John O'Reilly (Editor); Patrick Wilson (Editor); Judy Seckler (Illustrator); Walt Shelly (Illustrator)
Call Number: M1669.C49M98
ISBN: 0882843710
Publication Date: 1988-09-01
An introduction to the Native American culture. The Teacher's Resource Book provides pronunciations, tribe information, maps and instructions on making Indian instruments.

Tsese-Ma'Heone-Nemeototse: Cheyenne Spiritual Songs by David Graber (Editor)
Call Number: M2132.C48T75 1982
ISBN: 0873030788
Publication Date: 1982-10-01