The Beauty of Native American Culture

 Hello! I hope that everyone is doing well. Below you are a couple questions that I had about the Native American Culture and their relation to music. Although these questions are not directly about the music, there are ways that they correlate to their music. I hope you enjoy, and if there are any questions, please feel free to comment below. I had a fun time learning about this, and I hope you do too. 

Native American Powwow Attire: 

Everything that Native Americans wear in powwows are significant in some way, even the beads and the feathers. I wanted to dig deeper into why Native Americans wear items on their clothes, and why the bright colors on their costumes? My curiosity led me to looking up “Powwow Costumes and their Meaning,” and to find the meaning behind them. The website, See California, provides that there are multiple costumes such as the ladies cloth dress, ladies jingle dress, men grass dance, etc. Right now I am solely focusing on the Ladies Jingle Dress. The Ladies Jingle Dress originated in the Ojibway tribes in Canada. The idea of the dress was conceived from medicine men, and became known as the “medicine” dress. The start of the dance originated from the story of a medicine man healing a sickly, dying girl on the verge of death. The dress is made out of small tobacco tin lids, and hundreds of small rolled tin cones that are sewn into rows on the dress. The dress is used in powwows to create a soft sound of jingling, to help keep the tempo and the beat of the drums and to encourage dancing. Down below is the website link, and a youtube video of what the dress looks and sounds like. 

http://www.seecalifornia.com/culture/indian-powwow-clothing.html 

What is the history behind the dances and their music?

I really enjoyed watching and hearing the music and dances, so it made me want to learn the history behind some common dances that are held for ceremonies. I looked up “Native American dances and their meanings” and found an article about the most common ceremonial dances. At first, the dances might look like interesting movements that are designed for the beat of the song, but when you delve deeper into the meaning behind the music and dancing, it makes you want to learn more. The website, Hankering for History, introduced me to one of many of the dances that Native Americans perform; the “Stomp Dance.” The stomp dance is practiced by the Chickasaw tribe, where a ground leader will lead a song, and the people of the tribe will gather around the ceremonial fire. Around the fire, the ground leader holds a shell shaker or a rattle, while women wear rattles around their ankles to maintain the rhythm of the song.The tribe will then walk clockwise around the fire, and the ground leader calls out to the “Creator.” The “Creator” will then respond through the men of the tribe, and it is said that whatever the leader requests of the “Creator,” that it will come within four days of the ceremony. Feel free to skip around on the video.

https://hankeringforhistory.com/native-american-dances-and-meanings/

What are the different types of drums that Native Americans use?

After listening to the videos of Native American music in class, I started thinking about the different types of instruments and drums. I wanted to narrow down my research t o just drums so that I could start somewhere. The website, American Native Hearts, provides that all tribes have different traditions about the drum, and how they play it. Most of the common drums are made out of a wood frame, sometimes a hollowed-out log, with elk-skin or tanned buckskin stretched across the wooden frame. Depending on the tribe, there have been bearskin hides and cowhides. There are other drum types that include basic styles of water drums, where there is a hollowed out wooden cup, or bowl with animal skin stretched across, and depending on how much water is put in, the wetness of the hide determines the pitch and volume. One other type of drum is a half hollowed-out gourd that floats on top of the water, where it is hit on the outer round surface with a drumstick. The most common drum is a large drum, where many Native Americans sit around it in a circle, and use drumsticks to beat the drum to their choice of beat. Having one drum, with multiple people around it, allows for the drum to make a very loud “thump” instead of having multiple little drums. The larger drum also is used for the body of the Native Americans, and shows that they are all one. Below is a video of a couple drums. I couldn't find the water drum, but I found some beats of some drums, it is very long so please skip around to hear the different beats. Let me know what you think!

https://americannativearts.com/news/traditional-native-american-drums