Cool Stuff: Music of the Americas

     

#1: Hoop Dancing and James Jones

Hello again! When we first started this unit I remembered a Native American Youtuber/Tik-Toker (is tiktoker a noun yet? anyways he has a lot of Tik-Tok videos) that I discovered over quarantine. He posted a lot of traditional dances and songs as well as the history and meaning behind them. His name is James Jones and he is a member of the Cree nation, which is one of the largest groups of Native American tribes and is based primarily in Canada. You can look him up on Youtube, Instagram, or TikTok @notoriouscree. Something he posts a lot about that we didn't discuss in class is hoop dancing, which I will not do justice trying to explain so I'll post one of his Tik-Toks: 

    After a little bit of research I found out that hoop dancing is thought to have originated in tribes near the western Great Lakes, such as the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Potawatomis. As James mentioned in the video, the hoop dance is a healing dance. It was originally intended for religious purposes, but has since become modernized and has become a public dance rather than just ceremonial. Something interesting to know: the hoop is considered a sacred symbol in many Native American cultures, representing the cyclical nature of life (kind of like how we talked about balance in Navajo ceremonies). Oftentimes different hoop dances depict things found in nature such as animals or plants. While these dances are performed at powwow competitions, it isn't as common as some of the other dances we saw in class because it is considered a specialty dance. Here's another one of James' hoop dancing videos which he captions: "The hoop dance, is a healing dance. It has the power to heal through movement & story telling. In times of turmoil, remember Mother Earth is a powerful healer. She has the power to create life, and take life. and if she becomes sick, we will become sick. the air she breathes, the water she drinks. how we treat the land, is how we treat ourselves and our future generations. Mother Earth. an elder, a story teller, a life giver. she is now healing herself. As humans We can no longer take, without giving".

#2: Pamyua

    I was going to make this section just an overview of some other modern native bands/artists I found, because I wanted to see what else there was beyond what we listened to in class. PBS has a great article on Native American musicians, as well as Spotify playlists of some good songs. ANYWAYS, through this article I discovered Pamyua (pronounced bum-you-wah), and they really deserve a whole section to themselves. Pamyua is a group of four indigenous Inuit musicians, who combine traditional Inuit music and storytelling with R&B and funk genres. Their songs are mostly sung in Yup'ik Inuit, and when performing they try to tell a story through their music and the use of masks that they wear. The two songs I've linked below are pretty different, but it's easy to tell where their influences come from. In Ocean Prayer there is a constant, steady drumbeat, much like the Native American music we've listened to in class. The song has a relatively small range and is very chant-like, which makes sense considering it's a prayer. It goes between unison and harmony, almost like a call and response set up. The second song, Bubblegum, sounds like it could be on any pop radio station. The song is sung in Yup'ik Inuit, but even if you can't understand the words it's impossible not to smile and dance along as you listen. There is still a very steady and repetitive drum beat, but the rhythm is a bit more complex, and there are aspects of American music like the guitar and the harmonies. 

3: Natural Dyes in the Andes

       Okay, I was really excited to write this one! I thought it was so cool to see how the textiles were dyed in the before-quiz materials and I wanted to learn more about that process and the type of plants that can be used to create colors that vibrant, and also how the knowledge has been kept alive in the Andes. I found a great article on the plants used to make the natural dyes, and I'll highlight a few of the really important ones here: 

Red: apparently red is super important to the Andean people! It's rich, vibrant color is most often achieved using Cochineal, a type of scaled insect that kind of looks like a red roly-poly. The shell is left to dry out in the sun and then ground into a fine powder. 

Green: There are a lot of ways to create the color green, and the shades and hues of green vary widely depending on what region you're in. This is obviously due to what kind of leafy plants are available and how much sunlight exposure they get. 

Blue: The use of tara is mostly used to get a blue hue. Tara is a plant that kind of looks like a pea pod. However, when it can be found, many Andean natives love to use indigo to dye their yarn. Indigo does not grow naturally in the region so it can be difficult to find. 

The video below is from an exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art that displayed several textile works such as bags, clothing, and tapestries. While most of these are from the Inca, which isn't exactly what we talked about, it's still really cool to see how the tradition of textile making continued and developed.