National Museum of the American Indian

Creation’s Journey: Native American Music Presented by the National Museum of the American Indian


		Excerpt from the CD Notes Foreword No cultural or artistic expression is more central to Native American life than music and dance. Children are taught to respect the ways of their people through songs and dances. Indeed, Iroquois tradition maintains that children who can't dance well were born of mothers who didn't dance when they were pregnant. Perhaps no form of Native creativity is more enduring than music—the songs of the Aymara contain echoes of the beautiful Andean flute and ocarina music described by Spanish chroniclers, while the haunting synthesis of Baptist hymns and the Cherokee language captures one Native group’s response to the challenge of contact with European culture. Nor is any art more diverse—Native American music encompasses social and ceremonial dances, oral histories and personal stories passed on in song, and traditional and Christian religious music. Finally, no art is more immediate than music. I take great pleasure, as director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, in helping bring to a wider audience the musicians and singers on Creation’s Journey: Native American Music Presented by the National Museum of the American Indian. Dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the histories and lifeways of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the museum is committed to fostering living Native cultures—by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian voice. The museum will ultimately comprise three facilities, each born of consultations between museum staff and Native peoples. The George Gustav Heye Center at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, opened in October 1994, serves as an exhibition and education facility in New York City. The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to open in 2001 on the National Mall. A tribute to the heritage and continuing contribution of Native American peoples, the museum will be a center for ceremonies, performances, and educational programs, as well as an exhibition space for Indian art and material culture. The Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland, scheduled to open in 1997, will welcome scholars and non-scholars, Indians and non-Indians, who wish to study the museum’s collections. Of equal importance are extensive outreach programs that will provide access to the museum’s cultural and educational resources to audiences who may never have an opportunity to visit the East Coast facilities. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to work with Smithsonian/Folkways on this first recording produced by the National Museum of the American Indian. Likewise, we are delighted to have had the guidance of Charlotte Heth, who chose the material on this recording and provided all text on the music. Dr. Heth, former chairperson of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, former director of the American Indian Program at Cornell University, and former director of the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA, has just joined the staff of NMAI as Assistant Director for Public Programs. She was also the general editor of the museum’s first major publication, Native American Dance: Ceremonies and Social Traditions (1992, Fulcrum Publishing). This recording and its companion book Creation’s Journey: Native American Identity and Belief (1994, Smithsonian Institution Press) complement the exhibition Creation’s Journey: Masterworks of native American Identity and Belief, on view at the Heye Center until February 1997. Yet the music presented here also stands alone as an eloquent expression of the vibrant cultural life and diverse creativity of native peoples throughout the Americas. W. Richard West, Jr., Director (Southern Cheyenne and member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma) © 1994 Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved. Introduction Charlotte Heth (Cherokee) This album offers ceremonial, social and contemporary music of Native Americans from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Bolivia. The singers and instrumentalists present ancient, living traditions along with innovations and crossovers to Euro-American music. In 1992, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian presented a Native American dance program to complement a special preview exhibition called Pathways of Tradition: Indian Insights into Indian Worlds, at the George Gustav Heye Center in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, the museum’s New York exhibition facility. Participants in the dance program included many musical groups representing a host of tribes and nations. Several of those groups, recorded live at the Custom House or at Giant Recording Studios in New York, can be heard on this recording. Other outstanding artists agreed to record for this album during visits to Washington, D.C. Many of these musicians (who are often bilingual and bicultural) continue to cherish their songs, dances, and rituals. Woven in to the fabric of everyday life, Native American songs and dances not only reinforce ancient beliefs and confirm contemporary identities, but also serve as entertainment. The voice is the most important instrument in American Indian music, embracing many kinds of performances—solos, call and response, unison chorus, and multi-part songs, some with instrumental accompaniment. The singers typically perform in their Native languages, but often include "vocables" (non-translatable syllables, such as he, ya ho, we, etc.) to carry the melody and fill out the poetic and musical lines. Solo flute pieces and instrumental ensembles complete the repertoires. Some Indian groups use simple, short songs with many repititions while others prefer lengthy song cycles. The choices of scales, rhythms, meters, and vocal styles vary according to area, tribe, ceremony, and genre, and sometimes even reflect individual preference. The musicians choose from a variety of instruments—mainly rattles, drums, scrapers, flutes, whistles, and strings. Singers and dancers use hand-held vessel rattles or clappers, and tie rattles on their arms and legs, or attach them to their clothing. Performers play many drum types, from small water drums to large bass and box drums of many shapes and varieties. Frequently, several persons play the same drum simultaneously or play similar drums in concert. Other instruments like rasps and bullroarers are less common. Flutes, whistles, panpipes, musical bows, fiddles, guitars, and other plucked strings are more common in Central and South America than in North America. © 1994 Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.