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SIOUX CULTURE & MUSIC.
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Examines cultural & historical background, belief system, role of music in Native American cultures, attributes of music of the Sioux.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines cultural & historical background, belief system, role of music in Native American cultures, attributes of music of the Sioux.
Paper Introduction:
Introduction
Traditional Sioux of the last century – or the centuries before – would have found the entire idea of putting on their best clothes and going to a concert hall to listen – as relatively passive observers – to a musical performance extremely odd. For them, as for other native peoples of the Americas (and arguably other native peoples throughout the world before the onset of industrialization) music was something that was integrated into the fabric of ritual and everyday life. It was not something apart. Music and dancing were nearly always integrated into either ceremonial or celebrative activities of personal and communal life (Hassrick, 1964, p. 140). Such a degree of integration is hard for citizens of the almost-21st century to imagine. Even fo
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3 9-31 ). Some of the accounts that have survived are relatively free fromEuropean bias about both music and "civilized" behavior and these recordthe harmoniousness and beauty of the singing (Terrell, 1974, p. However, the Sioux did adopt stringedinstruments from Europeans, both plucked and bowed ones, calling them by anonomatopoeic word meaning "things that squeak by means of the hands" - aword related to the name for a mouse's squeak. 1 6-7). The people of Tipi Sapa. Ethnomusicology 38 (1), 175-179.Marquis, T.B. Chicago: University of Chicago.Utley, R. Singing is one ofthe most elemental of musical forms, for along with such percussive typesof music as clapping and stomping it requires nothing at all beyond one'sown body. These garter bells were made of deer hooves strungon leather and added another melodic and rhythmic line to the music(Terrell, 1974, p. New Haven: Yale University.Utley, R. It is obviously difficult to derive objective information about Siouxmusic and rituals when working with primary sources such as this. It is simply notpossible to discuss Sioux music in the way that one can discuss John Cage -although arguably Cage too requires a cultural context to be understood Music and Dance as Political Protest Dances and the music association with them became ways of re-emphasizing Indian (and especially Plains Indian) identity as well as aform of political protest - since an insistence upon an independent, non-colonized Indian identity was prima facie a form of political protest. One of the Sioux ceremonies accompanied by music and singing that isbetter documented than most in the ethnographic record in its original formis the Redressing Ceremony, which was performed exactly a year after aperson's death as a way of perpetuating that person's name and memory)singing was unaccompanied by dancing. Given this context, it is easier to understand Sioux ideas about theimportance of songs and their ownership. Ethnomusicology 43 (2), 385-387.DeMaille, R. They transformed themselvesinto what Utley calls "true horse-and-buffalo Indians (1994, p. After a few minutes, the medicine man who has conducted him to the west, facing east, conducts him to the north facing south, and later to the other points of the compass until he is back facing east. Norman: University of Oklahoma.Sandoz, M. They made thenecessary economic and cultural shifts with relative ease to this newenvironment, becoming adept buffalo hunters, and the tribes grew andprospered. 52). Chapter Four: A Larger Cultural Context The Relationship of Dance to Music Traditional Indians had a dance for almost every occasion - for war,for hunting, to bring rain or to bring sun, to ask for a good harvest or togive thanks for one, to mark the changing of the seasons. In the 17th century - the time of European contact, when they enterthe historical written record - the Sioux comprised small bands of woodlandpeoples in the Mille Lacs region of present-day Minnesota. Something of thisintensity is reflected in Sioux rituals and music, although taken by itselfthe music would not necessarily sound "extreme". Here dance, dancers, music and musicians, instruments and costumes,ritual and art become seamlessly attached, so that we cannot in any wayknow the dancer or the musician from other aspects of the ritual. Journal of American Folk-lore 14, 319-21.Browner, T. Moreover, even when the original recorder is free of overt anddenigrating ethnocentric biases, the results may still be substantiallycompromised, as Pantaleoni (1987) notes about the recordings andtranscriptions made by Frances Densmore (viz. (1986). (1918). Although it now serves in some ways a different purpose than it didthree hundred years ago, the music of the Sioux remains a bedrock of theirculture and an active means of establishing for each individual what itmeans to be a Sioux and, beyond this, what it means to be an AmericanIndian in the post-colonial world. At times there were as many as three rhythms, or a rhythm within a rhythm in the singing, and a different rhythm for the drum (Grant, 199 , p. Such new materials and new instruments would not have made Siouxmusic inauthentic in any way (for all cultures change their culturalpractices) but do mean that Sioux music must have begun to sound differentalmost at the very point of contact (Powers, 1986, p. Singing has been recorded sincethe moment of contact with Europeans an essential part of Indian culture,but it is hard to imagine that singing was not essential to American Indianmusic and ritual for thousands of years before contact. The result would have been a nearlyoverwhelming aesthetic experience even to those who had grown up with it -which is, after all, the point of a good ritual, that it overwhelms one andfor a while at least removes one from everything that is ordinary. 86). 294). (199 ). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma.Johnson, W.F. After providing some cultural and historical background on the Siouxand on the role of music in American Indian cultures, this paper focuses onthe music of the Sioux, relating it to other musical traditions of theregions where the Sioux lived as well as discussing its unique attributes.The final section of this paper examines the Sun Dance and the Ghost Danceas the two most important single types of musical performance (or ratherintegrated musical-dance-ritual performance) of the Sioux Indians. 51-2) In addition to these terms used to describe (and often to evaluate)singing, Sioux contains a number of words to describe the elements of songsthemselves. The Heart of Indian Music: The Drums The most important instrument to traditional Indian music is the drum,almost always crafted from a hollowed piece of wood with dried skin or hidecovering one or both ends. 215). Stronglyopposed by missionaries, it is still practiced among some tribes, althoughmore for its spectacular aspects than for its religious significance, forit should be noted that Indian identity is not something that was an issueonly in the 19th century. Songs were often performed by scores and possibly even hundreds ofpeople and so were a widespread and fundamentally important aspect of Siouxculture, but much of this is now irredeemably lost because there are fewaccurate ethnographic records of the traditional performance styles oflarge sings, since these were vehemently and sometimes even violentlydiscouraged during early encounters. After that battle the Sioux separated. It was not something apart.Music and dancing were nearly always integrated into either ceremonial orcelebrative activities of personal and communal life (Hassrick, 1964, p.14 ). San Francisco: Indian Historian Press.Lazarus, E. (1963). (1991). The last two are also known together as theSantee. Justas music and dance become indistinguishable from each other and from ritualand ceremony and the whole concept of traditional Sioux life, after thehistorical point of contact with Europeans, music and dance becomeintegrated with political protest as well. 274). Native Americans generally have shown less interest in an afterlifethan have Christians. (1956). However, it is also important to note that there are elements ofEastern Woodland style in Sioux music because of their original homeland.Eastern Woodland music resembles Plains music, but it tends to havenarrower melodic ranges, and Eastern singing makes use of polyphony as wellas forms that are antiphonal and responsorial. 215). (1984). 14 -143). This focuses on the consequences of colonization, however, and doeslittle to provide a window into the richness of their cultural and rituallife (Utley, 1994, pp. All of these elements must be kept whole for theSioux to be whole, and music and dance when combined in certain rituals arethe most effective means of creating this wholeness (Amiotte, 1987, p. (Although it should be noted thatBoas [1925] is already aware of the problems that Western-trainedresearchers have in reconciling the rhythms of the drums and otherinstruments and those of the voice in American Indian music) have missed. 3). These were the Sioux. (Thus you would expect to see waterdrums made of the same woods used to make ships, which is in fact what youdo see.) The tone of a drum was adjusted by tightening the rawhide head beforea fire or - in the case of water drums - by filling the interior of thedrum with differing amounts of water, which would also wet the head of thedrum (Grant, 199 , p. It is also important to rememberthat the Sioux believed that at least some songs had close to what we wouldconsider to be magical powers, and even those of us who live in ahumanistic and secular world can appreciate at least intellectually howpotentially dangerous it could be to have someone sing a magical songwithout being properly trained to do so. (1955). (1994). 36). In theory, every song played on a whistle has a vocalcounterpart with important song texts, although in practice this has notalways been the case (at least in so far as it is possible to determinefrom the remaining songs and texts) (Powers, 1984, p. 29 -92). The Sioux had fought on the side of the British during the AmericanRevolution and the War of 1812. (199 ). Dozens of words can be applied topraise, deride, or simply describe ways of thinking, a fact that linguisticanthropologists would use to demonstrate the importance of singing to theSioux (and the relative unimportance of singing within contemporaryAmerican culture, which is semantically poverty-stricken in this area).Among the words available to the Sioux wishing to describe singing are thefollowing (bearing in mind that this is not a comprehensive list): 1. 64). The complexity ofthe dance was often reflected in (and therefore often reflected) thecomplexity of the music itself (Grant, 199 , p. But far more frequent are the kinds of descriptions that show not onlya lack of appreciation for Sioux music but a violent distaste and evenhatred for it. 7-9). The Sioux have traditionally tended to assume that thesouls of the dead go to another part of the universe, where they have apleasant existence carrying on everyday activities in much the same waythat they lived on this side of death's curtain. However,such pan-Indian events actually seem to encourage American Indians to learnmore of their individual traditions and to help them maintain their ownmusic along with other cultural practices (Howard, 1955, p. It should beremembered throughout the following discussion that the period of Indianmusic about which most is known is the period of contact with Europeansettlers onward to the present, and from the point of contact Indian music(like every other aspect of their culture) would have begun to change andbe changed. Drums of the Sioux - like those of allAmerican Indian tribes except for some Pacific coastal peoples - are roundand hollow (those of the Northwest Coast tend to be simple square boards orplanks that are less resonant but play beautifully) and generally made of ahard wood like oak - one assumes for the simple reason that it was moredurable and less likely to split and so ruin the maker's effort. (1925). 151) and the complexity of possiblesinging types is clearly represented in the number of semantic distinctionsthat the Sioux made in describing songs. New York: Crown.Hassrick, R. Teton Sioux Music and Culture. (1987). (1994). Sioux music, like everythingelse about these people, has changed during the hundreds of years that thispaper touches on. Parks (Eds.), Sioux Indian religion: Tradition and innovation (pp. However, unlike drums or whistles, rattles were rarely used for dancesor for individual reasons like courting, but were instead used almostexclusively (by both the Sioux and other Plains peoples) during rituals andreligious festivals and by shamans or "medicine men". The difficulty of distinguishing dancing from music can be seen in adescription of the Bean Dance, which was a celebration of both thanksgivingand fertility and is one of the few dances to include a rattle as one ofthe instruments - no doubt because of the sacred elements of the dance. 65).The implication of this etymology is that the rattle is something that isboth produced through human intervention and that also exists in nature, assomething like an echo or the sound of dry leaves rustling in a cave. 64). The Ghost Dance is an example of thefact that new religious movements among Native Americans have at timestaken on the character of what are referred to by anthropologists as"crisis cults", which are religions or sectarian movements that respond tosignificant cultural threats with ceremonies that have at their core highlyemotional rituals. Book review: Women in North American Indian music. For the Sioux, using someoneelse's song was very similar to such an unauthorized use of a personalname. Songs of the people. Life of Sitting Bull. There were hundreds of human beings believing in a Great Spirit, and anxious to offer him acceptable service; but how degraded in that service! Norman: University of Oklahoma.Densmore, F. Brief Ethnography of the Allied Peoples The basic social unit of the Sioux was the tiyospe, an extended familygroup that traveled together in search of game. 229-242). Drumsticks, when they were used, were made by wrapping the end of astick with buckskin (Grant, 199 , p. Women also sang while they worked, especially when spinning orgrinding and in these forms of singing the clack or spindle or the scrapeof grinding stones provided the percussive elements that the drum suppliedduring dances. We all know that spells can haveterrible and unexpected consequences if they are not followed to theletter. The complexity of such an amalgam isimpressive. Theymay have originated with the Pueblo Indians, but Indians of the NorthernPlains carried similar hoops in dream society functions, and most PlainsIndians, including the Sioux, now perform them in a context that helps themmaintain an identity that is distinct from and yet admirable to outsidesociety (Nurge, 197 , p. The Sioux were not a single cultural group but rather an importantconfederacy of Native American tribes of the Siouan language family and ofthe Plains culture area. Whistles were rarely used to accompany dances but were insteademployed to play love songs and to set up trysts, to single a charge inbattle or to signal to another hunting party that game had been sighted(Grant, 199 , p. (1999). Indeed to distinguish singing from music - as ifthe vocal element were in some sense only an accompaniment - would be togive a false impression of the balance of importance of vocal andinstrumental elements to the music of the Sioux or most of the nativepeoples of the Americas. 9). At this time a pattern of assault and counterassault developed assettlers pushed forward onto Sioux lands. Among these are: 1. To characterize the Sioux as the people whowere slaughtered at and retook Wounded Knee is like characterizingAmericans by what happened at Anzio. A Tool of the Sacred: Rattles Anyone who has watched Western movies of a certain era has seenIndians performing dances accompanying themselves with the music of arattle. At their settlements near Mille Lacs in east centralMinnesota, the Lakota gathered food, fished, and farmed, but twice a yearthey traveled west beyond the Missouri River to hunt animals in the area ofpresent-day South Dakota (Utley, 1994, p. (Anyone who has been at a powwow has heard at least someof this style of singing, regardless of the tribal affiliation of thesingers.) This typically Plains structure shall be discussed in greaterdetail later on. 14 ). Yasna - to blunder in song 8. Densmore 1918), Westernbiases sneak into recordings of Indian music even when sincere scholarsappreciate the music and are doing their best to transcribe it literally.Pantaleoni found a precise, systematic, non-Western method for coordinatingvoice and drum present in Sioux music that earlier researchers missed intheir attempts to transliterate either recordings or live performances intostandard Western music notational forms. The songs of the Sioux also differ (and indeed of nearly all the NorthAmerican Indians) dramatically from European songs in the concept of whocan sing them. Both private prayer and public rituals are common among NativeAmericans. For example, the pan-Indian powwows that are commonly held in the199 s and which may contain performance of the Sun Dance or part of the SunDance are a way of using dance and music to create and affirm an Indianidentity. Finally, music wasproduced by garter bells (sometimes also called garter rattles) attached tothe legs of the dancers. It was not until the late 196 s, however,with the advent of various forms of cassette recording technologies, thatthe American Indian and Plains Indian recording industry began to flourishand began to transform itself from a tool of scholars (and to some extentof the Indians themselves) to a way for the general population to enjoyAmerican Indian music. Notched Sticks and Bells Notched sticks are used in traditional Indian music - including butnot limited to the music of the Siouan tribes - nearly as often as aredrums and are used for the same basic purpose of establishing rhythm aswell as simply for making noise - for example, in an attempt to attract theattention of certain gods or to drive away certain types of evils. Wicaho hukuciyela - low notes 4. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.Hyde, G. This dance was performed in its original form at leastthrough the middle of the 2 th century and is still performed in somewhatmodified form for powwows (Underhill, 1953, p. Various rituals (including specified forms ortypes of music) are used to ensure the safe passage of dead along their way(LaPointe, 1976, pp. Red man's America: A history of Indians in the United States. Wovoka, also called Jack Wilson (circa 1856-1932), aNative American prophet of the Paiute, born in what is now Mineral County,Nevada, created this dance of despair and hope (The Illustrated American,Ghost Dancers in the West, p. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.Eastman, M. For once, Hollywood's images of the Indian are not that distorted,for rattles are indeed deeply important to a number of Indian musicaltraditions, including those of the Sioux. 65). Even before contact with Europeans made them into a belligerentpeople, the Sioux tended toward what might well be considered extremebehavior by many modern Americans of European descent (Marquis, 1931, p.32). All of these are not necessarilytrue of Sioux music, he argues, especially the first one. Red Cloud's War (1866-1867), named after aSioux chief, ended in a treaty granting the Black Hills in perpetuity tothe Sioux. As has been noted above, throughout the Americas, both the vocal lineof music and the instrumental elements (as well as the instrumentsthemselves) have often had religious significance. They have been particularly involved in theAmerican Indian Movement (AIM), a civil rights group that has activelyprotested government treatment of Native Americans since the late 196 s. In J. The last days of the Sioux nation. American Indian Quarterly 18 (2), 283-285.Underhill, R.M. Sioux Trail. As a person passed through the stages of thelife cycle - obtaining a name after birth, seeking a guardian spirit atpuberty, setting off at death for the journey to the afterlife - ritualsmarked the passages and these rituals almost always included instrumentalmusic, singing and dancing as well as other ritual elements such as eatingcertain foods (or fasting), wearing certain clothes and observing certaintaboos. Both Copland's airs and the complexdrumming of Sioux dances are at least as relevant and central to anycultural definition. It is for Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee that the Sioux arechiefly known today; that is, as a militaristic people (Schell, 1961, p.27). As such they represent one of the ways in which music and dancebecome nearly indistinguishable in some cases in traditional Indian forms,for the tempo and style of the dance determined the way the bells wouldsound (Grant, 199 , p. The devoted attention of the savages, given to every part of the ceremony, made it in a measure interesting. 89).(The Sun Dance is no longer performed regularly by any Sioux group, Howard,1984, p. (1976). In retaliation,in 1855 U.S. Rather, the two exist simultaneously and aresymbiants of each other, with neither depending in a parasitic fashion oneach other. The whistle (to stay with the more common terminology for simplicity'ssake) of the Sioux is in many ways interchangeable with the human voice,and music played on the whistle is never accompanied by singing because todo so would seem superfluous. The dance is a summerassembly at which a thousand or more people would meet to fast and praytogether, praising and beseeching the blessings of the Almighty (Lazarus,1991, pp. Musicians might form a fourth circleoutside the dancers or might be included in the innermost circle. Some of these songs had no words and so differfundamentally from Western definitions of what properly constitutes a song,although (and the historical reasons for this would be interesting toinvestigate), they resemble the songs sung by cowboys with vocal soundsthat resembled the kind of creative nonsense produced by Lewis Carroll.(All that yippee-ya-yaying in the cowboys' version.) However, while thecowboys' songs (and other similar American verbal musical forms like scatsinging) allow for a certain amount and often a great deal ofimprovisation, the comparable songs of the Indians did not (Grant, 199 , p.293). Of course, even those properly trained and authorized to sing eachsong could make mistakes and these mistakes too could bring misfortune tothe group and so a number of sanctions were created to prevent such amisfortune from occurring. The ceremony lasted an entire nightand 17 different songs were performed by the musicians (Terrell, 1974, p.41). Clans and societies had special officers to seethat the songs were sung properly and only by those individuals who hadleave to sing them. Rattles are made of whatevermaterials the local environment furnishes, from animals hoofs to dewclawsto horns and turtle shells and later from such borrowed materials asbuckshot. Difficulties in Knowing Such etymological distinctions as those listed above are invaluableclues in helping us understand both how the Sioux understood vocal music aswell as giving us some hints at how the music sounded within a traditionalcontext. Some of these dances were more complex than others,although a number of dances were very simple, allowing everyone in avillage who wished to participate the chance to do so. The native peoples of South America tendto use a softer singing voice than those of North America, for example,whereas a tense vocal production is characteristic east of the RockyMountains. The treaty, however, was not honored by the United States; goldprospectors and miners flooded the region in the 187 s. The Illustrated American. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Nurge, E. By 189 they performed the ghost dance nightly and it played a role in the arrestand slaying of the Sioux chief Sitting Bull on December 15 and in themassacre at Wounded Knee on December 29. troops killed about 1 Sioux at their encampment in Nebraskaand imprisoned their chief. Casting himself in a messianic role thatseemed to be influenced by Christian imagery, Wovoka promised that ifNative Americans would conduct a ceremony known as the Ghost Dance,depleted animal populations and deceased relatives would be restored. The musicians and sometimes also the dancerswould also play time beaters made of basswood about 14 inches in length andone-quarter thick; these time beaters were used to strike measures for thedancers and were always destroyed after each ritual. This is not to say that Native Americans, and theSioux specifically among them, have believed that a person's identityceases with death. Such events tend to have substantial pan-Indian elements, as if all ofthe native peoples of the continent were interchangeable (although pan-Indianism does of course also recognize the terrible injustices done to allnative peoples as well as recognizing the fact that many contemporaryIndians are the genetic and cultural blends of several groups. Indian drums were traditionally fashioned in one of three forms:single-headed and double-headed hand drums, large dance drums played byseveral musicians simultaneously and the water drum of the Woodland tribes(which the Sioux would have used before they were displaced and which theywould have brought with them). However, this is not truefor the traditional Sioux, fort Sioux songs belong to clans or societies orsometimes to individuals. 176). The Ghost Dance Unlike other Sioux dances, the individual who created the Ghost Danceis known by name. This continues until he is able to tear the hook from his flesh and free himself (Terrell (1974), p. 52-4). The pan Indian culture of Oklahoma. The Ghost Dance was performed by a number of Plains Indian groups andis perhaps best known from its performances by the Sioux, although it wasbegun, in 1889, by a Paiute prophet named Wovoka, who foretold the imminentend of the current world order. A Sioux chronicle. This is true for both aesthetic reasons, since Indianmusic is so fundamentally rhythmical it is hard to imagine such musicexisting without a strong percussive element. This is a part of the Sun Dance, one ofthe most important rituals for the Sioux as well as for other PlainsIndians. Expect for the Sioux this was nottrue, and may be more analogous to the way Westerners feel about personalnames. (1964). 4). Sioux singing is more generally characterized by such a tensevocal production (including the use of falsettos) that may sound reedy and"thin" to the listener accustomed to Western vocal traditions (Hessrick,1964, pp. Memoirs of a White Crow Indian. soldiers were killed. Thereafter Wovoka's influencediminished and the Ghost Dance was laid aside as a possible means of remedyfor the Sioux (Wallace, 1956, pp. Teton Sioux music. 112). The Northern Sioux bands also used more elaborate drums, such as thatused in the Grass Dance. 1 7). (1961). There is no reason to think that pre-contact music was substantially different, but there is not sufficientarchaeological, ethnographic or historical evidence to state definitivelythat it was the same. They lived onsmall game, deer, and wild rice, and were surrounded by large rival tribes.Conflict with their enemy, the Ojibwa people - contact forced in at leastsome measure by the encroachment of the Europeans onto Ojibwa land - forcedthe Sioux to move to the buffalo ranges of the Great Plains. Concise encyclopedia of the American Indian. Bells were used in many traditional Plains dances not as a separatemusical instrument but as part of the costume of the dancers, attached tostrips of leather or basketry and worn on the ankles and the legs ofdancers. (1998). Certainly music wasan essential part of traditional Sioux religious ceremonies, although tosome extent we must only guess at this, since traditional Sioux culture waswaning before it could be accurately recorded. Eastman writes about a Sioux dance (that was either a medicine danceor one celebrating the power of thunder or possibly both): Then the music commenced, and the horrid sounds increased the wildness of the scene; and the contortions of the medicine man, as he went round and round, made his countenance horrible beyond expression. Yawankicu - to begin or lead a song 11. 42). The Sioux's traditional religious beliefs were similar to those ofmany other Plains Indians and indeed similar in general to the firstpeoples of most of North America. Different songs exist for nearly every occasion and for each differentkind of ceremony and event in an individual's life for the traditionalAmerican Indian. The ways in which religionand music are mixed in the Sioux culture are more known to us from thenewer aspects of their traditional religious practices, such as the GhostDance (Lazarus, 1991, p. 54). The Sioux: Life and customs of a warrior society. The drum - often called a tom-tom because of its rhythmic voice(although it should be noted that this is a term applied to it by Europeansettlers rather than by Indians themselves and carries a faint derogatoryhint to it) - was beaten with either the hands or a stick. Individuals regularly give thanks to their gods and communitiesgathered (and gather) for symbolic dances, processions, and feasts (Sandoz,1961, p. 196). In the ensuingconflict, General George Armstrong Custer and 3 troops were killed atLittle Bighorn on June 25, 1876, by the Sioux chief Sitting Bull and hiswarriors. This seems at first highly authoritarian to theWesterner, who is unused to the idea that melodies can be owned: They seemby definition to be as free as the air. (197 ). 264-5). The idea of someone we have not authorized using our name makes usvery uneasy and may in some cases be illegal. Young Sioux men especially(although also sometimes women and older members of a group) cultivatedreligious visions as these were seen as direct communications from the godsand as the most significant and potent messages possible about living avirtuous and praiseworthy life. These musical forms are the best knownof the Native American styles of North America and are the source of themusical styles heard at present-day powwows, which are simply large socialgatherings, often intertribal, featuring Native American dancing and notlinked to specific rituals. Such a degree of integration is hard for citizens of the almost-21stcentury to imagine. 14 -147). Chordophones A brief word should be added about chordophones, which (while notunknown among the native peoples of North America) are not among theoriginal instruments of the Sioux. History of South Dakota. Such visions became especially important asSioux culture and the Sioux themselves came increasingly under attack andas individuals sought to find a way back to harmony, dignity and safety fortheir people. While dancing he looks at the sun and blows on a turkey wing bone whistle to the beat of the drums. The beat of the drum was supposed to govern the movements of the legs, body, and arms, while the song, in a different rhythm, had to do with the feelings. This stick wasprobably not wrapped to produce a softer head and therefore may haveproduced a sound less like that of a human hand striking a drum (Howard,1984, p. A number of waves of dance revivals passed over the Plains in the 19thcentury, each one an attempt to use music and dance to recreate the goodlife and a sense of the wholeness of the universe that American Indians hadonce inhabited. About 1888 Wovoka suffered a feveraccompanied by delirium; he claimed to have had a vision of God instructinghim to teach his fellow Native Americans a certain dance ritual, which cameto be known as the Ghost Dance. These have beenreferred to before, but merit a further description here because of theircultural importance. 67). Forseveral years, many indigenous peoples in the western part of North Americaperformed the ceremony, even after United States Army troops massacredSioux ghost dancers at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in SouthDakota in 189 (Lazarus, 1991, pp. The Aolian harp is an one of the few true analogues, for thistoo is recognized as something that was first made and then allowed to singby itself. Although songs written within a Western context areprotected by copyrights, individuals are free to sing any song that theylike for their private amusement and edification. 115). The Sioux language makes an semantic distinction for musicalinstruments as objects made by humans and existing outside of the body, andso classifies bells with drums rather than with the singing human voice.However, it is no doubt clear to them (as it is clear to anyone watchingtap-dancing) that such a distinction is blurred in the case of bellsattached to a dancer (Powers, 1984, p. (1974). Fortunately for scholars, a fairly wide body of recordings oftraditional music does exist, although many of these recordings oftraditional songs are themselves compromised by deteriorating physicalconditions, and the recordings that early scholars made of song texts(while invaluable in their own right for what they can tell us about Siouxreligion, philosophy and poetics) are also in some ways sadly incompletewithout the accompanying music. Sioux music in generalsounds slightly mournful to the Western listener, but in fact less dramaticthan much of Western music because the kind of melodic shifts thatWesterners tend to hear as metaphors for dramatic emotional moments inmusic tend to be missing from traditional American Indian music (DeMaillie,1987, p. It continues to be an issue today (for theconcept of identity is something that is important to all humans) and danceand music are still used to help cement and maintain a sense of Indian-ness, even though both music and dance and what it means to be an Indian(and especially the latter) have changed dramatically over time. One of the great difficulties in writing about the music of thenatives of the continent is that in some ways it is impossible to know howtheir songs sounded before they culture was so violently damaged and theymade so many adaptations to a colonized life. The lance and the shield: The life and times of Sitting Bull. (TheSioux word actually translates as "great + prairie chicken", not onlybecause whistles can in fat sound like prairie chickens but because bothhumans and that bird produce their whistling by puffing out their cheeksand then blowing (Powers, 1984, p. Sacred language: The nature of Supernatural discourse in Lakota. H. Yazilya - to drawl while singing 13. (If thisuse of an instrument primarily for its ability to make loud sound seemsquaint or overly totemistic, one might want to re-consider the orchestraluse of cymbals or the percussion line in any successful rock music.) Notched sticks have several disadvantages over drums: they certainlydo not have the ability to be heard as well and they lack the resonancethat both American Indians and Westerners appreciate about the playing of adrum. 293). But the whistle used by the Sioux is a fipple-flute, and so is more closely related to a recorder than most otherinstruments with which we are now familiar (Powers, 1984, p. It is unclearwhether the Ogala Sioux used such a drum, which the Northern Sioux probablyborrowed from one of the Indian groups that had always lived on the Plainsand so would not have been seen as appropriate by some Sioux to use withinritual or traditional contexts (Howard, 1984, p. Such fine distinctions would make Sioux musiceven more complex than older research (such as that of Densmore) suggestsit to be (Pantaleoni, 1987, p. ix-xii). This paper examines both what the Sioux culture - or rather, cultures- was like before European contact as well as what that culture has evolvedinto with a focus on the music of this people set within a broader artisticand cultural and even political context. Thereare few analogues for such musical instruments in the West - ones that areclearly created by human craft but that also speak directly with the voiceof nature. 75-89), Norman: University of Oklahoma.Boas, F. Chapter Two: Musical Instruments Before beginning a discussion of the composition of Sioux music or adeeper explication of its social and cultural context, it will be useful toprovide a more detailed description of the instruments themselves, bearingin mind that not all of these instruments would have been used in everymusical composition and also bearing in mind that the construction ofinstruments would have changed over the years. It is what we begin with as human beings, and so surely AmericanIndians have sung long before they even came to the New World, just aspeople have sung in the rest of the world for as long as there has been asunrise to greet or a sick child to soothe or monotonous work to be gottenthrough. 293). Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing.Pantaleoni, H. The Plains peoples soon regarded him as their messiah. Yatocka - to change a song 1 . Yaiyowaza - the trail the voice (like an echo) 7. 1995). New York: Ballantine Books. Hoop dances, for example, are often performed at powwows,although how traditional such dances may be is certainly debatable. The following passage suggests at how complicated therelationship can be among song, instrumentation, and dance: During ceremonies dancers followed the beat of the drum [although not necessarily of other instruments], which usually differed from the rhythm of the song being sung. All native instruments wereoriginally made from organic materials, but with increasing contact withEuropeans, the Indians both began to use new materials in constructingtheir instruments and actually incorporated European instruments into theirmusic. Softerwoods, such as cedar, make fine drums in terms of their sound, but are morelikely to crack, especially when exposed alternately to heat and damp, aswater drums are (Powers, 1984, p. The Dakota of the Canadian Northwest: Lessons for survival. It is the fact thatso many song texts came to people in dreams and therefore were consideredto be gifts of the gods that they were guarded with such zealousness, forone can hardly expect to be favored again by the gods if one has beencareless with previous divine largesse. In the dance, both men and women step in a single-file circular coursearound a group of singers, with men representing beans and forming an innercircle while women represented corn and created a circle outside both themale dancers and the male singers. Thesinging at powwows (and thus of much Sioux music as it is performed withina contemporary context) includes a wide melodic range, with a typicalmelodic contour of terrace-shaped-beginning high, and descending as thesong progresses. Chicago: Edgewood Publishing.LaPointe, J. He furthermoreargues that Sioux musicians and audiences had the ability to make very finedistinctions in terms of rhythm, being able to distinguish (for example)whether a drumbeat falls one sixth of a second before a vocal accent or onesixth of a second after it. However, as shall be discussed below, therelationship between dance and music with a particular ritual is a complexone, and it is not entirely accurate to say that the dance simply reflectsthe music or the reverse. Indian music has been recorded since 189 , just 13 years after ThomasEdison's invention of the phonograph in 1877. Sioux Indian religion. A Brief History of the Sioux Like other native groups, the Sioux lost much of what had defined themas a people with the coming of European settlers to the New World,including their own name for themselves. They are relativelysimple to make and so could have been produced quickly (if, for example, adrum did break just before a ceremony). 65). Lincoln: University of Nebraska.Olden, S.E. (1994). The Sioux believed thateach whistle made the sound of the bird that it had been taken from (andone has to suppose that musicians varied their playing styles so that thateach whistle made the sound of the bird that it had been taken from and onehas to suppose that musicians varied their playing styles so that theresulting call did in fact resemble the bird that the whistle was supposedto emulate. However, notched sticks do possess some virtues. Yabu - to growl as one sings 4. Others,like the Dream Dance that became popular in the 188 s (and was significantto the Santee Dakota along with the Potawatomi, the Ojibwa and theMenomimi) had no connection with war or forceful ejection of whit settlers.This dance, which was performed around a large sacred drum, was one offellowship with both other Indians and sometimes even whites and wasaccompanied by mutual gift-giving to show the good will of theparticipants. One description, published in 1849, of Sioux music shouldmake it clear how difficult it is to acquire an accurate sense of whatSioux music sounded like at the point of contact with European settlerssince the Sioux were writing no records of their own rituals and theEuropeans show in these rituals frightening reminders and symbols of thepaganism that they believed it their God-demanded duty to expunge. Some of these were militaristic in their rhetoric. Houkiye - to receive a song (in a vision) or to learn a song (from another person) (Powers, 1984, pp. The fact that they are quietercould also have been an advantage in that they could be used by lessskilled musicians so that any mistake that they might make could not beheard by everyone and so disrupt an entire ceremony (Browner, 1999, p.385). Even for a professional musician, for example, music issomething that stands apart from the rest of his or her daily activitiesand is distinctly recognizable as an activity that can be isolated fromother activities. Wicaho wankatuya - high notes 5. The specific role that music played (to theextent that it can be isolated from these other elements) as well astechnical descriptions of the music itself for these different rituals arediscussed in later sections after a brief overview of the qualities ofAmerican Indian Music. Yastan - to complete a song 9. Anyone who has seen a traditional Sioux dance can appreciate thisanalogy even more, for while on the one hand it is perfectly clear that itis the movement of the musicians hands and body that is producing the musicof the rattle, the rattle does also seem to have a volition outside of themusician's own, and often the sound of the rattle seems strikinglydisconnected from the motions that one sees being performed and that shouldbe driving the rattle's sound. While the Sioux are no longer in armed conflict with the UnitedStates, they have not ceased to be active in their own defense and havelong been active in the modern Native American civil rights movement,seeking restoration of their land base and the institution of a modernizedform of traditional life. Rattles were also used within a traditional context almostexclusively by men, making them the instrument whose use was most marked bygender distinction (Levine, 1994, p. and Parks, D.H. It has, however, retained at its core the beating of thedrums, the singing of sacred and mundane texts and the heart of Siouxculture. Non-Indian observers may find that much of Indian music and dance areindistinguishable from each other, but in fact there is substantialvariation in both movement and composition, with substantial ranges intempo and overall tone of a dance and in whether or not the dancers alsocontributed vocalizations to the music (Grant, 199 , p. New York: McGraw.Theisz, R.D. For them, as for other native peoples ofthe Americas (and arguably other native peoples throughout the world beforethe onset of industrialization) music was something that was integratedinto the fabric of ritual and everyday life. (1987). The first clash was in 1854 nearFort Laramie, Wyoming, when 19 U.S. How fallen from its high estate was the soul that God had made, when it stopped to worship the bones of animals, the senseless rock, the very earth that we stood upon! Lincoln: University of Nebraska.Terrell, J.U. Whistles Whistles are fairly common in North American Indian music, and wereused by various branches of the Sioux, although never as the most importantof instruments. (1961). The Sioux also used a an "L"-shaped stick sometimes, especially with water drums. Chicago: Afton Historical Society Press.Elias, P.D. American Warriors. Introduction Traditional Sioux of the last century - or the centuries before -would have found the entire idea of putting on their best clothes and goingto a concert hall to listen - as relatively passive observers - to amusical performance extremely odd. Ethnomusicology 31 (1), 35-55.Powers, W.K. 283). 333). Yaptan - to change the tune of a song 12. That women should sing as they worked shouldnot be surprising to anyone who has ever been engaged in any sort ofagricultural work (and the Sioux women would have been those mostresponsible for agrarian work), for while essential it is tedious andrepetitive, and all such work - regardless of culture or era - is made alittle quicker through the use of song. But it is also probably truefor practical reasons as well (and these of course would have influencedthe aesthetic ones), for music played in the open in the presence ofhundreds of people (many of whom are dancing) and without microphones hasto be able to be heard, and the base of a deep drum is one of the mostpenetrating possible sounds (Powers, 1984,p. (1918). Like so many of the native peoples of this continent, the Sioux lostmuch of what marked their sense of cultural identity with the coming of theEuropeans to what is now the United States, and because music was integralto so many other cultural activities, they lost much of it as well.However, the Sioux did not go quietly into the good night of colonization,and they used their music and dancing (in particular in the form of the SunDance and the Ghost Dance) to help them successfully resist culturalgenocide and their music has remained a part of their identity well pastthe period of most severe sanctions by European settlers (Utley, 1963, p.64). The Sun Dance of the Plains peoples (which the Sioux performedas a central act of cultural importance) is a fairly is an typical suchannual dance, although larger in size than most. 1-2) and in many ways presents a false view of thetrue nature of Sioux society. Th Sioux do also produce love songsplayed by men on flutes for women, although it should be noted that in theflutes in these cases are meant to "sing" with their own voices. Punishments among the Sioux for moral and legal violations, forexample, were often very harsh: Infidelity in marriage was punished bydisfigurement through ritual scarring and an infraction of huntingregulations led to destruction of tepee and property. Black Hills, white justice: The Sioux Nation versus the United States, 1775 to the present. Arikaras were farmers who lived in villages of earthen lodges,mainly along the Missouri River. The Sun Dance helps define all four aspects of the soul that thetraditional Sioux knows that she or he possesses: the niya, or the aspectof an individual that ties identity and body together, the nagi, which isanalogous to Western ideas of a ghost; the nagila, or spirit of animation;and the sicun, or ability of any individual to receive sacred power(Amiotte, 1987, p. Reprinted: Ramona, CA: Acoma Books.Gooding, E.D. Teton Sioux music: Notes and queries. Rattles were often accompanied by song and so may be seen to beanalogous in some ways to drums and other forms of percussive instrumentsas providing a rhythmic counterpart to vocal music, but they must also beseen as "speaking" as well, as providing a type of vocalization of theirown that Westerners may not be well attuned to hear. By the end of the nineteenthcentury, researchers had begun to record the music of the native peoples ofthe Great Plains, including the Sioux, and during the twentieth century,numerous recording technologies were developed and employed in therecording of Plains Indian music. The Sioux (like other indigenous peoples of North America)crafted whistles from the wing bones of a variety of birds, includingeagles, hawks, geese and other larger species, with those whistles beingmade of eagle bone being the most highly prized. In 1815, however, the eastern groups madetreaties of friendship with the United States, and in 1825 another treatyconfirmed Sioux possession of an immense territory that included much ofpresent-day Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Wyoming.In 1837 the Sioux sold all their territory east of the Mississippi River tothe United States; additional territory was sold in 1851 (Hyde, 1956, pp.229-242). The dancer arises, backs away from the tree until the rope is taut and dances facing the sun. (1974). The fact that somuch of the native musical and dance traditions have been lost or come tous in diluted and hybridized forms also makes it difficult for us toappreciate the rich emotive and artistic complexities of the first musicever to be played in the New World. DeMaillie and D.R. (It should be noted that unlike songs, musical instruments and musicalaccompaniment - to the extent that an idea of musical accompaniment asdistinct from other aspects of ritual or performances existed - were morecommunally owned (Elias, 1988, p. (1988). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma.Howard, J. In1973 AIM, in concert with a group of Oglala Sioux who were angered byreservation abuses, seized the town of Wounded Knee for 7 days anddemanded a United States Senate investigation into Native American livingconditions. Each of thesedances was accompanied with singing and chanting (which must certainly beconsidered part of the music of the Sioux, for chanting and singing werenot distinguished in the same ways as they are in the West) as well asinstrumental music. Drums were usually tuned before a ritual andthen played throughout the ritual without being readjusted, despite thelength of many rituals, and the changing quality of the instruments wouldhave been seen not as a failure on the part of the musicians or theinstrument but as an aspect of the ritual itself and as a way of markingtime within the ritual (Powers, 1984, p. However, the two mostimportant amalgams of music, dance, ritual and political protest were theSun Dance (in its later performances) and the Ghost Dance. Like other Native American groups of North America, the Sioux engagedin a great variety of rituals. The Sioux believed in one all-pervasiveomnipotent god that they called Wakan Tanka, or the Great Mystery (perhapsmore usually translated as Great Spirit). Hokapsanpsan - whining 6. Yahla - to make the voice rattle (powers, 1984, pp. The most dramatic and wide-ranging example of this phenomenonwas the frenzied ceremony of the Ghost Dance, which will be discussed indetail below as one way in which music (and the dance associated with it)was linked with both cultural survival and religious practices. 215-2 .Howard, J.H. Yaotanin - to make public in song 3. 4). H. Both the Sun Dance and theGhost Dance (which shall be discussed in greater detail below) were acombination of dance, music, religious imagery, acts of cultural identity,singing and ritualized texts. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 61. Chapter Three: The Songs of the People Vocalizations are an important part of the music of North AmericanIndians, and in this the Sioux are typical. Although the Sioux did notoriginate in the Plains, many of their costumes are consonant with otherPlains Indians practices and resulting either from borrowings from othertribes that became their neighbors (obviously a primary source of culturalchange is borrowing from adjacent cultures) or because aspects of their newphysical environment were unsuited to traditional Woodland culturalpatterns. Manitoba: University of Manitoba.Ghost dancers in the West: The Sioux at Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. These assumptions are: 1) small pauses are interpretiveand incidental; 2) slightly unequal durations are to be understood asequal; 3) vibrato and other "interpretive" effects are purely decorative;4) rhythmic coordination rests upon rhythmic coincidence and 5) stressmarks structure (Pantaleoni, 1987, p. The drumbeat in Indian music provides both its heartand its backbone. And, of course, notched sticks were used simply to provide a measureof variety in music in much the same way that Western-style orchestras usea variety of instruments as well. The musical traditions of the Sioux are usually classified with thoseof the tribes of the Great Plains. The Ojibwa word for the group,rendered into French by early explorers and traders as Nadouessioux, wasshortened to Sioux and passed into English, and as such they remain knowntoday, although members of the group have begun to add back their originalname of "Lakota" or "Dakota", which meant allies (Utley, 1994, p. Wicaho oegnakwe - scale 2. Yahmun - to hum (this is strikingly like the onomatopoeic English word, and comes from the Sioux term for buzzing bees) 6. It would be helpfulindeed if more such examples of well-documented songs and music withintheir appropriate ritual context existed. Scientific Monthly 18(5), pp. They also lack the musical authority (which can be seen as theaffective side of resonance) that a drum possesses. 192). While this makes it in some ways easier to study themusic of the first peoples, such a popularization of the music must alsointroduce its own changes (and/or distortions) into the original forms ofthe music (Theisz, 1994, p. By 175 the Sioux comprised some 3 , people firmlyestablished in the heartland of the northern Great Plains where theydominated this region for the next century. But theGhost Dance should not be seen as anomalous: Much of the musical traditionsof the Sioux were entwined with such dances and with the religious beliefsin similar ways.(Eastman, 199 , pp. Olowan kin ho - melody 3. General Characteristics of American Indian Music Among the persisting native musical styles of the Americas, singing isthe dominant form of musical expression, with instrumental music servingprimarily as rhythmic accompaniment. The Sioux also believedthat the souls of unhappy or evil persons might stay around their formerhomes, causing misfortunes. 64). J. 138). The Canadian Sioux. Notes 55(1), 37-71.Grant, B. The main peoplesencountered by European explorers of present-day South Dakota were theArikara, and most of them were in the Sioux federation, including Yankton,Yanktonai, and the Lakota Sioux (whom Europeans called the Teton), composedof the Oglala, Brulé, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Blackfoot Sioux, Hunkpapa, andthe Minneconjou; and the Dakotas, composed of the Sisseton, Wahpeton,Mdewakanton, and the Wakpekute. (1953). The dancer lies down, and the medicine man makes an incision in the dancer's chest, and attaches the hook on the leather rope. Throughout the Americas the principal instruments have been drums andrattles (shaken in the hand or worn on the body), as well as flutes andwhistles - although in Mesoamerica and the Andes, a substantially greatervariety of instrumental forms exists and South American indigenes are farmore likely to use stringed instruments than the people of the northernpart of the hemisphere. It can also be seen as the final battle in afour-hundred-year struggle between the first settlers of North America andEuropean settlers who came to this hemisphere after the Middle Ages, and soits significance cannot be overestimated either to the Sioux, who were mostdirectly and most immediately affected, nor to any other inhabitant of theNew World. The Sioux word "siyotanka" is actually probably better translated as"recorder" or "flageolet" rather than as whistle, although the former wordcalls up rows of schoolchildren forced into music lessons and the latterword is relatively obscure. The singers in this case wereaccompanied by a drummer as well as a rattler (since this was not a dancebut a formal and rather solemn ritual). The Four Nights Ceremony (a festival of thanksgiving) is alsorelatively well documented and included songs performed on a water drum anda horn rattle as well as dances performed by women. Songs lyrics were complex both in terms of content and metrically anddo not show as much tendency towards repetition as is true of manytraditional songs (Olden, 1918, p. Here is a description of one such ritual for awarrior wishing to fortify himself. Because of the importance of drums to Indianmusic, a range of the instruments was used, providing a variety of tonesand voices and Sioux vocal music is always accompanied by a beaten drum(Powers, 1986, p. (Eastman, 1849, p. Singing was not only the province of men nor of rituals, lovemakingand war. The Sun Dance and the music and dance that compose ithave especially important implications for Sioux culture, which arediscussed in the final section of this paper. (1987). This is probably mostclearly seen in Sioux music in the use of flutes and whistles in the SunDance and in the utilization of the same instruments during battle(Messrick, 1964, pp. The singing at powwows is in a tense, pulsating, forceful style andwhile men's voices are preferred, a high range and falsetto are valued. 142). 115). 133). The massacre by U.S.troops of about 15 to 37 Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Kneein December 189 marked the end of Sioux resistance until modern times(Hyde, 1956, pp. The Sun Dance Dancing, including the music as well as other elements of a dance,have been essential in establishing and re-establishing a sense of identityfor the Sioux, and this is especially true of the Sun Dance (Johnson, 1891,p. (1891). 14 -1), but it should be noted that any music -whether instrumental or vocal - that is an element of a sacred ritual wasconnected to religious ideas and beliefs. To those unfamiliar with the American Indian music, the singing maysound very much the same from region to region, but in fact there aresubstantial regional differences. 64). This melding of movement and music is, ofcourse, not unique to American Indian music but is a defining aspect ofcertain other kinds of music such as tap dancing and clogging. The Lakota Sun Dance: Historical and contemporary perspectives. The Sun Dance was in fact held as a celebration in veneration of thesun. All this aural complexity was laid over a visual complexity thatincluded elaborate costumes as well as the background of the village, whichwould have been decorated for any major ceremony, in addition to thedancing and the everyday movement of people preparing food, childrenplaying, and such essential activities as tending fires that could not beignored even during a ceremony. Sioux women also had a wide selection of lullabies that theysang (Grant, 199 , p. Thesemusicians played a water drum made of white oak covered with skin andfilled with enough water to give it a liquid, ringing tone along with ahorn rattle that contained pebbles (these would be replaced after contactwith Europeans by buckshot). The Grass Dance Drum was about the size of a bassdrum and was adorned with musical rasps of bone and tinplate resonators(which most likely replaced aboriginal ones of gourd). The seven allied tribes of the confederacy areclassified into major divisions: the sedentary and agricultural Santee; theNakota; and the warrior and buffalo-hunter Teton. One cannot help but wonderif such a name did not imply a certain amount of disdain for theseinstruments that might well have seemed overly elaborate to those raised onthe music of drums and rattles and the simple clarity of the human voice(Powers, 1984, p. Although the useof a stick was widespread even at the time of contact (and remainswidespread today), the fact that etymologically the word used to meanstriking a drum means "to strike with the hand" (apa) suggests that theearliest practice in playing the drum was simply the hand (Powers, 1984, p.65). It was supposed to enable the NativeAmericans to recover their original land, to reunite them with theirancestors, and to make it possible for them to live in eternal peace andprosperity. Traditional dances of theSioux include men's solos, as well as ritual dances and social round dancesand may reflect the polyphonal and responsorial nature of the music(Hassrick, 1964, pp. 64). Washington DC: Government Printing Office.Eastman, C. The modern Sioux: Social systems and reservation culture. (Violations for therules concerning ownership of songs could also be severe, since songs wereheld in high esteem as sacred or as gifts from the gods.) Such extremeemotional responses were also prevalent in other situations: Mournersinflicted slashes on themselves during burial ceremonies. 4 ) oftraditional Sioux music and some even give some details about the structureand overall effects of such music. 55). New York: HarperCollins.Levine, V.L. Certainly, it is reasonable to expect that it is atleast in some ways different, since it must have changed at least in someways as the rest of the cultures in which the music was integrated changed.However, if instrumental music had been much more important than it is now,one would expect the archaeological record to show a greater density andvariety of the remains of musical instruments than it does. Dahcotah or, Life and legends of the Sioux. Wigwam evenings: Sioux folk tales retold. Dance andmusic and life are in many ways the same thing, looked at from differentangles, a point noted at the beginning of this paper. Mistakes made by an authorized singer often hadto be paid for with a fine and a mistake in a song could cause a dance orceremony to be started again (one can imagine the dancers being especiallydispleased with having to begin hours of exhausting work all over again).While these fines were relatively light, sanctions for the singing of asong to which one did not have the right could be substantial, which is inkeeping with the fact that Sioux punishments were in general quite severeby modern standards and were especially severe in the area of possession ofvarious sorts, whether one committed adultery, hunted on another person'sland, or sang another's song (Grant, 199 , p. 215). Conclusion It is a long way from the drumming of the Bean Dance and thewhistles of young men in love to the wild emotions of the Ghost Dance andthen to the pan-Indian powwows of the 199 s. Yatun - to sing out 2. Pantaleoni argues that listeners (including scholars) make fiveassumptions in hearing Western music that (while fully appropriate to thetraditions of European-based music) listeners should not make when hearingnon-Western music. (eds). One can imagine thegods speaking through the voice of a drum, for example, but not through anotched stick. Once a song was set with vocalizations (even if these vocalizationswere meaningless rather than words), the song had an integrity that wassupposed to be respected, and rather than change the song a new one couldbe made up. ReferencesAmiotte, A. 64). Thissame level of cultural adaptability no doubt helped them survive theterrible dislocations that they would face during the 18th and 19thcenturies and continues to help the Sioux maintain their sense of self in aworld in which indigenous peoples have very little foothold. Theseflutes are more animated than are those of the West and when the Siouxlisten to them they hear the lilting speech of an animated creature ratherthan an inanimate vibration (Hessrick, 1964, pp. Indigenous Distinctions Among Song Types Songs were both passed intergenerationally and created by each newgeneration, often appearing to a singer during a dream. Because the musicaltraditions of the Sioux, like those of other Native Americans, are sodramatically and significantly different from the musical traditions of theWest, it has been all too easy for Western observers to slight the artistryof American Indian musicians even when they have honestly sought toappreciate the complexity and artistry of native music. 3). 29 -295). Exceptions do occur, notably the North Americanlove songs played by men on flutes. (1849, rep. (1891). Rattles wereconsidered to be sacred, unlike other musical instruments, which could beused within a sacred context but were not themselves sacred (Grant, 199 ,p. 12). Sioux music and dance are complex, and the more scholars come to knowabout them the more complexities are revealed. Yahogita - to become hoarse from singing 5. The human voice is now and has been - at least since the Sioux haveentered the written record of the West - the primary element of Siouxmusic, with songs accompanied by drumming forming the basis of Sioux music(Hassrick, 1964, p. Whistles were also used in the rites of self-mutilation that the Siouxoften participated in as a way to make themselves both physically andspiritually stronger. The whistle often takes the place of amelodic line that could have been sung, as in love songs, in which themelody created by the whistle was probably originally spoken but throughtime and the change of convention became one that was playedinstrumentally. It is probably true that nomusical tradition can informatively be discussed in the absence of such acontext, but this seems especially true for Native American music, whichwas learned and performed and understood within a context that includeddance and ritual and religious meaning - which in turn included politicalimplications for the colonized people. However, while this was no doubt true in theory, it is hard toimagine that in an oral culture that things were not changed at leastslightly, for even well-trained memories can fail, and when the person whoknows a song best dies changes may be expected to occur inevitably. Etymologically, the word for rattle comes from the words for gourd andskin (wagmuha), but the word for "rattling" can be either yucancan (whichis a combination of words meaning "to shake with the hand" and simply "toshake") or yuhlahla, which means a sound produced by a movement of the handbut being related to the sound of elements reverberating inside acontainer, such as the sound of a rattlesnake's tail (Powers, 1984, p. 16 ).) Another way in which Sioux songs are generally quite different fromsongs composed within Western musical traditions is the fact t
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