Keywords Ethnic Groups

An isolatable concept analogous to 'music' does not exist in Native languages. Music is one means of expressing 'relatedness' to other human and non-human beings and to the natural world. The frequently heard expression 'all my relations' embodies all living entities in the universe. Virtually all Nations renew these connections through ceremonies which offer thanksgiving and respect, and ritualize the most important bases of the culture. Native 'spirituality,' however, is not a 'sacred' domain separable from the 'secular,' but rather a continuous part of every day experience. Within this conceptual framework, music can function in a wide variety of ways. Drumming and singing might be regarded as a hunting 'tool,' an affirmation of one's clan identity, a means of lulling a child, or a 'medicine' within a ceremony to heal both body and spirit.

Relationship is also affirmed through the manner in which songs enter the repertoire. In some Nations, an individual may receive a song in a dream or during a vision quest (a solitary fast which enables intense personal introspection and heightens sensitivity to the messages around one). In other contexts, songs may be given into the custody of an individual along with medicine objects. In still other cases, songs may be consciously made in a way more analogous to 'composition' (Iroquois eskanye or Bella Coola ceremonial songs).

A discussion of Native 'music' independent of other aspects of life, therefore, is shaped by a Euro-Canadian rather than a Native perspective. Furthermore, the separation of different modes of discourse (eg, calling, speaking, singing etc) may, in some cases, also be ethnocentric. Scholars working in widely separated areas have learned that these modes may sometimes be more like a continuum rather than a series of isolatable and discrete categories.

A non-Native perspective places emphasis on aspects or categories which may be different from those spoken about within the Native community. An Anishnabe, for example, might speak of a 'dream drum' or a 'peace drum' while a non-Native might rather refer to physical characteristics as in 'frame' drum or 'barrel' drum. Many non-Native sources state that most Native instruments are in the categories of 'drums' and 'rattles,' for instance, without noting that there are dozens of different types within each of those categories. Occasional uses of string instruments (the Apache or Inuit fiddle, for example) or flutes may be stressed, on the other hand. A non-Native perspective (especially one shaped by a knowledge of European classical musics) might place emphasis on scale structures or musical form whereas a Native scholar might pay closer attention to the subtle changes in timbre and their relationship to sonic phenomena in the natural world. Similarly, because polyphony is highly regarded within European music history, an emphasis on the fact that much Amerindian music is monophonic (although a rhythmic second part is the norm in many genres), could be interpreted as 'simplicity' whereas a different emphasis - on subtle changes in timbre, or on the complexity of phrase lengths in many genres, for example - might more accurately represent expressive sophistication.

Regardless of the perspective, generalizations about Native musics are difficult to make with any accuracy because of the wide range of genres and styles among each of the many Nations. With regard to singing style, for example, the intense, high tessitura male vocal quality of Plains drummers is perhaps the best known. Contrasting styles, however, are numerous, ranging from the rhythmicized breath sounds of an Inuit katajjaq, to the less clear vocal quality of certain ceremonial song types of the Kwakiutal, or of Dene gambling songs, to the thinner nasal quality of a Naskapi lullaby.

Generalizations are perhaps more valid with regard to song texts. One can say, for example, that 'vocables' (syllables without specific lexical connotation) are prevalent in many repertoires where they serve a variety of purposes as formal markers, onomatopoeic references, cueing devices etc. Some song genres, however, contain extensive narrative texts (eg, the Inuit pisiit), while others (eg, a Montagnais nikamun,) have a series of single words/phrases which may trigger a whole field of associations for the singer/listener. Still others, may use vocables in some stanzas and replace these with text in others (eg, Cree honour songs or 'round' dance songs.) While texts are traditionally in Native languages, English may also be incorporated especially in repertoires such as the Plains war dances.

Many, though certainly not all, song types are integrally related to dance traditions. Hence, rhythmic differences (sometimes metre, tempo, or pattern) are often important in the differentiation of different genres or functions. Dance floor patterns are often symbolic: the circle is the most prevalent of these with the direction of 'life' varying from one area to another (eg, clockwise for the Algonquians, counter-clockwise for Iroquoians).

Native cultures have often borrowed from the musical traditions of other people with whom they have come in contact. Tunes from popular music repertoires are incorporated into Iroquoian eskanye. European instruments, such as the fiddle or guitar, may be used to create unique styles modelled, in part, on Native musical principles (eg, Lederman, 1987; see Bibliography, section 5). Christian hymns or cantiques with texts in Indian languages may be regarded as an important repertoire of 'Native' music (eg, Preston, 1985, Whidden, 1985, Keillor, 1987 and Cavanagh, 1987; all in Bibliography, section 5). European band instruments may function within unique community contexts (eg, see Lutz, 1978, on the brass bands of the Inuit of Nain, Labrador, or McIntosh History of Music in British Columbia, 1990, on the bands of British Columbia in the late 19th and early 20th century; both Bibliography, section 5). Contemporary popular songs in English, French, or various Native languages also constitute an important repertoire for young composers and singer/guitarists (see Innu Nikamu).

Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists have often attempted to understand the enormous variety and richness of First Nations cultures by identifying 'culture areas'. In music, organizations of this type have been made by Helen Roberts (1936; see Bibliography, section 2) and Bruno Nettl (North American Indian Musical Styles, Philadelphia1954). These schemes reflect the perceptions of outsiders and they continue to influence the organization of articles such as this one. Native music cultures in four broad geographic areas are discussed below.

Northwest Coast
As understood within its Canadian boundaries, the Northwest coast as a musical area is most effectively described in terms of the various members of the following four language families: Haida (Northern: Massett; Southern: Skidegate), Tsimshian (Interior: Nisga'a, Gitksan; Coast: Tsimshian), Wakashan (Northern: Haisla (Kitimaat), Haihais (Klemtu), Heiltsuk (Bella Bella, Waglisla), Oowekyala (Rivers Inlet), and Kwakwala (Northern Vancouver Island and adjacent mainland); Southern: Nootka and Dididat (Nuuchahnulth)), and Salishan (Nuxalk (Bella Coola) and Coast Salish (Comaox, Sechelt, Squamish, Halkomelem, and Straits)).

During the past two decades, Native people have begun removing names imposed upon them and are replacing these with indigenous terms. Thus names such as Bella Coola now should read Nuxalk, those at Rivers Inlet are the Oowekyala-speaking Oowekeeno, the Nootka are the Nuuchahnulth, and so on. Even the term Indian itself, at least at the highest level of political generalization, is being replaced by the phrase First Nations in British Columbia.

Insensitivity to indigenous terms has in the past tended to obscure the variety of Northwest Coast (hereafter termed NWC) Indian musical styles. A good example is the case of the term Kwakiutl. Studied extensively by Franz Boas, the Kwagulh (who live at Fort Rupert) erroneously came to represent all of northern Wakashan culture in much of post-Boasian anthropology. In fact they are but one of twelve Kwakwala-speaking groups who are today collectively known as the Kwakwaka'wakw ('those who speak Kwakwaka').

It is not only terms that need to be changed in order for non-Native Canadians to come to understand and appreciate NWC Indian music. What is required is an understanding of how music is systematically related to the totality of NWC lifeways, some knowledge of the history of musical traditions in the 19th century, and a discarding of the aural prejudice that prohibits non-Native musical academics from admitting this musical tradition into the lofty art music realm. Before presenting a model of the NWC from the standpoint of music, the tradition of musical research in the area will first be briefly described.

History of research
The first European sources relating to music on the NWC stem from the writings of explorers, travellers, and traders. The earliest records are those associated with the Perez expedition of 1774-5, which seems to have made the first contact with the Haida nation. While these early sources tell us as much about the writers and their European worldview as they do about indigenous peoples, they nevertheless shed light on areas such as performance practice, singing styles, and instrumentation. Valuable information pertaining to the ethnohistory of NWC music may be found in the writings of Gunther (1972), Mozino (1970), Brown (1896), Lamb (1970), and Vancouver (1967).

It is perhaps ironic but the beginning of formal anthropological and musicological interest on the NWC occurred at the same time that potlatching and winter ceremonies were declared illegal by the Indian Act of 1884. This interest may be traced to a tour of Germany made by nine Nuxalk singers in 1885. During this tour, the Nuxalk performed songs and dances in a number of cities, and were heard by the musicologist Carl Stumpf and the anthropologist Franz Boas. These men arranged to consult with the Nuxalk and their meetings resulted in Stumpf's Lieder der Bellakula Indianer' (1886), to which both men contributed musical transcriptions.

Boas' fascination with the NWC was to lead him to begin fieldwork among the Kwakwaka'wakw in 1886; one of the first publications issuing from this fieldwork appeared two years later (Boas, 1888).

Most of Boas' many subsequent publications treating the NWC include some data relevant to music. By the 1920s Boas was even providing overviews of the state of research into North American Indian music as a whole. 'The present state of our knowledge of primitive music does not permit us to establish definite musical areas, but... we may recognize a series of musical areas, each characterized by common fundamental traits' (1955, p 343).

It was largely due to Boas that researchers such as Fillmore (1893) and Curtis (1907) came to have access to NWC Indian music. Boas brought both wax cylinder recordings and performers to the eastern USA. Unfortunately many of these recordings are of insufficient quality to assist present day research.

Edward Curtis, who also worked with Boas' able consultant, George Hunt, made important contributions to the better understanding of the history of NWC music (Curtis, 1970). Through his observations about song composition and song diffusion, and through his having had Henry Gilbert transcribe many of his recordings for inclusion in publications, Curtis provides a valuable complement to Boas; a similar role was played by the Canadian anthropologist, Thomas McIlwraith, among the Nuxalk (1948).

Extensive musical analysis of NWC music, after Stumpf, begins primarily with the work of Helen Roberts (1955). Roberts must be credited for having stressed the importance of thematic variation in NWC music, and for having been the first to attempt a systematic description of music areas in North America (1936).

Subsequent work in the area features a great deal of recording and transcribing. Noteworthy are the contributions of Frances Densmore to Muuchahnulth music (1939; 1943), Marius Barbeau's recordings of almost 300 Gitksan and Nishga'a songs (1933, 1962), and Ida Halpern's collection of approximately 350 songs from the Kwakwaka'wakw, the Nuuchahnulth, and the Haida (1967, 1974, 1986). Ernest MacMillan travelled with Barbeau to the Nass River in 1927 and transcribed some 70 songs. There are also many recordings made by other collectors housed in the British Columbia Provincial Museum, the National Museum of Canada (Canadian Museum of Civilization), and in US and European institutions; many of these have yet to be documented and made available for study.

More recent research includes Moses' study of Gitksan song types (1980), and Kolstee's studies of Nuxalk/Bella Coola Indian music (1982) and Heiltsuk/Bella Bella Indian musics (1988).

Despite the tradition of research surveyed above, there are still many gaps in the documentation of the musics of the NWC. Also missing is the presence of Native musical scholars. Because they are effectively denied access to musical education at secondary and post-secondary levels, Native students have not yet pursued ethnomusicological studies in British Columbia. Tlingit students in Alaska are faring better in this regard, as some have begun studying ethnomusicology in US universities.

Reconstructing Archteypal NWC Musical Style
Before describing some differences between NWC musical styles, and presenting one interpretation of the history of relationships between styles in the nineteenth century, the ways all groups shared certain stylistic and contextual characteristics will be examined.

The most all-encompassing characteristic of this area is the dual nature of the yearly cycle of NWC lifeways. During the spring and summer, groups were dispersed in order to gather, hunt, and fish most efficiently. This tended to be a more secular time of year than winter, and it featured the singing of songs used while hunting and fishing, love songs, gambling songs, and so on.

From the fall to the spring equinox, NWC peoples assembled in permanent winter village sites to celebrate their winter ceremonials. During this time people were considered food for the supernatural, thus reversing the roles of hunter-hunted associated with the spring-summer time.

In order to differentiate them from shaman's songs, which were sung year-round, ceremonial songs are here defined as those associated exclusively with the fall-winter ceremonial season. Whereas non-ceremonial songs were for the most part in the public domain, most ceremonial songs were considered to be private property.

Contexts for Song
The primary context for the ceremonial song repertoire was the 'big house'. Known as longhouses among the Coast Salish, big houses had names and were considered models of the universe within which the world was annually renewed. Because big houses were often struck with long poles on their ceilings, or on their walls, and since sound effects were created from their roofs and other locales, they may be considered musical instruments.

On their way to winter ceremonials, which were not always tantamount to potlatches, invited guests sang paddle songs in their canoes. Upon arrival at the host village, guests would be welcomed by the singing of the host groups. Welcome songs, farewell songs, entrance songs, and paddle songs were used during these liminal stages of ceremonies.

Song Specialists
Because winter ceremonies were long and complex, song specialists were in great demand and rehearsals frequent. Meetings were first held to determine what songs would be required, what new songs would be needed, what song texts to utilize, and so on. Nothing was left to chance, as mistakes in performance were costly in both spiritual and economic terms.

Singing groups were led by a song leader who used various signals to communicate his intentions to the choir, and, at times, to all those in attendance. Possibly directing by means of an eagle feather fan, a song leader could initiate antiphonal and responsorial singing, handclapping, and a host of special effects. These leaders were usually assisted by an announcer, who shouted out the words of upcoming textual subdivisions for all to hear.

Instrumentation
Musical instruments in the big house were primarily percussive, with whistles employed to imitate the sounds of supernatural beings. The largest instruments were the carved log drum (struck by batons), planks used as drums, and rectangular-shaped box drums that were suspended from big house ceilings and struck with the fist. Frame drums, split-stick clappers, rattles, bull roarers, and other sounds created by special effects helped to create the unique and very impressive supernatural sonic environment required by the shamanistic nature of the ceremonials.

Song Texts
Song texts feature either vocables only, meaningful text only, or both vocables and meaningful text in association. In the latter case, strophes may alternate between vocables and text, or they may have both within the confines of a single strophe. Strophes often are made up of a verse and a chorus, with choruses tending to be found in association with vocables.

There are two predominant vocable groups in NWC music. Most vocables are characterized by the interplay between the following 'ha' and 'ya' families of syllables: ha (hai)/ya (yai); he/ye; hi/yi; ho/yo; hu/yu. Of secondary importance to the 'ha' and 'ya' groups are the na, wa, and la families of syllables.

Although vocables are found in all parts of the repertoire, they occur less often in information-filled songs such as cry/mourning songs and headdress songs. Hámáca songs alone have distinctive vocables that are not found elsewhere in the repertoire (see Kolstee 1988b).

Perhaps owing to the linguistic complexity of the coast, vocables are frequently found in songs used at liminal stages of ceremonies such as entrance, welcome, paddle, and farewell songs. Often borrowed songs, these song types thus symbolize travel and distant alliances.

Vocables and lexical text are generally set syllabically, that is, in one-to-one association with pitches. Neumatic settings, when two or more pitches are associated with a syllable, are used to highlight significant words in the text.

Textual content varies according to the type of song being sung, the mask being portrayed, the legend associated with the dance, the family crests being shown, and so on. Cry/mourning songs discuss the chief's position in the universe before and after death, headdress songs will mention crest animals or the power of the chief's name and position in the community, and many song texts refer to incidents in myths. A common characteristic is the presence of words describing the supernatural power of a chief or supernatural being.

Song Structure
Songs are strophic in overall form, with length being in many cases determined by the nature of the dance. Four-part organization is ubiquitous at both the interstrophic and intrastrophic level of organization. Within strophes, verses and choruses tend to feature a two-part theme, phrases (a) and (b), a thematic extension (b)1, and a closing pattern (d). The latter tend to be stereotyped and often associated with vocables.

Pitch structure, range, and melodic contour are parameters that vary with song type. On the whole, nonceremonial songs tend to utilize anhemitonic pentatonic scales, wide ranges, and descending melodic contours. Ceremonial song types, more heterogeneous stylistically than nonceremonial song types, are associated with tetratonic scales, a narrower range, and undulating melodic contour. On the central coast, among the northern Wakashan and the Nuxalk, Cry songs feature parlando-rubato, Hámáca songs have a distinctive ostinato accompaniment pattern, and headdress songs are characterized by their use of a continuous rhythmic accompaniment of evenly spaced beats. In short, song types are given unique sonic identities through special combinations of characteristics. At the highest level of organization within the contemporary central coastal potlatch, songs are one of the most powerful manifestations of the four-fold structure found underlying this essentially shamanistic ritual to renew life (see Kolstee 1988a).

While vocal quality also varies with the song type being sung, NWC Indian music favors the lower vocal registers. For the most part, the use of higher registers is reserved for the nonceremonial song repertoire. Ceremonial songs are sung with a mask-like countenance, with lips virtually frozen, as if the song was being sung through the singer by a supernatural helper.

Northwest Coast Musical History
When the accompanying map of the NWC is examined, it becomes immediately apparent that the Wakashan speakers are predominant. In many respects their position is similar to that of the Latin peoples in Western Europe (especially in Italy, France, and Spain). For heuristic purposes only, it is useful to continue this analogy and compare the Tsimshian with the Germans (the Tlingit with the Scandinavians) and the Haida with the English. From this point of view the Haida and the Nuuchahnulth (who may be compared with the Spanish in Europe), are, in relative terms, isolated from the central coastal groups. So, too, are the Interior Tsimshian and the Coast Salish. It is this model, with the northern Wakashan considered the cultural climax of the area, that best accounts for the history of NWC music after contact with Europeans.

With the exception of the Nuxalk, who are Salishan-speaking people that adapted to Wakashan lifeways, the Salishan speakers on the coast do not strongly participate in the archetypal musical style described above. Because Salishan social structures and belief systems were essentially non-hierarchical, their musical traditions served a separate winter dancing context (see Jilek, 1982). Just as their art work differed from classic NWC art, the Coast Salish have a unique musical tradition that may eventually best be understood as a coastal extension of an Interior Salish or Plateau musical area.

The core of the NWC musical area, then, is the area occupied by the north Wakashan speakers. It is from this area, specially from the upper north Wakashan area (excluding the Kwakwaka'wakw), that the so-called secret society songs and dances were diffused throughout the coast during the 19th century. The centre of this area, occupied by the Heiltsuk-Oowekyala speakers, stands midway between the matrilineal societies of the north coast and the patrilineally-biased southern groups. With trade extensions into the interior through the Nuxalk, and extensive alliances with northern and southern groups, the Heiltsuk-Oowekyala were ideally placed to act as cultural brokers on the NWC. It is most likely that Heiltsuk chiefs, who were renowned for their shamanistic abilities, fashioned the secret society songs and dances that were so highly valued and thus diffused as far north as southeastern Alaska and as far south as northwestern Washington.

Beginning in the early 19th century, at the same time that epidemics and the intrusion of foreign lifeways were beginning to have a dramatic impact on coastal peoples, the Tsimshian began borrowing secret society songs and dances (such as the Dog-Eater dance complex) from the Heiltsuk. Through borrowing from the Coast Tsimshian, and from the Heiltsuk directly, the Haisla and the Haida also came to borrow various of these ranked dance series. The Nuxalk as well took over selected portions of these rituals. By the time Boas worked among the Kwakwala, the process of borrowing was already well under way, with Kwakwala chiefs deriving the right to dance hámáca from both the Heiltsuk and the Oowekeeno (see Kolstee thesis 1988 p 123-140).

We may understand this process of song borrowing as a kind of shamanistic response to foreign instrusion. Groups were clearly beginning to share a common musical and ritual framework that existed over and above the potlatch tradition that was already in place. Because of missionary activity and legal intervention this cultural response was to be short-lived as a pan-coastal phenomenon.

It was not until the latter half of the 20th century that the NWC witnessed another cultural renaissance. Beginning with the carving of new totem poles and a strong interest in NWC art generally, a new cultural climate emerged. Singing and dancing groups have been revived, and there is a renewal of Native language studies. In brief, the future prospects of NWC Indian musical traditions appear to be bright.

Reading
Stumpf, Carl. 'Lieder der Bellakula-Indianer,' Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft, 2, 1886

Boas, Franz. 'On certain songs and dances of the Kwakiutl of British Columbia,' JAF, vol 1, Apr-Jun 1888

Fillmore, John. 'A woman's song of the Kwakiutl Indians,' JAF, vol 6, no. 20, 1893

Brown, Robert. The Adventures of John Jewitt (London 1896)

Curtis, Natalie. The Indians' Book (New York 1907)

Curtis, Edward. The North American Indian, vol 10: The Kwakiutl (1915); vol 11: The Nootka and Haida (1916); (both repr New York 1970)

Boas, Franz. Primitive Art. (New York 1927, repr 1955)

Roberts, Helen. Musical Areas in Aboriginal North America, Yale U Publications in Anthropology, no. 12 (New Haven 1936)

Densmore, Frances. 'Nootka and Quileute Music,' Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, 134, 1939

- 'Music of the Indians of British Columbia,' Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, 136, 1943

McIlwraith, Thomas F. The Bella Coola Indians, 2 vols (Toronto 1948)

Roberts, Helen and Swadesh, Morris. 'Songs of the Nootka Indians of western Vancouver Island,' Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol 45, part 3, 1955

Barbeau, Marius. 'Buddhist dirges on the North Pacific Coast,' International Folk Music Council J, vol 14, Jan 1962

Vancouver, George. Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, vol 2 (New York 1967)

Lamb, W. Kaye, ed. The Journals and Letters of Sir Alexander Mackenzie (Cambridge 1970)

Mozino, Juan M. Noticias de Nutka. Seattle: (Washington 1970)

Guédon, Marie-Françoise. 'Canadian Indian ethnomusicology: selected bibliography and discography,' Ethnomusicology, vol 16, Sep 1972

Gunther, Erna. Indian Life on the Northwest Coast of America (Chicago 1972)

Moses, Ellen. 'A developmental analysis of Tsimshian song types,' MA thesis, York University 1980

Jilek, Wolfgang. Indian Healing (Vancouver 1982)

Kolstee, Anton. Bella Coola Indian Music, National Museum of Man Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 83 (Ottawa 1982)

- 'To impersonate the supernatural: music and ceremony of the Bella Bella/Heiltsuk Indians of British Columbia,' PH D thesis, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1988

- 'The historical and musical significance of Northwest Coast Indian Hámáca Songs,' Canadian J of Native Studies, vol 8, no. 2, 1988

Discography
Songs of the Nootka and Quileute. Recorded by Frances Densmore. 1953. Library of Congress AAFSL-32

Indian Music of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Recorded by Ida Halpern. 1967. 2-Folk FE-4523

Nootka: Indian Music of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Recorded by Ida Halpern. 1974. 2-Folk FE-4524

World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, vol. 8. Bella Bella and Kwakiutl songs. Recorded by Ida Halpern. 1954. Col SL-211

Haida: Indian Music of the Pacific Northwest. Recorded by Ida Halpern. 1986. Folkways Records FE-4119

Athapaskan
Geographical and cultural distribution: The word 'Athapaskan' designates a large and widely distributed linguistic family which comprises many tribes. There exists a southern Athapaskan branch located in the south of the USA; the northern Athapaskan branch which concerns us here is located in subarctic Canada and Alaska with certain tribes, such as the Gwich'in, the Han, and the Tanana, straddling the border. Much confusion prevails within the numerous tribal designations according to authors and time periods they were writing about. The system used here has been adopted from the Handbook of North American Indians, vol 6, Subarctic (Washington, DC,1981) which discusses and unifies variant identifications and affiliations of groups and subgroups.

In Canada the principal tribal groups in and west of the Rockies are the Chilcotin, Carrier, Sekani, Tsetsaut, and Tahltan of British Columbia. The Tagish, Inland Tlingit and Kaska Indians cross the British Columbia-Yukon border, while in the Yukon we find the Tutchone, Han, and Gwich'in people. Beaver Indians reside mainly in northern Alberta but also in British Columbia. In the lands bordering the MacKenzie River (North West Territories) are the Chipewyan, whose territory also stretches across the northern Prairies up to Hudson's Bay, the Dogrib, the Slavey, and the Hare people. A group designated as Mountain Indians formerly from the eastern slopes of the MacKenzie Mountains now also resides in a MacKenzie River community.

The Indians from the Northwest Territories designate themselves as Dene Indians, a word which means 'man' or 'human being' and their territory is Denendeh, 'the land of the people'.

Writings about the music of Athapaskan Indians: Only a few writings about the music of the Canadian Athapaskans exist, and most of them are cursory descriptions contained in broad ethnographies. Nevertheless, the works of Petitot (late-19th century), Mason and Osgood (1920s to 1940s), Honigmann (1940s and 1950s), and others, shed light on the meanings of the singing and dancing traditions still in use today. Fortunately though, some authors focus in detail on the music. In 1966 the anthropologists June Helm and Nancy O'Lurie wrote The Dogrib Hand Game, in which a whole chapter is devoted to the singing and drumming characteristic of that event. In 1972 Michael Asch's dissertation discussed the Slavey drum dance, later published (1988) and revised to include a discussion of its relationship with the kinship system. In 1974 Marie-Françoise Guédon described a Tanana ceremonial event in which singing and dancing plays an important role. R. Ridington's writings encompass musical components within his discussion of Beaver Indians' spiritual life. C. Mishler's dissertation (1981) is about Gwich'in music and dance. As of 1991, two scholars were concentrating on Dene music: Elaine Keillor on Dogrib music, and Nicole Beaudry on Canadian Athapaskan traditional music and games and more specifically on the north Slavey traditions.

The paucity of research into the music of these areas is all the more surprising given that singing, dancing, and drumming are essential to many social and ceremonial events and are intimately linked with Amerindian spiritual ideology. Many of these traditions, though modified or transformed, have remained alive and important until today.

Sound Instruments
Both eastern and western Athapaskans make use of a single-membrane frame drum, the frequently mentioned 'tambourine drum'. The skin of a young moose or caribou is stretched over and around the frame and attached to it by a variety of means, either by stitching it through holes in the wood, or by attaching the edges of the skin to each other underneath the drum, or again by pinning the skin to the frame with tacks. Sizes vary but on the average an Athapaskan drum measures about 46 cm in diameter. Sometimes a design is painted on the top side or on the underside of the drum.

Snare strings (from one to four) are strung across the top side of the membrane. When the skin is struck by the drummer's stick, the snare strings provide additional vibrations, thus creating a typical buzzing sound. The stick is usually a thin and slightly curved wooden wand about a foot long. On the underside of the drum, 2 or 3 strands of sinew are stretched across the frame's diameter and their crossing point is sometimes enlarged by a piece of wood or extra sinew lashing thus allowing the drummer a better hold on the instrument.

When used during drum dancing events, drum heads are periodically heated over the wood stove in order to tighten the skin until its resonance is considered satisfactory.

In the western Athapaskan areas, plank drums were also used to accompany some ceremonial occasions. These simply consisted of a board, painted red, which was hit with a stick. Wooden clappers are also sometimes referred to.

Other sound instruments are consistently described as children's toys, such as rattles, whistles, buzzes and bull-roarers, although rattles and bull-roarers are infrequently linked with magical and shamanistic activities (Mason 1946; Honigmann 1949). The rattle, though much smaller than the drum, is based on the same principle, but with two skins stretched over the circular frame between which pebbles or pellets are inserted. In addition, the strip of wood used for the frame is long enough to go beyond the frame and thus form a handle. Whistles often simply consist of a complete outer section (the bark) of a green willow branch in which a few note-holes are cut out. Some authors mention plugs stuck in the end of the tube. As for buzzes and bull-roarers, only a few texts mention the presence of a piece of wood, tapered at both ends, which has a string tied to one end with which to whirl the piece of wood round and round, thus creating a buzzing noise.

Musical Characteristics of the Athapaskans
An important distinction must be made between songs that were 'made up' or 'composed' and passed on through oral tradition, and those that were received in visions or dreams. The first kind refers to songs used in narratives and in the gambling game, to lullabies and love-songs. The other kind relates to the Native belief in the existence of powerful supernatural beings who conveyed songs and power to individuals to whom they appeared during dreams or visions.

Many stories are told in which the speech of certain characters (human, animal or spirit) is expressed through song. Some allude to the role of sound and singing in magically involved situations, thus contributing to the enculturative value of such narratives.

Singing and drumming is also an essential component of the Athapaskans' favorite gambling game, variously called 'idzi'or 'udzi'. At the beginning of hand games, each team manifests its spirit and energy through vigorous team songs. Later on, the intensity of the game is enhanced by the loud unison beating of the drums by members of the team which is being guessed at. The drummers also loudly vocalize sounds using vocal pulsations on indefinite syllables. The voice pulsations are syncopated against the drum beats and a continuous and loud sound is maintained for the duration of the guessing period.

Although the existence of lullabies is attested in several early writings, no texts or melodies have been recovered. Today, people say that there are no specific songs for infants except for soft humming and cooing sounds that each mother invents for her child. Love songs, sung by men as well as by women, were said to be used in nostalgic remembrance of a loved one or in an attempt to coerce a desired person's attention. Some love songs are even endowed with magical powers.

Each person enjoyed the protection of his own guardian-spirit, most often (but not always) an animal spirit. It was this spirit that gave an individual his songs, often referred to as animal songs, to be used when luck (in hunting for instance) or power (in traumatic situations) was required. Some people received more power than others, and consequently more songs. These people became shamans and were called upon to accomplish cures, predict future events or influence weather and travelling conditions. White people called them 'medecine men' but their functions ranged well beyond curing activities.

Shamans used songs, and more rarely drums or rattles, and a variety of incantations, yells and breathing sounds as magical paraphernalia with which to perform what was required of them.

In the last 100 years, and perhaps due to the advent of Christian missionaries in the subarctic regions, another kind of person 'with power' has emerged, 'prophets' who receive heavenly messages and songs in dreams or visions of angels. Apparently prophets weave together christian and Native ideologies. But where guardian-animal-spirit songs were kept private, the prophets' songs were made public and some spread extensively. Prophets' songs are then used for praying (today's prayer songs) and for drum dancing (drum dance songs).

Typical of northern Athapaskan songs are short melodies with a rather simple formal organization (such as AAB or ABB or ABCC, etc). These melodies however are endlessly repeated until the effect wanted is achieved. Most of the melodies feature a small ambitus and a small number of pitches but some melodies move beyond the octave. The typical Amerindian descending pattern is present, though not so obvious as in some of the Plains or the Southwest Indian styles. Melodies tend to move gradually from the top of their range to the lowest tone, a long sustained tone which plays a role akin to the role of the 'tonic' of European music. Melodic movements show a marked preference for movements by thirds (major or minor), seconds and fourths but other types are also found. Song texts are brief in that they are most often constituted by one or two meaningful words to which are added vocables (the most usual are 'he, he'; 'hiya..'.; 'heya..'. etc). The small number of words and the use of apparently meaningless syllables does not however rule out the symbolic importance of the songs. The context contributes to the extension of the meanings of a song.

The Feasting and Dancing Traditions
Different feasting and dancing traditions existed east and west of the Rockies. The more westerly groups, whose societies were organized according to clans and moieties, featured the potlatch tradition. In the tribes east of the Rockies, the so-called tea dance tradition prevailed, without drum, until the drum dance tradition, beginning at the start of the 20th century, gained in popularity. But whatever the period or the region, the same kinds of circumstances led to social reunions for feasting, oratory, praying, and dancing. Certain times in a person's life cycle such as birth, puberty, marriage, or death were celebrated or at least marked by ritual behavior. Other occasions included welcome or farewell feasts for important visitors, springtime reunions of the larger groups after the smaller bands' winter dispersal, etc. Today, Christian feast days such as Christmas and Easter or other Euro-Canadian celebration days such as New Year's, Treaty Day, or inaugurations, add to the traditional occasions for feasting.

In the tribes west of the Rockies the most important musical event was the potlatch feast characterized by ritualized offerings of gifts from the feast-givers to their guests and to the person for whom the feast is given. In addition to the memorial feasts celebrated a number of months after someone's death, potlatches were held in honour of someone who had accomplished an exceptional deed, or in honour of the first killing of each kind of game by a young boy, or to celebrate someone's recovery from illness, or even to compensate for some offense to someone. While gift-giving distinguishes potlatching from other feast occasions, potlatches also necessarily included oratory, eating, singing, drumming and dancing. Some dances were choreographed and the dancers costumed while others used the characteristic circle or line formation. Songs and dances were both part of a set repertoire or composed especially for the occasion.

While potlatching required a two-part social division between the feast-givers and those for whom the feast was given, the tea-dance event typical of the eastern Athapaskan regions required everyone's participation. For this event, no drums were used but everyone dancing would be singing. Facing inwards in a circle, the dancers used a simple side hopping-shuffle, moving very little at a time in a clockwise direction. Rhythm was heavily marked by the feet striking the ground or floor in unison.

In former times a tea-dance event would be mainly constituted of these no-drum dances. By 1990 the important eastern Athapaskan social event was the drum dance, during which only a few tea dances are used. It also requires the whole community's participation. A drum dance usually begins with a feast and many speeches followed by one or several prayer songs that are not danced to. Several drummers (from 2 to 10) sing the drum dance songs and when they begin people freely join in a circle which becomes bigger as it progresses, moving forward in a clockwise direction with small but rhythmically marked 'toe-foot' sequences. Each foot movement matches a beat of the drums but the sequences can be organized in duplet, triplet, or quadruplet figures according to each dancer's taste.

During a drum-dance event, certain dances use the line formation with several women facing several men, their partners. The lines move towards and back from each other. Another formation requires couples to move around the circle rather than single individuals.

The drums, in unison, beat with a steady pulse. The Mountain Indians sometimes also use what they call a 'double beat', that is, a recurrent pattern of short long-accented beats. When this beat is used by other Indians, it accompanies a typical Mountain song which is identified as such. The northern Athapaskan regions also feature a musical tradition that was imported to the area by early white explorers, fur traders, gold rushers, and trappers. Fiddling, square-dancing, and jigging are of Scottish and French-Canadian descent but by 1990 had been used by northern Athapaskan Indians for at least a century and were considered typical of the musical traditions of the area. Youngsters have remained faithful to the traditional drum dancing but have also adopted and adapted many of the country-western and rock styles popular all over North America.

Reading
Petitot, É. Monographie des dènè-dindjié, précédé d'un dictionnaire de la langue dènè-dindjié (Paris 1876)

Osgood, C. 'The ethnography of the Great Bear Lake Indians,' Annual Report for 1931, National Museum of Canada Bulletin No. 70 (Ottawa 1932)

- Contributions to the Ethnography of the Kutchin, Yale U Publications in Anthropology No. 14 (New Haven 1936)

Mason, J.A., Notes on the Indians of the Great Slave Lake Area, Yale U Publications in Anthropology No. 34 (New Haven 1946)

Honigmann, J. Culture and Ethos of Kaska Society, Yale U Publications in Anthropology No. 40 (New Haven 1949)

Helm, J. and O'Lurie, Nancy. The Dogrib Hand Game, National Museum of Canada Bulletin No. 205 (Ottawa 1966)

Ridington, R. 'Beaver dreaming and singing,' Pilot Not Commander: Essays in Memory of Diamond Jenness, eds Pat Lotz and Jim Lotz, Anthropologica, new series 13 (Ottawa 1971)

Guédon, M.-F., People of Tetlin, Why Are You Singing? National Museum of Canada, Paper No. 9 (Ottawa 1974)

Helm, June, ed. Handbook of North American Indians, vol 6: Subarctic (Washington, DC 1981)

Mischler, C. Gwich'in Athapaskan Music and Dance, PH D thesis, U of Texas at Austin 1981

Keillor, E. 'Les tambours des Athapascans du Nord,' Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, vol 15, Dec 1985

Asch, M. Kinship and the Drum Dance in a Northern Dene Community (Edmonton 1988)

Beaudry, N. 'Singing, laughing and playing: three examples from the Inuit, Dene and Yupik traditions,' Canadian J of Native Studies, vol 6, no. 2, 1988

Plains
The ancestral home of the Plains Indians in Canada is the vast area occupied by southern and central Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta (the northern reaches of which are Athapaskan territory). Principal Canadian Plains tribes are Cree, Blackfoot (including Blood and Peigan), Sarsi, Plains Cree, Stony, Assiniboine, and Salteaux (Plains Ojibwa). Whereas these tribes generally speak different and mutually unintelligible languages, their musics are remarkably similar and are also closely related to the musics of the many Plains tribes living in Montana, the Dakotas, and points south.

Traditional musical life (still practised in 1990, but at a somewhat reduced level from in former times) centered around a rich complex of ceremonies and rites associated with religious cults, warfare, healing, purification, death, and age-grade societies, each with various admixtures of religious and secular or social components. Each ceremony or rite had specific songs associated with it, usually numbering several dozen or more. Among the larger categories of songs were songs of the medicine bundle cults, songs of the sun dance or medicine lodge, and songs associated with the war complex. For many ceremonies and rites the performance of songs was the province of musical specialists. Some songs were considered sacred and were not to be sung outside of their specified ritual context. Other activities had other repertories of songs: social dance songs, gambling and other game songs, lullabies,walking songs, riding or night serenade songs, and so on. Also in existence was a host of personal songs received by individuals in dreams or visions, or inherited from ancestors. With the decimation of the buffalo - the ecological nexus of the traditional Plains Indian way of life - in the late-19th century, and the establishment of the reserve system of domicile, many of the traditional ceremonies and rites began to fall into decline and, along with them, the associated musical repertoires. The strongest survivors have been songs of the war complex

Contemporary musical life on Plains reserves is multifaceted. Alongside the remnants (and self-conscious renewal) of traditional ceremonial music and musical life described above there exists what could be termed 'modern-traditional' music and musical life - a continuation and elaboration of the secular social dance stratum of the traditional corpus. There are numerous social dance genres, each with specified choreography (and, in some cases, elaborate costuming). Musically they are distinguished primarily by tempo, time feel (duple or triple), and small details of performance practice (cues to dancers, etc). Duple metre genres include the grass dance, Prairie chicken dance, hoop dance, crazy dog dance, and various types of war dance songs. These are all collective solo dances: dancers do not interract but all perform variants of the same basic moves. The most popular triple-time genre is the owl dance, in which linked couples (mixed or of the same sex) dance a slow shuffling two-step as part of a large slowly revolving circle.

Also much in evidence is the impact of the musical tastes and practices of whites. Through school, church, travel and, of course, via the mass media, most reservation-dwelling Plains Indians are exposed to a wide range of non-Indian music, and may end up preferring 'white music' (as some call it) to Indian music. In recent years a social dance on a Plains reserve may feature rock or country music (often with Native performers) rather than Indian music. Sometimes one finds both at the same event. (See section 6, below)

Like most Native music, Plains Indian music is almost exclusively monophonic vocal music with fairly basic percussion accompaniment, largely in-tempo, usually with an even duple drum beat but sometimes with a triple beat (long-short, long-short, etc).

The vocal quality of Plains Indian singing is characterized by a great deal of tension in the vocal organs and - especially on sustained tones - a warbling sound or pulsations (ie, tremelo, or marked rhythmic fluctuations of amplitude). Tension and pulsations are produced, respectively, by the adduction of the vocal folds and a manipulation of the pharyngeal cavity. The strained quality of the singing is further emphasized by the practice of pitching songs at the extreme upper limits of the vocal range, and by delivering them at full volume.

Another prominent feature of Plains Indian music is the complex rhythmic interrelationship between singing and drumming. On casual listening the two may sound uncoordinated or in a haphazard relationship, but careful study reveals the existence of rhythmically precise offbeat phrasing or backphrasing (singing behind the drum beat): rhythmic unisons between important vocal and percussion articulations are systematically avoided. (This can readily be detected by playing a recording at reduced speed on a variable speed playback device, a procedure which was used in generating the transcription shown below.) It should be noted that singers always drum: there is no differentiation of these two roles in performance, therefore the complex drum-voice rhythmic interrelationship is not the result of loose ensemble cohesion.

On the evidence of recordings made since the late-19th century the above-mentioned stylistic features have become increasingly prominent over the years. This Plains musical style and the associated dances have diffused widely beyond the Plains area and have become the principle styles practiced by powwow singers and dancers throughout Indian North America. Plains music and dance are thus now dominant symbols of pan-Indian identity and inter-tribal solidarity.

Although public singing is primarily a male domain, women certainly sing and seemingly know the overall repertoire as well as men do, as is evidenced by their participation as musical assistants in a number of public performance situations, notably the grass dance. Here, female singers on occasion double the male voices at the octave when the songs descend into a range low enough to permit it, ie, at ends of sections. The complementarity of gender roles in such situations (men initiate, women bring to fruition) is mirrored in numerous other aspects of Native culture. Women's singing does not normally exhibit the extreme tension, volume, pulsating, and backphrasing characteristic of the male singing style, though there has been a move toward the male style since the emergence in the early 1970s of mixed-sex and all-female powwow singing groups (see Hatton 1986).

The music and musical life of the Plains tribes are among the most thoroughly documented of any Native culture area in North America.

The extensive ethnological studies of Plains Indian life sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in the early-20th century included coverage of musical topics (see writings by Goddard, Skinner, Wallis, and Wissler in the Bibliography below), and cylinder recordings of songs were made by a number of the early investigators. Song collecting and ethnological work among Plains tribes has continued to 1990. Thus, for example, for the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy there exist 41 available collections of recordings (field collections plus commercially disseminated collections) spanning the years 1897-1984 and comprising 1,469 songs in all. Examples of many genres can be heard on the recording Indian Music of the Canadian Plains (Folkways FE-4464), selected from Kenneth Peacock's extensive 1953-4 collection at the National Museum (Canadian Museum of Civilization). From the early 1970s on LPs and cassettes - issued by Canadian labels such as Sunshine Records (Winnipeg) and the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre (Saskatoon), and US labels such as Canyon Records and Indian House - have appeared in increasing numbers; by 1990 many of the established Plains singing groups (called drums) could be heard on commercially available recordings (see Discography, below, for a representative sample; see also powwow singers). In terms of published studies specifically about music, the most attention has been paid to the more populous tribes, eg, the Blood of southwestern Alberta and their Blackfoot kin in northern Montana (see items by Nettl and Witmer listed in the Bibliography below).

Reading
Wissler, Clark. Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol 5 (New York 1912)

- Societies and Dance Associations of the Blackfoot Indians, ibid, vol 11, part 4 (New York 1913)

Goddard, Pliny E. Dancing Societies of the Sarsi Indians, ibid, vol 11, part 10 (New York 1914)

Wissler, Clark Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians, ibid, vol 16, part 3 (New York 1918)

Goddard, Pliny E. Notes on the Sun Dance of the Cree of Alberta, ibid, vol 16, part 10 (New York 1919)

-. Notes on the Sun Dance of the Sarsi, ibid, vol 16, part 10 (New York 1919)

Skinner, A. Political Organization, Cults and Ceremonies of the Plains Cree (New York 1914)

Wallis, Wilson D. The Sun Dance of the Canadian Dakota, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol 16 (New York 1921)

Jenness, Diamond. The Sarcee Indians of Alberta (Ottawa 1938)

Wallis, Wilson D'.The Canadian Dakota,' Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol 41, part 1 (New York 1947)

Dempsey, Hugh A'.Social dances of the Blood Indians of Alberta, Canada,' JAF vol 69, 1956

Potvin, Annette'.The sun dance liturgy of the Blackfeet Indians,' MA thesis, University of Ottawa 1966

Nettl, Bruno'.Studies in Blackfoot Indian musical culture,' in 4 parts, Ethnomusicology, vols 11-12, 1967, 1968

Dempsey, Hugh A. The Blackfoot Ghost Dance (Calgary 1968)

Powers, William K. Indians of the Northern Plains (Toronto 1969)

O'Brodovich, Lloyd. 'Plains Cree sun dance,' Western Canadian J of Anthropology, vol 1, 1968

Corrigan, Samuel W. 'The Plains Indian powwow: cultural integration in Manitoba and Saskatchewan,' Anthropologia, vol 12, 1970

Witmer, Robert. 'Recent change in the musical culture of the Blood Indians,' Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Research, vol 9, 1973

Hatton, O. Thomas. 'Performance practices of Northern Plains pow-wow singing groups,' ibid, vol 10, 1974

Hungry Wolf, Adolf. The Blood People (New York 1977)

Dempsey, Hugh A. Indian Tribes of Alberta (Calgary 1978)

Partkun, Paul. 'Plains war dance songs: a metamorphosis,' Anthropological J of Canada, vol 16, 1978

Price, John A. Native Studies: American and Canadian Indians (Toronto 1978)

Mandelbaum, David G. The Plains Cree (Regina 1979)

Powers, William K. 'Plains Indian music and dance,' Anthropology on the Great Plains (Lincoln, Neb 1980)

Witmer, Robert. The Musical Life of the Blood Indians (Ottawa 1982)

Hatton, Orin T. 'In the tradition: grass dance musical style and female pow-wow singers,' Ethnomusicology, vol 30, 1986

Deiter-McArthur, Pat. Dances of the Northern Plains (Saskatoon 1987)

Lederman, Anne. 'Old Native and Métis fiddling in two Manitoba communities: Camperville and Ebb and Flow,' MFA thesis, York University 1987

Nettl, Bruno. Blackfoot Musical Thought (Kent, O 1989)

Hatton, Orin T. Power and Performance in Gros Ventre War Expedition Songs (Ottawa 1990)

Witmer, Robert'. Stability in Blackfoot songs, 1909-1968,' Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History (Urbana, Ill 1990)

Discography
Indian Music of the Canadian Plains. Recorded by Kenneth Peacock, Alberta. 1953-4. Folkways FE-4464

Old Agency Singers of the Blood Reserve, vols. 1-2. Alberta. 1972. Indian House IH-4051-4052

Blackfoot A-1 Club Singers, vols. 1-2. Alberta. 1972. Indian House IH-4001-4002

Sarcee Broken Knife Singers. Alberta. 1975. Canyon Records CR-6135-C

Songs from the Blood Reserve. Alberta. 1975. Canyon Records CR-6133

Sarcee Bull Head Youth Club Singers: Songs of the Sarcee. Alberta. 1975. Canyon Records CR-6176-C

An Historical Album of Blackfoot Indian Music. Compiled by Bruno Nettl. 1979. Folkways FE-34001

Calgary Drummers: Blackfoot. Alberta. 1980. Canyon Records CR-9002-C

Blackfoot Oldtimers: Old Songs from the Past. Alberta. 1980. Canyon Records CR-9004-C

The Canadian Blackfoot Indians. Alberta. 1982. Lyrichord LLST-7373

Dakota Hotain Singers: Pow-Wow. Manitoba. 1987. Sunshine Records SSCT-4069

Plains Ojibway Singers: Pow-Wow. Manitoba. 1987. Sunshine Records SSCT-4076

Assiniboine Jr. Singers: Pow-Wow. Manitoba. 1988. Sunshine Records SSCT-4090

The Red Bull Singers. Saskatchewan. 1988. Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre Audio-Visual Department RBS-230889

Elk's Whistle. Saskatchewan. 1989. Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre Audio-Visual Department EW-140689

Eastern Woodlands
The large area from the Ontario-Manitoba border to the Eastern seaboard is often identified in ethnographic literature as part of the 'Eastern Woodlands' culture area although the Native people who live in this area are diverse. Two unrelated language families, Iroquoian and Algonquian, are represented and within the Algonquian family, Northern (Cree, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Algonquin, Attikamek, Montagnais and Naskapi) and Southern branches (spoken by Micmac, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, Penobscot) are mutually unintelligible.

The six Nations which constitute the Iroquoian Confederacy (including Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Mohawk) are located in southern Ontario and New York State. The Huron (on Georgian Bay and near Quebec) and, historically, the Neutral and Petun Nations in southern Ontario were also part of the Iroquoian language family. The Algonquians extend over a much larger area, including the Maritime provinces, Quebec and Labrador, northern Ontario and the Western provinces. Anthropologists tend to regard the Western branches of the the Cree and Ojibwe Nations as Plains rather than Woodlands people. There are, however, differences of equal magnitude among the different Nations which are often grouped together as 'Eastern Woodlands' people in publications such as this. Distinctive differences exist between the Innu (Attikamek, Naskapi-Montagnais) of Labrador and northern Quebec, and the Anishnabe (Algonquin of northern Ontario, Cree, Ojibwe, Ottawa), but also among the traditions of different Nations, different communities, or groups and individuals within them. Hence, students of Eastern Woodlands music need to pay attention to whose story, specifically, they read or hear. On the other hand, extensive travel within a yearly cycle, as well as alliances formed for commercial, cultural, or political reasons (particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries) facilitated extensive interaction among different Eastern Woodlands groups. Hence, the dynamics of cultural development and the specific historical context of different musical traditions need to be carefully addressed.

Algonquian: The Anishnabek
In the 1980s the Anishnabek assumed an important role in the revival of Algonquian spiritual traditions. Knowledge of these traditions, including the teachings relating to such instruments as the drum, is shared by elders at events such as Elders Conferences, ceremonies, and gatherings. A basic vision for the Anishnabe is related in their migration legend, a story which recounts the seven 'fires' or stopping places of the people in their journey from the East coast toward the West on the North American continent. The 'fires' constitute both a historical record and a set of teachings. Traditional Anishnabe in adulthood in the 1980s saw themselves as the generation of the seventh fire, and accept a role in bringing back many of their traditions. The migration stories challenge published historical accounts (see Hickerson 1970), which locate the Ojibwe people around Lake Superior throughout their history.

The migration legend also recounts the giving of the Midewiwin to the Anishnabe people at the time of the fourth fire. Among the Ojibwe of northwestern Ontario, the Midewiwin is a fundamental religious institution. Ceremonies are held in an elongated lodge which is a metaphor for the cosmos and the pathway of life. The great myth of Nanabush tells of the Midewiwin origin and teaches the ritual process for the various degrees of initiation ceremonies. The sounds of the Midewiwin are distinctive: water drums, gourd rattles, and metal (preferably copper) can rattles accompany various types of ceremonial songs. Two drum types are central to Midewiwin lodge ceremonies. The most widely used is the 'little boy' (a small water drum with stones tied in the membrane) with a rope tie which can be shaped in many different patterns. More widely found in historical collections, however, is the 'grandfather,' a water drum made from a taller, hollowed log. The grandfather drum, like many musical instruments, is regarded as a gift from the Creator (see, for example, James Redsky's description in Great Leader of the Ojibway: Mis.quona.quab, Toronto, no date): the tree gave its straight trunk to be the vessel, the deer gave its skin to provide a good voice, the snake wrapped its body around the drum head to make it tight, the turtle plugged the bottom of the drum with its shell, and the loon flew down to beat the drum with its beak. As of 1990 membership in the Midewiwin was active and growing.

Music plays an important part in other healing activity, in sweat lodges, or other ceremonies. Disc rattles (skin-covered discs with circular wooden 'frames' which extend to form a handle) were often medicine rattles; the type of skin and rattlers related to the function of the rattle. Fish skin rattles or those made from the stomach lining of a bird are valued for their healing power. Small frame drum-rattles, described in the documentation of museum collections as 'wabeno' drums, were probably also medicine tools. Certain groups had specific types of medicine rattles, often reflecting the birds, animals or other natural materials of the area in which they lived.

Young Anishnabe men who follow traditional teachings continue to undertake fasts during which they are often the recipients of songs given to them by spirits, sometimes in the context of dreams. The images painted on drums, or the specific construction of a musical instrument may be related to the directives received in a dream. Drums documented in archival collections as 'dream' drums sometimes refer to instruments received in this intensive individual context and sometimes to large horizaontal drums which were used by Dreamers Societies.

Anishnabe flutes are usually described in association with courting. Song stanzas were alternated with flute renditions of the same tune (see Vennum 1989, p 13). Flute-making and playing were revived in the 1980s.

The drum dance, the large ceremonial drum tradition, was also given to the Anishnabe people. The spiritual teachings of the drum are embodied in its structure and use - its orientation in relation to the four directions, its bipartite membrane surface (often painted red and blue with a black line running across the diametre from east to west), its cross lacing, its carefull dressing, the tobacco offerings made to it. The drum constitutes an important way of life for many young Anishnabe men. Ceremonial drums frequently have their own repertoire of songs which must be performed before any other music at public events. The dance drum is imitated in the powwow drum which may be a commercial bass drum, significantly turned in a horizontal direction.

Contemporary powwows, generally traced by anthropologists to the war dance and grass dance complexes of the Plains, are open-air events which occur in many Anishnabe communities (as well as Iroquoian communities) generally on summer weekends. The 'drums' (a term referring to the ensembles as well as the instruments) reside under a central arbor at the heart of the dance space. Their sound is frequently described as the heartbeat of the Nations. After an invocation and a 'grand entry' of all participants, inter-tribal dances, honour songs and, in many cases, competitive dancing in categories defined by costume, musical repertoire, and dance steps (eg, 'Traditional,' 'Fancy,' 'Grass,' and 'Jingle-dress') continue for several days. The singing style and general musical contour is like that described for the Plains area. Specific dance types are distinguished by the tempi and rhythmic patterns of the songs, the latter often relating to the dance motion. Crafts people and food concessions encircle the dance area. Powwows are pleasurable occasions on which to renew acquaintances and affirm Indian identity.

Musical traditions specific to individual Nations continue to exist. For example, the Algonquin of northern Ontario use a large moose-hoof rattle (the 'shinaueshikan') which is unknown in other areas. In the early-20th century, other instrument types are described in the ethnographic literature for this Nation: Frederick Johnson (manuscript, Heye Foundation Archives, V-L) describes a drum 'made of a hollow cedar log with a skin head fastened to hoops on both ends. The heads were tightened by lashings pulling on the loops'. He also noted a rattle 'made by stringing bear's teeth and mud-turtle's claws alternately on a small stick' (ibid). Algonquin moose calls were often decorated with alternate layers of positive and negative design reflecting an image of several layers of the universe. In the early-20th century, a tall rimmed frame drum, shaped like snare drum, was used, sometimes in processions with fiddles.

The Cree of northern Ontario used frame drums similar to their eastern neighbours but with a parallel snare pathway and sometimes with distinctive colours (often blue and yellow). Their medicine drums sometimes featured two birds facing one another. In the early-20th century, a 'fiddle' made from a caribou shoulder blade was constructed in some communities.

The Innu: Sub-Arctic Algonquians
The Innuat (singular, Innu) or northern Algonquians were reliant on hunting, trapping, and fishing and these activities continued in 1990 to be significant for many Innuat. It is for this reason that their struggle during the 1980s against the testing of low-flying aircraft in Labrador was felt to be integrally linked to the survival of their culture.

For the Naskapi, Montagnais, and Cree of northern Quebec, much traditional cultural knowledge relating to music as well as to other domains is associated with the hunt (especially the caribou hunt) and with life in the forest, a domain which is distinguished from life in the village setting (see Tanner 1979). Contemporary cultural renewal projects such as the Montagnais 'Nutshimiu Atusseun' ('Work in the Country') recognize the cultural importance of the forest by taking young people for a period of months into this setting in order to teach them traditional knowledge and life skills.

Relevant to to the English domain of 'music' are hunting calls using various sound-producers, (especially cone-shaped, birchbark moose calls). The most valued repertoire related to hunting, however, is the body of traditional songs or nikamuna (singular, nikamun, also spelled nikamowin, nagamon, nakamun) which are accompanied with the snare-strung frame drum called the teueikan. Nikumana are received in dreams in which they may be associated with a particular animal or object relating to the hunt (eg, a canoe, snowshoes), or with a person of special importance to the singer. The performance of songs from this repertoire could serve to help a hunter locate game or it could be a celebration of success in the hunt. The buzzing of its snares is said to represent spirit voices. Teueikana are sometimes painted with red dots which have been interpreted variously as stars, or sometimes as patterns of the sun through the trees (Speck 1935, p 193). The teueikan is an important symbol of the identity of the Montagnais people. It has expanded in function from a hunting tool to serve also as a musical accompaniment for social occasions (eg, dances at weddings, or public receptions and festivals). Songs of both the hunting tool and social dance variety may have either a tremolo beat or an iambic pattern, the latter accompanying dance. Together with contemporary repertoires, nikamuna may also be heard on Native radio stations such as those operated by SOCAM - the Société de communication attikamek-montagnaise). Some singers distinguish between a high and low part of the nikuman. In general songs have two short phrases (often within the narrow pitch range) which are repeated several times. The texts, which are often private, are obscured by the singer's vocal quality and the buzz of the snares. Several recordings are available: no date, Music of the Algonkians, Cree, Montagnais, Naskapi, Folkways FE-4253; 1983, Puamuna. Rêves de chasse montangis/Montagnais hunting songs, Radio-Canada, SQN-100; 1982, Utakushit mak kashikat nakamun/Chansons montagnaises d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, Radio-Canada.

While no longer extant in most areas, people often share their memories of the shaking tent, a divination ritual in which an individual communicated with spirits who entered a specially constructed tent, causing it to shake without human intervention. Songs were used in this context (see, eg, Preston 1976). Healing ceremonies involved specific types of rattles as in the Anishnabek area. An unusual Naskapi rattle constructed from two caribou shoulder blades is found in some museum collections dating from the 1920s or earlier.

There are several song repertoires which are not regarded as 'nikumana'. Women compose lullabies (called bebe kataushu or bebe ataushu in northern Quebec and Labrador) which feature a refrain using vocables such as 'bai, bai'. Other repertoires for children are associated with the Cree and Ojibwe 'walking out' and 'naming' ceremonies. Short songs may also be performed in the context of myth-telling; most sub-Arctic Algonquian Nations make a careful distinction between the classic myths (atnuhan) and other stories (tipatshimun).

Interaction between Native and European musics in this area has a long history. Fiddle music and Christian hymns, for example, have been actively adapted to create distinctive styles and newly created pieces within the Native communities from the late 16th and early 17th centuries on and hence, these repertoires are regarded as 'traditional' music in many communities. Among the earliest Christian converts, many Naskapi and Montagnais men and women have large repertoires of hymns and cantiques in their own languages. These constitute one sort of 'prayer' for people who are devout in their Roman Catholic beliefs. A major calendric celebration is the Feast of St Anne in late July when thousands of Native people travel to sacred places (such as the shrine of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, Que) to worship together in their own language and with their own hymns.

Fiddle music has been particularly popular in Cree, Algonquin, and Attikamek areas. In addition, a contemporary song movement began, among the Montagnais, with singer/guitarist Philippe McKenzie in the 1970s. Composing mostly in a style called 'folk innu', dozens of groups have emerged since that time, the most commercially successful, as of 1990, being Kashtin (Florent Vollant and Claude McKenzie). A major annual festival, Innu Nikamu ('the Indian sings'), began in 1985 and has showcased both contemporary and traditional musics at Maliotenam, near Sept-Iles, Que.

The Wabenaki Confederacy: Maritime Algonquians
The Micmac, Maliseet, and Abenaki (along with the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy in the USA) belong to the Wabenaki Confederacy. The Mohawk Nation, the Keeper of the Eastern Doorway for the Iroquois Six Nations Confederacy, has a close historical and contemporary relationship with the Wabenaki Nations. The Western Abenaki (southeast of Montreal) are somewhat distinct from their Maritime kin.

Relative to the sub-Arctic Algonquian Nations, a greater degree of loss of traditional music has occured among the Micmac and Maliseet. The historical records are often contradictory and confusing. Nevertheless, such sources as the recorded collection of Mechling (1911) and transcriptions in ethnographies (eg, Speck's Penobscot Man, 1940) facilitate a certain amount of reconstruction by contemporary scholars and performers.

Historical accounts describe ceremonial music associated with weddings (eg, Mechling 1958-9, p 37), with funeral and mourning rites (eg, Wallis and Wallis 1957, p 24), as well as social dances including a snake dance, greeting dance, and trading dance (see transcription in Natalie Curtis Burlin, The Indian Book, London 1907, p 16). Speck writes that the Penobscot distinguished a Malecite 'peddlar's dance' (1940, p 295) and he describes 'the Micmac dance' which was 'distinct in motions and tempo' from those of the Malecite, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot (ibid, p 296 ff). Chief-making ceremonies (Prince 1897) included singing.

There are very few Micmac or Maliseet drums, rattles, or other instruments in museums and archival collections. (Woven ash-splint baskets, fancy quillwork boxes and colourful beaded clothing or bags are the material items most frequently representing the Wabenaki Nations in these institutions.) The historical position of drums among the Micmac is a subject of contention. Sources from the 17th and 18th centuries describe the use of a stick striking a sheet of birch-bark, a tree, or a kettle in song accompaniment. Bernard Hoffman (1955) quotes LeClerq, p 686, Dièreville, p 688, and Maillard p 677-78, the latter in the context of a Micmac feast at which 'girls and women come in, with the oldest at the head of them, who carries in her left hand a great piece of birch-bark of the hardest, upon which she strikes as it were a drum;... [1758, p 4-10]). Late 19th- and early 20th-century records document the use of drums by the Passamaquoddies and Penobscots, close neighbours and allies of the Micmacs. Prince (1901) makes reference to a 'shaman's drum' in the text of a 'Passamaquoddy Witch Song' and Speck also describes a snare-strung frame drum used by a Penobscot shaman (1919, p 242). In early 20th-century archival collections, the double-headed Penobscot drum as well as several distinctive single-membrane frame drums, one of which is attributed to the Micmac, are extant. The latter have a bleached rawhide skin completely covering and 'button-hole' stitched to the lower edge of the wide frame.

At the present time, Micmacs and Maliseets as well as Abenaki use hand drums, Iroquois water drums on occasion, various sizes of double-membrane drums, or large intertribal style drums. The latter are used by 'traditionalists', people identifying with an intertribal revival of spiritual teachings and ceremonies. In the Maritimes, the 'traditional' drum groups often make their own drums and have them ceremonially purified and blessed. Iroquoian social dances are sometimes also sung using the big drum.

Dance troupes, on the other hand, frequently use hand drums, often played by women, to accompany social dances which are, in many cases, historical reconstructions. Such reconstructions function in the life of communities in the late 20th-century. In the Western Abenaki community of Odanak, for example, where, from the 1970s, a Native-operated museum has occupied the former residential school, young dancers and singers relearn and perform social dances at the spring ceremonies and Indian corn feast held within the community as well as in contexts oriented to non-Native audiences such as the annual Fête des Abenakis or folklore festivals in Quebec City, Montreal, and Drummondville. The same is true in the Maritimes where a troupe such as the Micmac Dancers directed by Sarah Denny at Eskasoni, Cape Breton, perform such dances as the welcome dance, the feather dance, the snake dance, and the 'Native' dance within the community, at larger gatherings such as the Nova Scotia Summer Games, and for cross-cultural audiences.

Historical accounts of rattles include reference to dew-claw (Le Clercq 1910, p 220-23), and moose horn (Parsons 1925, p 83) types, as well as a bell owned by the trickster-transformer Kluskap.The unique Micmac jikmaq'n which is, at present, an ash stick split into several layers at one end and beaten against the hand, is also named in historical sources. Older descriptions, however, are variable: Rand (1888, p 115), for example, describes it as 'a sort of tambourine beaten upon with a stick' but translates the name as 'rattle'. Museum collections include, mainly, the full cow-horn rattle, some intricately carved. Other types of rattles are splint-woven basket rattles, used as baby rattles (especially by the Abenaki), turtle rattles, rawhide globe rattles, and gourd rattles. Not everyone feels comfortable talking about instruments that are so personal.

The flute ('pipukwaqn') is widely mentioned in Micmac mythology in association with the Mikmwesu spirit where sound is used as the means of transforming the listener.

Traditional hymn repertoires in Micmac and Maliseet are important, both in Christian contexts, and for wakes and 'noon-day singing'. A Micmac Hymnal with accompanying cassette was published in 1985 by the Micmac Association for Cultural Studies.

As in other areas, fiddle music is both distinctive and popular in contemporary communities. Probably the best-known Micmac fiddler is Lee Cremo.

The Haudenosaunee: Iroquoian Confederacy
In New York (Allegheny, Cattaraugus, Tonawanda, Onondaga, and Oneida) as well as Quebec (Kahnawake and Kahnesetake) and Ontario (Six Nations and Oneida Settlement, Akwesasne), Iroquoian communities have maintained a rich ceremonial and social musical life, centred around the longhouse. Haudenosaunee culture is an ongoing way of life, based in part on the Gaiwi:yo:h, or 'Good Message' of Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, and on the Great Law of the Iroquoian Confederacy. In these communities, singing is an integral part of celebration and healing; it is one way of relating to and communicating with the world around.

There are three basic types of traditional longhouse songs: social dance songs, or yoedza'geka:' ('the earth kind'); ceremonial songs, thanking the Creator and other forces for their continued help; and songs for curing societies. Ceremonial songs such as the great feather dance, and songs for curing societies such as the wooden face societies have been extensively discussed in the ethnographic literature. But Iroquoian people have concerns about non-Native interest in these repertoires which, in their own communities, are restricted to safeguard the ceremonial and curing songs from misuse and exploitation.

In many communities, people get together every few weeks during the evening to have a 'social' at the longhouse. Like all longhouse events, socials begin with the recitation of the 'thanksgiving address' by a designated speaker. This formal speech acknowledges all the environmental and spiritual forces 'from the earth to beyond the sky' which help humanity survive. The first two dance set is the standing quiver, a type of unaccompanied stomp dance, in which the lead singer and other dancers alternate short phrases in a call-response style as they move around the longhouse. This is followed by the moccasin dance. After that song sets may be chosen from among the more than 30 different types of social dances, each with characteristic melodies, rhythmic patterns, and dance steps. Many of the social dances are accompanied by small water drum, played by the lead singer, and cowhorn rattle.

One social dance, the eskanyeh, or 'ladies shuffle dance' (sung by men or women but only danced by women) has a long history but is one of the few types for which new songs are regularly created. Twice a year, singing societies from different communities get together for a 'sing', a type of intercommunity social, at which each group performs one set of eskanyeh (seven songs twice through). Eskanyeh songs may borrow or adapt music from other songs and their texts, consisting of vocables and/or short phrases in Seneca or occasionally in English, are often humorous. Singing societies are primarily charitable organizations, raising money or otherwise helping as needed.

Research
The earliest written documents relevant to the study of music of the Eastern Woodlands Nations were created by European missionaries, explorers, and settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries. The important Jesuit Relations are the most extensive of these but histories by Lescarbot (1609), LeClercq (1691), and Maillard (1758) are among the other sources which provide fragmentary evidence of a rich music culture during the 17th century (see Ethnomusicology).

Ethnological and anthropological studies abound from the end of the 19th century onwards. The early Naskapi ethnographies of Frank Speck (1935) and Lucien Turner (1894) contain extensive descriptions of music events, musical instruments, and to a lesser extent, music style. Similarly, for the Maritime Algonquians, Speck's Penobscot Man (1940) is an early classic with song transcriptions and extensive information about ceremonial and social life and Hallowell (1955) is significant for his interest in cognition. Among the mid-20th century Algonquian ethnographies, the following are relevant to ethnomusicological study: Wallis and Wallis (1955) Rousseau (1958), Rogers (1967), Tanner (1979), and Vincent (1973). The Anishnabe Midewiwin was documented extensively at the turn of the century by W.J. Hoffman (1885-86) and Skinner (1921), and by Blessing (1977) some decades later.

While not within Canadian boundaries, it is noteworthy that the earliest ethnomusicological study to be based on recorded sound - Fewkes Passamaquoddy study (1890) - is directly relevant to this area. Nicholas Smith's short study of Abenaki dances (1962) is one of the very few mid-century ethnomusicological publications emanating from research in this area prior to the work of Franziska von Rosen (1987).

Music studies of sub-Arctic Algonquians are more numerous. Recordings made by Owens in the 1950s for Folkways (FE-4253) were complemented in the 1970s by several discs released by Radio Canada's Northern Service branch and by a series produced by the Ojibwe Cree Cultural Centre in Timmins, Ont, in the 1980s. Two special issues of Recherches amérindiennes aux Québec (vol 15, no. 4, 1985-6, and vol 18, no. 4, 1988-9) have contributed to our knowledge of these areas. Richard Preston (1969, 1976) and Lynn Whidden (1985) have studied specific genres of Cree music. Thomas Vennum's Ojibwe Dance Drum is based primarily on research in Minnesota and Wisconsin but includes reference to Canadian groups as well. The SPINC research group directed by Beverley Diamond has produced a number of studies, both collaboratively and individually (1988).

Iroquoian music has been the most extensively studied of any of the Northeastern Woodlands groups. Iroquoian ethnographic studies which discuss cultural aspects are extensive, from those of L.H. Morgan (1851) through those of Arthur C. Parker (1909, et al), John Hewitt (1928), William Fenton (1951, 1987) and Elizabeth Tooker (1970). Michael Foster's linguistic studies (1974, 1984) are significant for ethnomusicology since 'speech events' often include singing. Music and dance has been the focus of the publications of Kurath (especially 1968), many containing both dance notation and musical transcription. Conklin and Sturtevant (1953) have studied musical instruments, Heth (1980) the interaction with Cherokee music, and Cronk (1987) performance events. Recordings of ceremonial music released by the Library of Congress without the permission of the Confederacy have been a subject of controversy. Recordings of social dance music, on the other hand, have been produced both within and outside of the communities. The most widely available which include music from communities within Canada include Iroquois Social Dance Songs (3 vols, Iroqrafts), and Six Nations Singers (Music Gallery Editions, MGE-16).

A number of music-related projects and publications, as well as autobiographies by hunters such as Mathieu André and Michel Gregoire, who discuss their uses of the teueikan, emanated from Native communities during the 1980s. Educational kits on music have been produced by the Native Canadian Centre (Toronto) and the Woodland Indian Cultural Education Centre (Brantford). The latter hosted 'The Sound of the Drum,' a conference, exhibition, and catalogue on Native musical traditions, in the fall of 1990.

Reading
Maillard, Antoine S. An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Micmakis and Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent on the Government of Cape Breton (London 1758)

Morgan, Lewis H. League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (Rochester 1851)

Lescarbot, Marc. Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (Paris 1866)

Rand, Silas T. Dictionary of the Language of the Micmac Indians Who Reside in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward island, Cape Breton and Newfoundland (Halifax 1888)

Fewkes, Walter J. 'A contribution to Passamaquoddy folk-lore,' JAF, vol 3, 1890

Hoffman, Walter J. 'The Mide'wiwin or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa,' 7th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Years 1885-1886 (Washington, DC 1891)

Turner, Lucien. 'Ethnology of the Ungava District Hudson Bay Territory,' Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology 1889-1890 (Washington, DC 1894)

Prince, J Dyneley. 'The Passamaquoddy wampum records,' Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol 36, 1897

- 'Notes on Passamaquoddy literature,' Annals of the New York Academy of Science, vol 13, no. 4, 1901

Parker, Arthur C. 'Secret medicine societies of the Seneca,' American Anthropologist, new series 11, no. 2, 1909

Densmore, Francis. Chippewa Music, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 45 (Washington, DC 1910)

Le Clercq, Christian. New Relation of Gaspesia, with the Customs and Religion of the Gaspesian Indians [1691], transl W.F. Ganong (Toronto 1910)

Skinner, Alanson. 'Notes on the eastern Cree and northern Saulteaux,' Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol 9, no. 1, 1911

Speck, Frank A. 'Penobscot shamanism,' Memoires of the American Anthropological Association, vol 6, 1919

Skinner, Alanson. Material Culture of the Menominee (New York 1921)

Parsons, Elsie C. 'Micmac folklore,' JAF, vol 38, 1925

Hewitt, J.N.B. 'Iroquoian cosmology,' Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Year 1925-1926 (Washington, DC 1928)

Speck, Frank. Naskapi, the Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula (Norman, Okla 1935)

Speck, Frank. Penobscot Man. The Life of a Forest Tribe in Maine (Philadelphia 1940; New York 1970)

Fenton, William. 'The feast of the dead, or ghost dance at Six Nations Reserve, Canada,' Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, 149, 1951

Conklin, H.C. and Sturtevant, William. 'Seneca Indian singing tools at Coldspring longhouse,' Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol 97, 1953

Hallowell, A. Irving. Culture and Experience (Philadelphia 1955)

Hoffman, Bernard G. 'The historical ethnography of the Micmac of the 16th and 17th Centuries,' PHD thesis, U of California 1955

Wallis, Wilson D. and Wallis, Ruth S. The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada (Minneapolis 1955)

- The Malecite Indians of New Brunswick (Ottawa 1957)

Rousseau, Jacques. 'Ces gens que l'on dit sauvages,' Les Cahiers des dix, vol 23, 1958

Mechling, William H. 'The Malecite Indians, with notes on the Micmacs, 1916,' Anthropoologica, vols 7 and 8, 1958-9

Smith, Nicholas N. 'Saint Francis Indian dances - 1960,' Ethnomusicology, vol 6, no. 1, 1962

Rogers, Edward S. Material Culture of Mistassini, National Museum of Canada Bulletin 218 (Ottawa 1967)

Kurath, Gertrude. Dance and Song Rituals of the Six Nations Reserve, National Museum of Canada Bulletin 220 (Ottawa 1968)

Hickerson, Harold. The Chippewa and Their Neighbours: A Study in Ethnohistory (New York 1970)

Tooker, Elisabeth. The Iroquois Ceremonial of Mid-winter (Syracuse 1970)

Vincent, Sylvie. 'Structure du rituel: la tente tremblante et le concept de Mista.pe.w', Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, vol 3, no. 1-2, 1973

Foster, Michael. From the Earth to Beyond the Sky (Ottawa 1974)

Preston, Richard. Cree Narrative: Expressing the Personal Meaning of Events (Ottawa 1976)

Blessing, Fred. The Ojibway Indians Observed, Occasional Publications in Minnesota Anthropology 1, 1977

Lutz, Maija. The Effects of Acculturation on Eskimo Music of Cumberland Peninsula (Ottawa 1978)

Tanner, Adrian. Bringing Home Animals, Memorial U Institute of Social and Economic Research Study No. 23 (St John's 1979)

Heth, Charlotte. 'Stylistic similarities in Cherokee and Iroquois music,' J of Cherokee studies, vol 4, 1980

Lutz, Maija. Musical Traditions of the Labrador Coast Inuit (Ottawa 1982)

Vennum, Thomas. The Ojibwa Dance Drum: Its History and Construction, Smithsonian Folklife Studies No. 2 (Washington, DC 1982)

Foster, Michael et al eds. Extending the Rafters: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies (Albany, NY 1984)

Cavanagh, Beverley. 'Les mythes et la musique naskapis,' in Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, vol 15, no. 4, 1985

Preston, Richard. 'Transformations musicales et culturelles chez les Cris de l'Est,' ibid

Whidden, Lynn. 'Les hymnes, une anomalie parmi les chants traditionnels des Cris du Nord,' ibid

Cavanagh, Beverley. 'The performance of hymns in Eastern Woodlands Indian communities,' Sing Out the Glad News, ed John Beckwith, CanMus Documents 1 (Toronto 1987)

Keillor, Elaine. 'Hymn singing among the Dogrib Indians,' ibid

Fenton, William. The False Faces of the Iroquois (Norman, Okla 1987)

Lederman, Anne. 'Old Native and Métis fiddling in two Manitoba communities: Camperville and Ebb and Flow,' MFA thesis, York University 1987

Cronk, Sam, with Cavanagh, Beverley and von Rosen, Franziska. 'Celebration: Native events in eastern Canada,' Folklife Annual 1987 (Washington, DC 1988)

Vennum, Thomas. Ojibway Music from Minnesota: A Century of Song for Voive and Drum (St. Paul, Minn 1989)

Cronk, M. Sam, ed. Sound of the Drum (Brantford, Ont 1990

History of Music in British Columbia

Jesuit Relations

Cavanagh, Beverley. 'The transmission of Algonkian Indian hymns: between orality and literacy,' Musical Canada

Non-traditional Music
The present section deals with musical styles performed outside traditional social or ceremonial contexts, blending indigenous cultures and mainstream pop genres. Ranging from country music to reggae, and from step dancing to jazz, this syncretic mix reflects the diversity of Native, Métis, and Inuit communities, each with distinct histories, languages, and traditions.

Despite an abundance of research concerning Native culture in Canada, relatively little has been published about non-traditional indigenous musics. This, despite the fact that such music has been integral to weddings, church socials, legion concerts, square dances, and house parties for more than a century. A history of non-traditional music is linked in part to a complex history of cross-cultural interaction between Native and non-Native peoples. Beginning in the 18th century, Métis and Cree fiddlers in central and northern Canada, and Micmac fiddlers in the Maritimes have adapted Celtic and French dance tunes introduced to Canada by fur traders (see Fiddling). Within the residential school system experienced by Native people in the 19th and 20th centuries, instruction was often provided on violin, lute, or mandolin, as well as in keyboard and vocal music. Other repertoires emerged in response to specific historical encounters between cultures: eg, among Métis communities in Saskatchewan certain songs have been shared from generation to generation, documenting - in the words of the Métis writer Wendy Roy - a 'quest for autonomy[,] from the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816 to the Battle of Batoche in 1885'.

Instrumental ensembles, modelled after British regimental and civilian bands, flourished across southern and central Canada from the mid-1800s until the 1970s. Community-based 'Indian Bands' from British Columbia to Labrador performed in traditional-style outfits, attracting both Native and non-Native audiences at parades, fairs, and exhibitions. A separate phenomenon emerged at the turn of the 20th century when entrepreneurs, capitalizing on the popularity of travelling 'Wild West' shows, organized international tours of Native musicians. In the 1890s, the North American Indian Concert Band performed in Great Britain, Italy, and Germany. Though based in the USA, the ensemble included Iroquois and Ojibwe musicians from Canadian First Nations.

Native musicians endeavouring to establish professional careers in Canada have encountered unique challenges. An amendment in 1914 to the Indian Act made any participation in dances, rodeos, and public exhibitions off reserves in the western provinces and the territories subject to the approval of local Indian agents. Moreover, until a revision in 1951 to the Indian Act it was illegal for Native people to enter or perform in restaurants or bars licensed to sell liquor, although such regulations were occasionally overlooked.

Musicians challenging such barriers early in the 20th century included the baritone Os-Ke-Non-Ton (Louie Deer, of Kahnawake, Que) and the jazz pianist Robert Jamieson (b 1917, d 1966, from Six Nations Reserve, near Brantford, Ont). Os-Ke-Non-Ton had a distinguished concert career on Canadian and European stages. Jamieson worked from the 1930s and early 1940s in nightclubs in southern Ontario and in New York State. During the 1940s he joined the US army, serving with the USO in Reykjavik, Iceland; he later returned to Six Nations and continued to perform at local dances and in concert.

In the 1940s and 1950s musicians in many southern reserves formed semi-professional or informal groups that often featured guitar, drums, piano, fiddle, or accordion. In addition to 'old time' square or stepdancing, western swing and 'hillbilly music' (a precursor of country music and a staple of local radio programming on reserves during that era) was popular with Native audiences. But new genres have not necessarily replaced older repertoires; at dances in Cree communities in western and central Canada, musicians still alternate hard rock sets with country songs and fiddle tunes.

From the mid-1960s through the 1970s, non-Native, urban audiences developed new interest in aboriginal issues, encouraged by the shifting social and political climate in Canada. At the same time that theatrical works such as The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (by George Ryga, with original music in part by Willie Dunn) and the vibrant canvases of Norval Morrisseau and other 'Woodlands School' artists were attracting public attention, Native folksingers Dunn and Buffy Sainte-Marie began their careers performing in coffee houses in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and New York, on regional folk festival circuits, and in benefit concerts. Winston Wuttunee, Shingoose, and the Guyanese-born David Campbell became part of this first wave of widely-recognized indigenous artists who introduced Native perspectives to a non-Native public. Other significant performers emerging in the 1970s include Willie Thrasher and Morley Loon. By the early 1990s folk music had come to embrace elements of jazz, rock, and traditional aboriginal music and language; its leading exponents included the Montagnais duo Kashtin, the Winnipeg-based singer/actor Tom Jackson, the Inuk singer Charlie Adams, the Algonquian/Mohawk performer Willy Mitchell from Maniwaki, Que, the Abenaki filmmaker/singer Alanis Obomsawin, and the Toronto guitarist Don Ross.

Contemporary non-traditional music resists simple categorization. Not surprisingly, First Nations communities across Canada favour different styles, reflecting the diversity among Native urban and reserve audiences with respect to musical influences, cultural history, and demographics. Blues music, for example, seems especially popular in Native communities in central Canada. Performers such as Murray Porter from Six Nations and Leonard Martin from Moose Factory, near James Bay, in northern Ontario, have been influenced by urban US blues styles and often mix contemporary Native perspectives with popular dance rhythms. Porter's song 'The Last Stand,' a lyrical, pointed commentary on the struggle of the Lubicon Cree for land rights in Alberta, became a theme song for many Mohawk people during their confrontation with the Canadian army at Kanesetake, Que, during the summer of 1990.

At the leading edge of a pop and reggae fusion are Russell Wallace in Vancouver and the eclectic group 7th Fire, based in Ottawa. The latter, formerly known as Thom E Hawk and the Pine Needles, includes both Native and non-Native musicians. Their name is based on an Ojibwe teaching that prophesies an era (that of the seventh fire) marked by either mankind's destruction or unity, a theme reflected in many of their songs. It is perhaps one of the more innovative Canadian pop groups, combining performance art with dance club music, and using humor as an effective means for social commentary in songs such as 'The Death of John Wayne' and 'High Tech Teepee Trauma Mama'. The satirical collage 'Buffalo Cliff' from the self-produced cassette Well What Does It Take (1990) juxtaposes original music with excerpts from interviews with federal politicians and aboriginal leaders discussing Native land struggles. First Nations musicians explain that humour - so highly valued in traditional society - enables people to express emotionally-charged issues in a way that is accessible to all audiences.

Beginning in the early 1970s, local rock bands have thrived in virtually every Native reserve. Contemporary groups achieving regional success include the Harrapashires (from the James Bay area of northern Ontario), the Tymes (from the Enoch reserve in Alberta) and Kinroq (later Kinrawk, originally from southern Alberta but based in 1991 in Albuquerque, N Mex). Like many rock musicians embarking on careers in Canada, these three groups took part in regional 'battles of the bands' sponsored by local nightclubs and radio stations, winning studio time and guarantees of broadcast exposure. Building on such early successes, Kinroq in 1991 recorded for the all-Native label, Sounds of America, based in New Mexico, producing a follow-up to their self-produced debut album, Red, Raw and Ready (1984).

With their hard-edged style, the Harrapashires embody a northern Cree rock sound which is rhythmically aggressive and makes minimal use of synthesizers or sound processing. Their music reflects familiar pop themes of heartbreak and romance, although songs such as 'Tienamen Square' address their concern with contemporary world events. For Kinrawk, rock music serves as common cultural ground, creating a bridge between audiences. Its songs range from dance tunes to lyrical ballads that reflect traditional experiences and values. Other rock musicians of Native ancestry include Jane Hawley, a member of the Edmonton band Jr. Gone Wild, and Robbie Robertson.

Perhaps the most consistently popular genres in Native communities are country music, western swing, and country rock, played by such artists as the Pierce Brothers and Herb Dejarlais from British Columbia; Paul Del (Desjarlais) and Dave Rumley from Lac la Biche, Alberta; Laura Vinson and Red Wyng of Edmonton; Pat Cardinal, latterly of Calgary; the Gardipys from North Battleford, Sask; Ernest Monias from Cross Lake, Manitoba; Mark Laforme of New Credit, Ontario; Pessamiskueut (Women of Betsiamites, Que); and Eagle Feather from Big Cove, NB. The C-Weed Band led by the singer Errol Ranville has been a mainstay of Native country music, recording albums in Winnipeg for the Sunshine and Hawke labels. Some of its songs have been popular with non-Native country audiences - eg, 'Evangeline' in 1980, 'High & Dry' in 1981, and 'Magic in the Music' in 1985. Ranville's own 'I Want to Fly' (for Thunder Records) was a country hit in 1991. Vinson and Eagle Feather also have been successful in maintreams country music. Other country artists of Native ancestry include Ray St Germain, Randall Prescott (of the Family Brown) and the multi-instrumentalist Ed Peekeekoot, twice nominated 'Instrumentalist of the Year' by the British Columbia Country Music Association.

Several scholarly articles have explored Native country music as a syncretic phenomenon which expresses the deep emotions of a people. As Algonquian singers Clifford and Joan Tenasco from Maniwaki, Que, explain (quoted in Sound of the Drum), 'Country music is like an international language... it's part of everybody's life, because it sings about lost loves, it sings about heartaches, good times, hard times, what people go through... there's always a memory or a connection that you make with it'.

Prominent among classically-trained First Nations musicians is the Mohawk composer and conductor John Kim Bell, who co-wrote the ballet In the Land of the Spirits, an all-Native production blending jazz, modern, and indigenous dance styles. In an effort to encourage other aboriginal artists, Bell established the Canadian Native Arts Foundation which funds training in all musical styles and in arts administration.

For some performers, non-traditional music is primarily a vehicle for social changes; for others, it provides entertainment and emotional release. What unifies these diverse concepts and styles are the close connections between song and dance (an association shared among all traditional First Nations cultures), and the humour and strength with which Native perspectives and values are affirmed.

A majority of Native artists have neither fully embraced, nor been embraced by, the mainstream Canadian music industry. As a result, efforts began in the mid-1980s to establish alternative infrastructures that would create a network or broad community of aboriginal performers. Several Native promotional agencies have been established, including the Pacific Society for Native Music based in Vancouver and the All Nations Talent Group in Ohsweken, Ontario. The Association for Native Development in the Performing Arts, located in Toronto, has encouraged training in all aspects of the performances arts, and has developed a computerized network of aboriginal musicians across Canada.

Many performers, including Willie Dunn and the Inuk singers Charlie Adams, Susan Aglukark, and Charlie Panigoniak, have recorded for CBC Northern Services. Some of these recordings have been issued commercially by Boot. Nearly 70 per cent of the artists recorded by Sunshine are Native or Métis; the label, established in 1973, has produced a wide range of music, from traditional powwow recordings to 'old time' fiddlers. Local cultural organizations such as the Ojibwe Cree Cultural Centre in Timmins also have produced albums featuring musicians of regional renown. However, the majority of tapes and 'demos' are recorded independently, often in home studios or at local radio stations, and are distributed by the musicians themselves.

In view of the limited commercial exposure available to Native musicians in urban centres and reserves, the need was recognized by the early 1990s for a Canadian-based, all-Native recording company, similar to Sounds of America, itself established only in 1989. As Elaine Bomberry of the All Nations Talent Group has noted [unpublished interview with the author], 'We are the ones who can best develop our own music. We still hold true to our roots, our traditions, and we can decide what to take take into that other "non-tratitional" sphere'.

Perhaps the strongest unifying force in Native music in the early 1990s were the independently-operated Native radio stations based on reserves. Resisting the standard broadcast formats that dominate urban airwaves, these community stations mix powwow music with country music, and locally-produced releases with top 40 standards. The Native Aboriginal Communication Society, which began in 1985, had 14 regional-based networks by 1991 and contacts with more than 100 aboriginal stations throughout Canada. In urban centres, alternative and university-based radio stations in Halifax, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria also have broadcast programs of Native music on a more irregular basis.

Native music festivals provide another forum of indigenous music. In 1991 they included Innu-Nikamu in Mani-Utenam, Que; Jammin' on the Bay, in the James Bay area of northern Ontario; and the Lac la Biche Jamboree in Alberta. The annual Stein Valley festival held in British Columbia was organized in 1985 by the Lytton band and Lilloet Tribal Council to protest logging on traditional lands; it has featured both Native and non-Native performers. First Nations performers also have appeared at many Canadian folk festivals - eg, at Mariposa, which programmed a Native peoples area 1970-8.

While there are clear parallels between First Nations non-traditional and non-Native mainstream pop genres, certain fundamental elements make Native music unique. Musicians do not always focus on 'Native issues,' but their work usually reflects the distinctive cultural and physical environments that have shaped their societies. A majority of artists in southern Canada perform in English, but many musicians also sing in their traditional Native languages (eg, the Innu group Kashtin) or combine indigenous langages with English or French (eg, Susan Aglukark and Leonard Martin). Using traditional languages is a way to celebrate Native culture and to maintain some connection with the indigenous community.

Issues of identity often confront First Nations musicians who are compelled to negotiate among the cultural, geographical, and stylistic boundaries established by the music industry. Native artists have reacted strongly to the kinds of separation that arise, however subtly or unconsciously, whenever one group imposes some rigid categorization on another. As Susan Aglukark has explained [unpublished interview with the author], 'I am proud to be Inuk, I am proud to be an aboriginal person, but first of all I want to be recognized as a musician who is Inuk'. Like many Native musicians, Aglukark is comfortable with providing a political voice for her people but wishes to be seen as an artist in her own right. Moreover, some performers also reject being labelled as 'Canadian' musicians; many indigenous people identify themselves instead as citizens of North America and, for them, the comparatively recent boundaries that separate Canada and the USA have little relevance.

As the Montagnais author Gilles Chaumel stated in Rencontre, 'The new aboriginal music is precisely about building an identity. This new music is alive because it is constantly changing. It reflects aboriginal society... which itself is being transformed'. The strength of First Nations music comes from within indigenous communities; its directions and success will be determined by the ways in which First Nations musicians establish and define themselves.

Further information about non-traditional Inuit music and musicians is given in 'Euro-American influenced genres' at the end of section 7: Inuit.

Reading
Whidden, Lynn. 'How can you dance to Beethoven? Native people and country music,' CUMR, vol 5, 1984

Roy, Wendy. 'Métis song,' New Breed, vol 16, no. 17, 1985

'Native Nashville North,' The Native Canadian, Spring 1987

'Kim Bell: in the land of the spirits,' Kahtou, vol 6, no. 21, 1988

Powis, Tim. 'Native music,' MSc, 368, Jul-Aug 1989

Chaumel, Gilles. 'Music, a cry from the heart,' Rencontre, Sep 1989

Cronk, M Sam, ed. Sound of the Drum Resource Catalogue: Interviews with Native Musicians (Brantford, Ont 1990)

Inuit
The music of the Inuit (or Eskimo as other peoples have called them) of Alaska, Arctic Canada, and Greenland falls into two broad categories: traditional songs and dances, and contemporary songs which borrow from diverse Euro-American sytles. Contact between outsiders and natives has varied in duration from the approximately 200 years of interaction between Moravians and Inuit in Labrador communities, such as Nain, to the relatively new relationships created by the establishment of government administrations in certain Netsilik settlements in the 1960s. From the 1970s on most Inuit have lived in settlements during part or all of the year; however, they continue to some extent to rely on land and sea animals for food and, occasionally, for clothing and tools.

Culture Areas
Several broad linguistic and culture areas have been identified by linguists and anthopologists. These cross the borders of several countries such as the USSR, the USA, Canada, and Greenland. All the linguistic groups are present in Alaska: Aleut, Chugach, Yupik, and Inupiak; in Siberia, Yuit people speak a variety of Yupik; in the remaining Arctic areas, from north Alaska to Greenland, Inupiak is spoken. The present article is concerned with the Inupiak-speaking groups which range across Arctic Canada. From west to east: the Mackenzie Delta and Yukon Inuit of the western Arctic who are culturally related to the Inuit of north Alaska; the Copper, Netsilik, Iglulik, and Caribou Inuit of the central Arctic; the Inuit of Baffin Land, northern Quebec and Labrador constitute the eastern Arctic groups along with the Polar Inuit (Thule district) and the west and east people of Greenland. At times, it is necessary to refer to Inuit musical traditions outside of Canadian borders. It should be borne in mind that in 1986 (last Canadian census figure), the 27,000 Inuit constituted about one quarter of the total Inuit population.

Scholarly interest in Inuit music has blossomed from the 1970s on and, although much remains to be done, knowledge of the subject has increased immeasurably. One thing which has become apparent is the fact that, although there are many common elements throughout the Arctic, there are diverse customs, terminologies, and styles, not only in different culture groups, but from one community to the next. This must be kept in mind while reading the present article, which focusses on the common musical traditions.

Traditional Dance Songs and Rituals
Late 19th- and early 20th-century ethnographies describe periodic celebrations, which were more or less elaborate in different areas; they featured many social activities including drum dancing, eg, dancing, monophonic singing, and the beating of a single-headed frame drum. However, there is a clear demarcation between western and eastern styles which meet and co-exist in the Mackenzie Delta area.

The drum in the western Arctic is made of a narrow (ca 4 cm) wooden frame, covered by a whale liver or walrus stomach membrane. It is held by a notched wooden handle and beaten with a long slender stick. Two distinct timbres can be produced, one by a light stroke which touches only the drum frame, and the second by a harder action which hits both frame and drum simultaneously. In western regions drums are usually played in groups of two or more, each by a man who sits, with straight back and outstretched legs, to the side of the dance area. It is the drummers and other men around them who sing the drum dance songs.

In the central and eastern regions a larger frame drum (often up to 40 cm in diameter) is used. This instrument, called the kilaut, has a heavier wooden frame (ca 8 cm in width) and a caribou skin cover. The solo dancer strikes it alternately on each side of the frame with a club-like stick (katuk) while turning the drum from side to side.

The Mackenzie Delta and Coppermine River Delta peoples share many of the customs of the north Alaskans. Groups of dancers, often wearing loonskin head-dresses or special dance mittens and in some areas using dance-fans, perform mimetic actions depicting hunting scenes, animal behaviour, or mythical episodes. A special women's dance (taliq) in northwest Alaska imitates paddling. In northwest Alaska, the dances are classified as either atuutipiaq (using improvised motions) or sayuun (using fixed motions), and these terms also apply to the songs composed for each dance type. Both types are performed at an 'inviting-in,' when visitors travel to other communities for several days of feasting and dance competition. Other north Alaskan ceremonial dance songs, many of them associated with local whaling feasts and some regarded as secret, include whalers' spinning-top dance songs (kiapsaq), puppet ceremony dance songs (tohoyaqhuuqaun), whalers' masquerade dance songs (uingarung), Northern Lights dance songs (kigugiyataun), box-drum dance songs (kalukhaq), and the commonly recorded whalers' skin-toss dance songs (nalukataun). The last-named type comprises humorous pieces which accompany the tossing of a contestant into the air using a skin blanket. (All genres are described in Thomas Johnston, 1976, p 69-76.)

In the central Arctic, but also in the Coppermine River Delta, where both eastern and western traditions exist, drum dancing is performed by a single person at a time. The drum-dancer flexes his/her knees and rotates the head and shoulders. In some communities both men and women drum dance, but in others the activity is restricted to men. The drum rhythm is a constant, although somewhat elastic, pulse, often at a slightly different tempo from the accompanying song. Various community members (often exclusively women) constitute a chorus which chants a lyric or narrative song (pisiq) composed by the dancer or a relative or friend.

In former times the drum dance occurred when large numbers of people came together (to celebrate the arrival of visitors, for example, or at the time of the annual winter sea-ice camp among the Netsilik people). A dancer might have an idlurik or song cousin, often a person from another community, with whom he would carry on a friendly rivalry by an exchange of mocking songs. Such song contests were sometimes followed by fisticuffs or other competitive games. Events were less structured than in the western areas. From the 1970s on drum dances have been social celebrations, held periodically throughout the year in some communities (eg, Eskimo Point, Pelly Bay) but most frequently at Christmas and Easter. Shamanistic associations with drum dancing (see the illustration in Pelinski, Inuit Songs from Eskimo Point, p 9, for example) are no longer maintained, although the vocabulary of song texts include ancient words and phrases associated with the shaman (angakuq).

It is probable that drum dancing has not been practised in northern Quebec and Labrador since the late 19th-century. For example ethnographer Lucien Turner, Indians and Eskimos in the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula [1894], Quebec City 1979, p 94-5) observed that the only musical instrument in this area was a two-stringed fiddle. In northern Quebec, however, many of the drum dance songs have persisted within the traditional repertoire.

Drum dance songs have been collected from both north and east Greenlanders, each group using a small membrane-covered frame drum as an accompaniment. Songs are performed for entertainment, for shamanistic ritual, and for 'drum-fights,' the latter bearing similarities to the central Canadian song contests.

In traditional Inuit society the location for drum dance celebrations varied from one area to the next. Photographs of Greenland drum fights (Thuren, 'On the Eskimo music in Greenland,' figures 4 and 5) depict outdoor settings; on the other hand, taboos on outdoor performances were in force in some central Canadian areas. In many regions a special dance house called a qaggi or kashim was erected. In south-west Alaska it was a large storage house with an entrance that was tunnelled under the floor (M. Lantis, 'The social culture of the Nunivak Eskimo,' Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1946, p 35). In the central region it was a large snow house capable of accommodating 50 or 60 people; Netsilik appended family igloos to the large dome. Food from the hunt was apportioned here; games and acrobatics took place as well as dancing activities. After prefabricated buildings replaced traditional snow or canvas structures, dances came to be held in schools, community halls, or private homes.

The textual and musical style of drum dance songs is variable from one region to another. Polar Inuit song texts consist almost exclusively of vocables (see transcriptions in Leden 1952, and Hauser, 'Formal structure in Polar Eskimo drumsongs,' Ethnomusicology, 1977, p 34), while Caribou Inuit texts have short, meaningful stanzas (see transcriptions in Pelinski, 1979). Quebec Inuit songs feature stanzas but with a restricted number of lexical words (see Beaudry 1985, booklet). Netsilik songs are long narrations, most often about hunting experiences (see Cavanagh 1982, vol 2). Most songs are strophic, each strophe containing a texted stanza (except for untexted Polar songs) and a refrain on vocables such as 'ajaijai,' which, incidendally, are found in the songs of all Inuit regions, notwithstanding dialectical variations. Because of these refrains, a drum dance song often is called an ajaija instead of a pisiq.

Most melodies are anhemitonic (without semitones), often a pentatonic subset, although divergent tonal structures are found within this category. In most areas the melodies contain a common body of formula-like motives which are used in various combinations. Actual intervallic patterns are regionally variable; in the Netsilik region, for example, ascending large intervals and descending major seconds and minor thirds within the range of a minor seventh are common, while in north Alaska, wider ranges and interval leaps up to a ninth have been noted by Johnston (p 11). Analytical data about specific tonal types and melodic material have been used by Hauser to trace migration patterns from south Baffin Island to northern Greenland. All repertoires involve some microtonal ornamentation and flexible intonation areas.

In the western area the drum beats coincide with song pulses and hence seem to provide a metric organization. Groupings of beats, however, are based on textual rather than rhythmic criteria. In the eastern Arctic and Greenland the drum tempo and meter are often independent of the song tempo and meter.

While the drum dance repertoire is basically monophonic, polyphony (often in parallel but variable intervals) has been observed (see Estreicher 1950, and Pelinski) in the Caribou Inuit region.

Other traditional musical genres. Among the unique sonic creations of Inuit culture are the vocal games (katajjait in northern Quebec, pikusiraqtut in the Iglulik area), although these are quite distinct from any of the song traditions. Performed by pairs of women in the central and eastern Arctic, the partners stand or squat, facing one another at a close distance (from a few centimeters to about 15), and enter into a rapid interchange of repetitive rhythmicized sounds, that is, words or vocables. A variety of vocal treatments is applied to each repetition of the sounds. The alternating breathing-in, breathing-out sounds, combined with other alternations such as voiced and voiceless sounds, high and low pitches, open and closed mouth, etc, combine in a complex vocal production. In some areas (eg, Netsilik), a text may underlie each game, while in other regions (eg, northern Quebec) the sounds are non-referential and the delight is in their timbre. Some games are said to imitate animal calls; some outline the pitches of familiar songs, although precise pitch is unimportant in the majority. A kettle, bread pan, parka hood, or other object may be used as a resonator or to channel the sound toward her partner. A competitive spirit often is evident between teams (see Beaudry 1978, 1988). For an in-depth discussion of these voice and throat games, see Inuit vocal games.

Many other games are accompanied by special songs. The most widely known are the juggling songs (iglukisaak in northwest Alaska, iglukitarut in central and eastern Arctic). Fragments from myths, references to body functions, children's rhymes, and vocables may be juxtaposed in these texts. The melodies consist of a concatenation of two- or three-note motives, each usually repeated several times: aaa... bbb... ccc... etc. In some areas (the Iglulik region, Baffin Island, and Alaska, for example) songs are used to accompany cat's cradle or a variety of other string games. Most communities also have a repertoire of songs to accompany indigenous variations of hide-and-seek, hopping, chasing, or laughing games.

Another traditional genre are songs which form part of stories. These include descriptions of the adventures of legendary figures such as Kiviuq or Qautjaqjuq and short (usually only one stanza) songs attributed to humanized animals and birds. Some of the latter mock the appearance or activities of other creatures in a manner similar to the contest songs at the drum dance. A unique feature is the incorporation of words and musical motives which represent the cries of the various animals or birds. Story songs may be performed partially or completely in rhythmicized speech, although relative pitch usually is present. Where precise pitches are used, the ranges are relatively limited, and many tone reiterations are a feature. Scales of only two or three pitches are not uncommon.

As in most cultures, Inuit stories and story songs are used at children's bedtime. In addition, there are songs composed specifically for children by their parents or any member of their extended family group. These are similar to the short 'petting' songs known in Greenland. In these songs (aqausiq or maksatuq) the child's name is repeated in an affectionate diminutive form along with other words meaningful to the child's life. The purpose of these songs is to soothe a sad or angry child but also, in a certain manner, to consecrate the relationship between the child and the composer of the song. This is not unlike the central Canadian tradition of composing a drum dance song for one's family members.

Although, as stated above, the links between music and shamanism are rarely discussed openly in present-day Christian settlements, there are many factors which point to the use of music in ritual. Repertoires described as magic songs have been collected in Greenland and in the Iglulik area. Entire shamanistic rituals have been recorded in east Greenland.

Euro-american Influenced Genres
Several non-Inuit studies have concluded that where traditional music has endured, the style of the traditional genres has undergone very little change as a result of contact with European and North American cultures, although the location and events with which specific songs and dances are associated have changed considerably. It is not surprising that traditional music is remembered mostly by the elderly. A renaissance of interest has occurred throughout the Arctic beginning in the 1970s, however, as part of the quest for an Inuit identity and in conjunction with Land Claims negotiations. Pan-Arctic meetings such as the annual Arctic Games, of which competitive dancing forms a part, have stimulated a revival of traditions. Areas such as western Greenland and Labrador, which have had the longest contact with European-based society, have perpetuated little traditional music.

The most marked results of culture contact, however, may be seen in the adoption of new instruments, dance, and song styles. Hymns translated into Inuktitut (the Inuit language) probably are the most widely known of the musics imitating foreign styles. More adaptation of style has occurred in the secular domain. The jigs and reels of 19th-century whalers and explorers, for example, have been modified into forms called 'Eskimo dance' in many communities, and the accordion music used to accompany these may be known as 'Eskimo music' (see Lutz, 1978, p 119). Fiddles (agiarut or tautirut) inspired homemade imitations in northern Quebec; these generally were simple boxes with three strings. In the same area, some Inuit have become skilful players of the jew's harp, with a technique similar to the traditional one of vibrating the quill (suluk in northern Quebec) against the teeth. The Labrador community of Nain has maintained a band which was established by Moravian missionaries before the middle of the 19th century. (See Moravian missions in Labrador.)

Certain secular genres may imitate their southern models while, nevertheless, retaining some traditional features. Popular with the younger members of the community are country and western, folk-style songs for voice and guitar, or rock and its most recent developments composed in Inuktitut by increasingly numerous groups of Inuit musicians. In Canada some of the best known 'folk' composers are Charlie Panagoniak of Eskimo Point, Charlie Adams of Inukjuak, Tumassi Quissa of Povungnituq, William Tagoona of Baker Lake, and Etulu Etidloie of Cape Dorset. Local dance bands (examples of the Pangnirtung band are recorded on the disc which accompanies Lutz' 1978 study) have become common in many communities. The group Northern Haze from Igloolik was the first to record rock music commercially (CBC 1985).

Discography
Canada: Jeux vocaux des Inuit. Ocora HM-83

The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska. Recorded by Laura Boulton. 1954. Folk FE-4444

The Inuit (Eskimos) of Greenland and Northern Canada, 2 vols. Lyrichord LLST-7379

Inuit Games and Songs. Unesco Collection. Auvidis D-8032/Auvidis AD-090

Inuit Throat and Harp Songs. (1980). Music Gallery Editions MGE-28

Music of the Inuit: the Copper Eskimo Tradition. Unesco Collection. EMI 64-2402781

Traditional Songs and Games of the Inuit. CBC SQN-108

Recordings are included in the Cavanagh, Lutz, and Pelinski publications listed below.

Reading
Boas, Franz. The Central Eskimo, 6th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, DC, 1888), repr (Lincoln, Neb, 1964; Toronto 1974)

Thalbitzer, William, and Thuren, Hjalmar. 'Melodies from East Greenland,' Meddelelser om Grønland, vol 40, no. 2, 1911

Thuren, Hjalmar. 'On the Eskimo music in Greenland,' ibid

Roberts, Helen, and Jenness, Diamond. 'Songs of the Copper Eskimos,' Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-16, vol 14 (Ottawa 1925)

Rasmussen, Knud. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-1924, vols 7-9 (Copenhagen 1927-45)

Lantis, Margaret. Alaskan Eskimo Ceremonialism (New York 1947)

Estreicher, Zygmunt. 'Die Musik der Eskimos: Eine vergleichende Studie,' Anthropos, vol 45, 1950

Leden, Christian. 'Uber die Musik der Smith Sund Eskimo,' 'Uber die Musik der Ostgrönlander,' Meddelelser om Grønland, vol 152, parts 3 and 4, 1952

Groven, Eivind. Eskimo melodies fra Alaska (Oslo 1956)

Okpik, Abraham, and Spalding, Alex. 'Eskimo drum dance ceremony to be a feature at Dawson Festival,' OpCan, May-Jun 1962

Olsen, Poul Rovsing. 'Intervals and rhythm in the music of the Eskimos of East Greenland,' Proceedings of the Centennial Workshop in Ethnomusicology, ed Peter Crossley-Holland (Vancouver 1968)

Cavanagh, Beverley. 'Annotated bibliography: Eskimo music,' Ethnomusicology, vol 16, Sep 1972

- 'Imagery and structure in Eskimo song texts,' CFMJ, vol 1, 1973

- 'Some throat games of Netsilik Eskimo women,' ibid, vol 4, 1976

Estreicher, Zygmunt. 'Esquimaux,' Science de la musique, vol 1, ed Marc Honegger (Paris 1976)

Johnston, Thomas. Eskimo Music by Region: A Comparative Circumpolar Study (Ottawa 1976)

Beaudry, Nicole. 'Le Katajjaq, un jeu inuit traditionnel,' Inuit Studies, vol 2, no. 1, 1978

Hauser, Michael. 'Inuit songs from Southwest Baffin Island in cross-cultural context,' ibid, 2 parts, vol 2, no. 1 and 2, 1978

Lutz, Maija. The Effects of Acculturation on Eskimo Music of Cumberland Peninsula (Ottawa 1978). Includes a recording

Wickwire, Wendy. 'Songs of the Canadian Interior Salish Tribes: an Anthology and Ethnology.' M.A. Thesis, York University, 1978

Pelinski, Ramón et al. Inuit Songs from Eskimo Point (Ottawa 1979). Includes a recording

Pelinski, Ramón. La Musique des Inuit du Caribou: cinq perspectives méthodologiques (Montreal 1981)

Cavanagh, Beverley. Music of the Netsilik Eskimo: A Study of Stability and Change, 2 vols (Ottawa 1982). Includes a recording

Montpetit, Carmen, and Veillet, Céline. 'Musique inuit du Québec arctique: contribution à une méthode d'analyse en anthropologie de la musique,' Cahiers de l'ARMuQ, 3, Jun 1984

Beaudry, Nicole. Liner notes for Traditional Songs and Games of the Inuit (1985, CBC SQN-108), including musical transcriptions

- 'Singing, laughing and playing: three examples from the Inuit, Dene and Yupik traditions,' Canadian J of Native Studies, vol 8, no. 2, 1988

- 'La danse à tambour Yupik: une analyse de sa performance,' Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, vol 18, no. 4, 1988

Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. 'La danse à tambour chez les Inuit Igloolik (nord de la Terre de Baffin),' ibid

Dewar, Patricia. 'A historical and interpretive study of Inuit drum dance in the central Canadian Arctic: the meaning expressed in dance, culture and performance,' PH D thesis, University of Alberta 1990

Estreicher, Zygmunt. 'Eskimo-Musik,' MGG, vol 3

Author 1/Beverley Diamond 2/Anton Kolstee 3/Nicole Beaudry 4/Robert Witmer, Kenneth Peacock 5/Beverley Diamond, M. Sam Cronk, Franziska von Rosen 6/M. Sam Cronk 7/Nicole Beaudry, Beverley Diamond

Filmography

Circle of the Sun (NFB 1961)

Links to Other Sites
Four Directions Teachings
Elders and traditional teachers representing the Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibwe, Mohawk, and Mi’kmaq share teachings about their culture. Animated graphics visualize each of the oral teachings. This website also provides biographies of participants, transcripts, and extensive learning resources for students and their teachers. In English with French subtitles.

Centre for Indigenous Research, Culture, Language and Education
This research centre supports research, and delivery of linguistic and cultural materials of the First Peoples of North America as well as all Canadians. A special focus is on cultural expressions linked with music and language, both for Aboriginal Canadians and other indigenous people.

Native Drums in the Context of World Instruments
This essay briefly examines commonalities of symbolism and usage as well as unique versions of First Peoples’ drums, other percussive instruments, wind and string inventions.