Native American Music - Pan-tribalism

Pan-tribalism

Pan-tribalism is the syncretic adoption of traditions from foreign communities. Since the rise of the United States and Canada, Native Americans have forged a common identity, and invented pan-tribal music, most famously including powwows, peyote songs and the Ghost Dance.

The Ghost Dance spread throughout the Plains tribes in the 1890s, and most still survive in use. They are characterized by relaxed vocals and a narrow range. Apache-derived peyote songs, prayers in the Native American Church, use a descending melody and monophony. Rattles and water drums are used, in a swift tempo. The Sun Dance and Grass Dance of the plains are the roots of intertribal powwows, which feature music with terraced descent and nasal vocals, both Plains characteristic features.

An example of an intertribal song is the AIM Song, which uses meaningless vocables to make it accessible to people of all tribes. However, because of its origins from the Lakota and Ojibwe people, it still retains some Plains characteristics.

John Trudell launched a new genre of spoken word poetry in the 1980s, beginning with Aka Graffiti Man (1986). The next decade saw further innovations in Native American popular music, including Robbie Robertson (of The Band) releasing a soundtrack for a documentary, Music for the Native Americans, that saw limited mainstream success, as well as Verdell Primeaux and Johnny Mike's modernized peyote songs, which they began experimenting with on Sacred Path: Healing Songs of the Native American Church. Waila (or chicken scratch music of the Tohono O'odham) has gained performers like the Joaquin Brothers fame across Native American communities, while hip hop crews like WithOut Rezervation and Robby Bee & the Boyz From the Rez (Reservation of Education) have a distinctively Native American flourish to hip hop. In the 21st Century the leading light of contemporary Native American music has been Martha Redbone whose award winning albums Home of the Brave (2002) and Skintalk (2005) have incorporated both traditional song and culture references into a brew of soul, funk, rock and jazz that has reached audiences across Europe and Japan as well as into the urban communities of the US. Meanwhile, young Native musicians such as Red Earth (see "Zia Soul" (2003) ), DJ Abel, Derek Miller, Ethnic DeGeneration, War Water, and Casper are producing outstanding underground music (ranging from hip-hop to funk to reggae to metal) defying stereotypes of Native people (without label support).

American Indian opera is an intertribal music tradition, created when Gertrude Bonnin, a Yankton activist collaborated with a classical composer William Hanson to create the opera, Sun Dance in 1913. Cherokee Nation mezzo soprano opera singer, Barbara McAlister has performed in many opera troupes and has sung at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. Brulé Lakota band Brulé and the American Indian Rock Opera create fullscale contemporary musical performances, including "Concert for Reconciliation of the Cultures."