by Kip Lornell
Plains (Blackfoot, Crow, Dakota, etc., of the upper West and Midwest). Their music is marked by descending melodic lines using pentatonic scales. Rattles and shakers produce slight variations among the otherwise repetitive rhythmic patterns. The vocal style tends to utilize low, long tones and is very harsh and pulsating. Plains Indians make extensive use of vocables.
Native American Communities
East Coast (Iroquois, Mohawk, Penobscot, etc., from New England through the Great Lakes). These singers favor a more relaxed vocal style. Song forms tend to be more complex, often using a series of contrasting forms such as aababa. These phrases within the songs are fairly predictable, which helps to promote antiphonal singing. This important feature is unusual in Native American music.
Southwest and California (Yuman, Hopi, Apache, etc., from central California through New Mexico). A wide variety of scales are found among these tribes. Their voices tend to be lighter or toward the middle range with a nasal quality. The melodic lines often are broad and sweeping. Flutes are an important instrument and are often played in accompaniment to singing. The songs are set to intricate strophic texts. Native American music in this group is among the most complex in the United States.
Great Basin (Shoshone, Paiute, Navasupsai, etc., from Utah, Nevada, and northern California). Their music generally consists of short songs with very small melodic range and extreme repetition of phrases with little variation. The singing is relaxed and tends to be in the middle register. Great Basin Indians often use pentatonic or tetratonic scales.
Northwest Coast (Nootka, Salish, Tlingit, etc., of western Washington and Oregon). This style is generally complex. It makes use of small intervals and highly ornamented, varied rhythmic accompaniment. The musical forms are complicated and are built from short, repetitive phrases.
North (Eskimo and Inuit in Alaska). Their music is characterized by varied melodies of three or four notes, although pentatonic scales are not unknown. The songs are accompanied by complex percussion patterns, even dotted rhythms. The forms are nonstrophic and the singing is usually guttural and strained.
Instruments
The instruments used by Native Americans are almost all percussive, which helps to underscore the rhythmic drive heard in much of this music. Aside from the flute, nearly all of them are either rattles or drums. Rattles vibrate when they are struck, plucked, or shaken. Nearly all Native American tribes have used some kind of contained rattle that varies in its construction. Gourds, turtle shells, and woven baskets have all been used to contain small rocks or seeds. Small boxes struck by sticks are among the other types of rattles used by Indians to accompany their religious ceremonies.
Single-headed drums, which are held in one hand and struck by the other, are the most common type. They are ubiquitous except in California, where they are curiously absent. Double-headed drums are quite rare and may be a nineteenth-century innovation. Small kettledrums, sometimes filled with water to achieve a unique sound, have also been used by Indians in the East and the Plains.
The bullroarer is an instrument found across the world, but its presence in the United States is unique to Native Americans. Bullroarers are widely found in the West but are almost unknown east of the Mississippi River. They produce a nonmelodic sonority that is controlled by their size and construction. The most common bullroarers are made of a flat piece of bone or wood with a serrated edge that is attached to string or rawhide and whirled through the air.
Native American music today is increasingly Westernized and quite different than it was prior to colonization. Many younger Native American musicians are turning toward commercial country, rock, and hip-hop for their inspiration. Significantly, of the 1,000 tribes that once existed, scores have disappeared and most others have been culturally decimated. The push to Christianize Native Americans has changed many of the traditional modes of worship. Westernization has also radically altered the social and economic structures of Native American tribes, further disrupting the ways in which music has been used among Indians: Music is now used to entertain tourists in addition to the closed, sacred ceremonies. Many Native Americans maintain a balance between tradition and cultural change in a constant mediation between the white man’s world and an Indian heritage.
Heartbeat, contemporary Pan-Indian musical ensemble. Pat Ashley, Sr., photo, courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.
Powwows
Due to increased electronic communication and the enforced movement of different tribes onto reservations, some Native Americans have unified into a Pan-Indian movement that has provided a stronger sense of solidarity. The general concept of such gatherings is not new; American Indians have come together to celebrate such multi-tribal functions as harvesting for centuries. But beginning in the late nineteenth century the idea of a gathering across tribal lines—now called a powwow—began to gain favor and today is the most well known public gathering of Indians in the United States.
Powwows are usually held in the summertime and are most commonly staged in the Plains and Northwest, but now can be found from Maine to California and from Texas through North Dakota. The name for these weekend events derived from an Algonquian term referring to a healing ceremony. In the early twenty-first century, the name has been applied to a gathering involving socializing, foodways, and spiritual enlightenment. Arts and crafts are also sold, partly for cultural reasons but also for tribal fund-raising.
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MUSICAL EXAMPLE
This selection was recorded in the early 1970s at an outdoor powwow in a small village at the Leech Lake Reservation in north-central Minnesota. This lovely area of the state remains quite wild and many of the Native Americans continue to spend much of their time hunting and fishing. Unlike many powwows this one drew almost exclusively from members of the Chippewa (also known as Ojibwa), who populate the upper Midwest and south-central Canada. Most of the participants are males between the ages of twenty and forty.
Title “Song from an Outdoor Powwow”
Performers Ojibwa Indians
Instruments drums, rattle, and voices
Length 1:03
Musical Characteristics
1. A deliberate quarter-note rhythm is produced by the drums.
2. The tempo increases slightly during the performance.
3. The voices tend to be in the upper register and are tense.
4. A pentatonic scale is used by the singers.
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This selection is from Smithsonian Folkways 4392.
Music and dance are central to powwows, of course. The singing is dominated by males who usually sing in unison to the accompaniment of a single large bass drum. The dancers usually wear ornate and often highly symbolic regalia. Regional and specialized tribal dances are sometimes held in addition to the commonly practiced round dances. Over the past twenty years there has been a movement to increase unique tribal customs, such as the inclusion of games like lacrosse or gambling “hand games,” within Pan-Indian powwows because of the clear danger of homogenization. These local or tribal variations might seem minor to the casual observer but they help to make each powwow a bit different. This movement is, I believe, part of a larger trend within the United States to celebrate our distinctive regional and ethnic identities.
Despite such trends, the folk music of Native Americans has been radically altered by the forces of time and the inevitable intrusion of Anglo-American culture. A small but growing number of Indian rock ’n’ roll and electrified country music groups play at powwows, augmenting the more traditional music that has been part of these ceremonies. Several American Indian pop groups, including the rock-oriented White Boy and the Wagon Burners, played at the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife during the 1990s. A few other groups—most notably Heartbeat: Voices of First Nations Women—have come together to showcase female Indian performers, many of whom look not only to their own heritages bu
t also to other forms of American vernacular music, such as blues and gospel. Not surprisingly commercial country and western music has also been embraced by many Native Americans. Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Native American “folk” singer, first became a popular figure the early 1960s folk revival—recording for Vanguard, among other labels—while Jim Pepper emerged in the late 1960s as one of the few Indians playing modern jazz.
Hawaiian American
Because of its multifaceted heritage and its physical distance from the mainland, Hawaii’s folk and grassroots music seems not only exotic but far removed from that found in the rest of the United States. The population consists of people descended from early Polynesian Hawaiians, Asians, Caucasians, Puerto Ricans, and others who have migrated from nearby islands over the past several hundred years. They helped to form a unique enclave in America’s rather small empire before the Islands achieved statehood in 1959. A conspicuous revitalization of traditional chant and dance that began in the late 1960s has moved these folk arts into a valued place among contemporary Hawaiians. The statewide movement to recognize local traditions has been called the “Hawaiian Renaissance” and has brought well-deserved recognition to many of the Islands’ folk artists.
“Gabby” Pahinui, in particular, has received plenty of attention. He was a slack-key guitarist who almost single-handedly kept the tradition going from the late 1930s until the Renaissance began. Pahinui was not alone, of course, but his determination to keep playing in the older slack-key style typifies the struggle faced by many musicians in his position. Fortunately, Pahinui lived long enough to see a renaissance of this music, which owes its origins to the Hispanic traders who have frequented the Islands over the past 150 years.
Despite the emphasis on instrumental music over the last century, the Islands’ traditions have been predominately vocal. Hawaiian singing is closely allied to the concept of mana (cosmic energy), a belief in a sacred life force that fostered a reverence for creativity. Several types of vocal music could be heard in Hawaii, but the mele (chant) proved to be the most important. Soloists predominate in traditional Hawaiian chanting; those who could please their listeners with a sustained, unbroken performance were most sought after. Secondarily, a chanter should excel at prolonging and controlling vowel fluctuation and changing tone through manipulation of the chest muscles. Mele are usually narratives commenting upon religion, historical events, or societal issues.
The well-known hula actually refers to a dance that interprets a mele. Due both to increasing urbanization and shifting tastes, the older style of hula that interprets animal life has almost disappeared from the Hawaiian repertoire. Hulas can be performed sitting down or standing up. But in either case, the complicated gestures are keyed to words or phrases in the mele. Hula mele are rather formalized into contrasting sections, often abcbcbcd, to make them easier to follow. Seated hulas are often accompanied by body percussion or some sort of instrument, while standing hulas are generally augmented by at least one percussionist/chanter. At least two mele, oli and kepakepa, are strictly chanted traditions that are never interpreted by a hula.
Aside from the guitar, most of Hawaii’s folk instruments are percussive and the majority of them are affiliated with hula mele. For example, the pahu hula is a wooden drum made from a hollow log and its use is limited to accompany the hula pahu (hula dance). Other drums are made from indigenous material such as coconut shells (puniu). Rattles made of various indigenous gourds constitute the other important form of Hawaiian percussive instrument. Even beating wooden sticks against one another (kala’au) can accompany this dancing.
Western music began to be heard in the Islands almost as soon as Captain Cook landed there in 1778. By the early nineteenth century, the influence of Western secular and sacred music began to be felt. The early missionaries brought hymnals and the French introduced classical music and the necessary instruments to play it. Asian immigrants also brought their own folk and popular music. Ukulelelike instruments made their way to Hawaii in the early 1880s, brought over by Portuguese travelers.
Slack-key guitar (tuned to an open chord) techniques brought over by Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants in the 1830s proved to be the most significant import. By the late 1880s many of the Hawaiian guitarists were tuning their guitars to a major triad, a C-E-G in a C-major chord, and playing a style with a slide that produced a unique sound. Joseph Kekuku is alleged to be the man who innovated this style when he slid a comb across the strings of his guitar, which was placed across his knees. As Bob Brozman, Lorene Ruymar, and other scholars of the Hawaiian slide guitar have suggested, the sound of a slide guitar may have appealed to Hawaiians because its sustained tones reflect the elongated vowels sung by mele chanters. As the twentieth century dawned on the shores of Waikiki Beach, slack-key guitar was firmly entrenched as part of Hawaii’s vernacular music. And some one hundred years later, slack-key guitar music (along with the hula dance) is now so closely associated with Hawaii that many people have forgotten its origins.
This style became influential on the mainland when a fad for Hawaiian music began in 1915. George E. K. Awai’s Royal Hawaiian Quartet, along with other local musicians and dancers, evoked a sensational response at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Almost immediately the Victor company moved to exploit the situation. Their 1915 catalogue states: “Victor recently announced a fine list of favorite Hawaiian numbers, rendered by the now famous Hawaiian Quintette, who have made such a success in the ‘Bird of Paradise’ Company; the gifted Toots Paka Troupe, and the Irene West Royal Hawaiians, who have appeared in vaudeville. Although these fine records were intended mainly for customers in the Hawaiian Islands, they have been largely acquired by those Victor customers who like quaint and fascinating music such as this” (Victor Record Company catalogue, November 1915).
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MUSICAL EXAMPLE
This mele hula was recorded during a performance on April 8, 1980, at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. According to the performer, it was initiated by the goddess, Hi’iaka, younger sister of Pele, the volcano goddess. Ko’olau is the lush windward side of the island of O’ahu, which is steep and ripe like a rainforest. The rustling sounds of the shell wreaths that embellish the dancers are the sound you hear in the background.
Title “A Ko’olau Au’ Ika I Ka Ua”
Performer Hoakalei Kamau’u and Kawaiokawaawaa Akim (caller)
Instruments drum and voice Length 1:35
Musical Characteristics
1. There is basically a duple meter feel with some minor rhythmic embellishments.
2. A steady moderate tempo, which increases slightly, is quickly established.
3. The voice is in a fairly high register and has some vibrato.
4. A modified call and response is used.
A Ko’olau au ‘ike I ka ua
E kokolo a lepo mai ana e ka ua
E ka’i ku ana [ka’i] mai ana I ka us
A’e nu mai ana I ka ua I ke kuakiwi
E po’i [ho’i] mai ana I ka ua me he nalu
E puka, e puka, mai ana e ka ua
From Ko’olau, I watch the rain
The rain that pours on the earth
The rain passes by in columns
It rumbles as it falls in the mountains
The rain rises like the waves of the sea
Lo, the rain comes, it comes
This selection is from Smithsonian/Folkways 40015.
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The shockwaves hit Tin Pan Alley with great force and they began churning out pseudo-Hawaiian songs for a mass market. As other Hawaiian musicians toured the United States they brought along other songs, but they also performed the Tin Pan Alley material that their audiences requested. Hulas became caught in this craze, too. Vaudeville stages and circus shows were considered incomplete if they didn’t include a cootch or hoochie cootchie dancer, who was almost never Hawaiian and generally quite provocative. By the 1920s many American musicians were singing songs in Englis
h with Hawaiian themes, called hapa haloe. This craze culminated in 1937 when the hapa haloe “Sweet Leilani” garnered an Oscar for best song.
Anglo and Afro-American folk musicians heard this music and embraced the basic concept of playing an open-tuned guitar with a slide. Some black musicians were already using a similar style, but the Hawaiian fad served to reinforce its popularity. The slurring of the slide upon the strings mirrored the ability of harmonica players to move between the whole and half steps of Western scales. Many of the hillbilly musicians who pioneered the recording of country music were familiar with this style, too. A few musicians, such as the Dixon Brothers, enjoyed extensive recording careers using Hawaiian-style accompaniment. Jimmie Rodgers made several successful records in 1930 using Lani McIntire’s Hawaiians to back up his patented blue yodeling and singing. Even May-belle Carter used the slide technique on a 1929 session, though her influence probably came more directly from African American musicians. Certainly the pedal-steel guitar, which developed in the late 1930s and flourished in country music during the 1940s and 1950s especially in western swing and honky-tonk, owes a great deal to the slack-key and Hawaiian fad. Even a Tennessee hillbilly like Roy Acuff included a “Hawaiian” guitar player in his popular band—the Smokey Mountain Boys—during their heyday on the Grand Ole Opry.
Contemporary Hawaiian folk music involves a synthesis of older traditions and Western influences. It is largely performed for the booming tourist trade, not its informal traditional context. Hulas accompanied by chanting are available to any tourist on a daily basis. The revitalization has continued not only because of the recognition of its past, but also because of a vested economic interest in the tourists who wish to see things uniquely Hawaiian.