Native American Flutes Essay

A Native American Pow Wow is the Native American ceremonies which have evolved from a formal ceremony of the past into a modern variety of dance, family reunion, and festival. It contains with the colorful tribal dance contests, handmade product, crafts show, tipis, and singing. As a social skill, Powwow is the Native American’s best way of meeting together to join in dancing, singing, making new friends. Dances play an essential part of the life of the Native American. Over the years, even dance styles and content have changed, but their profound meaning and importance have not.

Instruments used to portray these various styles of music were often drums of all shapes and sizes, rattles, and often tambourines or bells with other percussion instruments. The drums were constructed by using such materials as clay, iron, wood or aluminum with heads of buckskin, chamois, or rubber. These drums were typically played with a single drumstick, holding a steady pattern of four beats. Also, in addition to these instruments there were wind instruments.

In the beginning, many native americans were killed, while Omaamikwe was guided by a spirit. Protecting Omaamikwe was the spirit’s task and succeeded. Then, after some time a drum came to Omaamikwe which was the big drum. Omaamikwe was instructed on all the songs and eventually the big drum society was formed. Today the big drum is a powwow drum which is very social to the people. The drum’s purpose is to bring people together at a powwow. Which is a gathering of people to celebrate their heritage. The arrival of the drum allowed people to communicate with spirits and was vital to their own spirituality. Such vitals were pleasure, healing, hunting, war, and ceremony to ensure the spirits were with them. A sound of thunder comes from the drum

The most interesting part that I found was the dancing part. The Native Indian are always good at express their emotion through the dancing. Every tribe has they own way to express the reverence for natural, the delight of hunting and the desire of victory. These wonderful conversations between the Manitou and people, has formed the special art in the Native American. Certainly, there are music accompany with dances, and the instrument are contain spiritual symbol as well. For instance, drum plays an important role in the Powwow. The article “Without the drum, there would be no Powwow” mention that “ Our drum has character, we have that powwow spirit, and people dance.” Drum is not only represent the core of Native people faith, but also is the heartbeat of the creator. Powwow drum are often make by circle, because circle stands for lifecycle. People surrounding and beat the drum, like the life turning and returning.

They were the best educated of all tribes with more students per capita enrolled in higher education. Comanches had doctors, lawyers, chiefs, teachers, principals, superintendents, nurses, actors, authors, artists, people in every profession. They would do an outstanding job representing themselves and the Comanche people. They liked to go hunting and fishing with their fathers, help their mothers around the home, and loved to play games. Most of the children's favorite game was called the Comanche Animal Ball. It is similar to the game of basketball. They were famous for their silver and copper jewelry. They loved to make necklaces and bracelets for themselves and others. Some people would make the bow instrument out of beads and bristle, which symbolized the war turning into peace. The men and women loved to play music. The water drum was the traditional instrument that the Comanches played. It was made out of cowhide, water seven pebbles, rope, and a bucket. The Comanche traditional music and songs were passed along from generation to

According to Rose, within the Native American music, “No harmony is ever incorporated, although sometimes many people sing at once, and other times the vocals are solo. The Native American vocals are passionate, used to invoke spirits, ask for rain or healing, or are used to heal the sick.” Like Rose, Native American Music – The Beating of Native Drums and Flutes, agrees that the “Native American Indians worshipped the spirits of the animals, the sun, the moon and the stars and everything else that they could not explain. The songs they sang and danced to were meant to honor these spirits as stated but many of their traditional celebrations would also have re-enactments of these stories, where members of the tribe would dress up and perform ceremonial dances to the gods while they would re-enact tribal myths.” As made aware through thr exploration of what the music is, the representation is lost through study and inappropriate understanding due to westernized intuition.

Ojibway Indian men usually wore breechcloths and leggings. The women wore dresses and kept their hair in neat braids. Their shoes were called moccasins. They were made out of deer or moose hide. Customarily, they wore leather headbands with feathers in the back. The Ojibway Indians made pictures, belts, purses, and other objects out of beads. They loved to use wampum beads in their artwork. Wampum beads are purple and white beads made from shells. The Ojibway Indians make beadart by sewing the beads onto leather so they can be placed individually or sewn into strips. They make the strips by stitching the beads into a string. This is usually done by hand or sometimes with a bowloom. Beadart takes years to master and is very time consuming for the Ojibway Indians. The Ojibway also made dream catchers out of sticks and feathers. They believed that the dream catchers would protect them from bad dreams.

“Put on a show!” The director’s command echoed across the field as the drum corps began its routine in front of thousands of spectators. What attracts people to be involved in such a demanding and strenuous activity? The concept of drum corps has changed drastically over the last 200 years. Tracing its origins from before the American Revolution through the Civil War and into the modern era, today’s concept of drum corps has evolved from a military necessity to a major form of entertainment.

In chapter ten, author Bruno Nettle takes the reader to the town of Browning, Montana, where he is about to witness a modern Native American ceremony. As he observes, he notices that only one-half of the people there are actual Native Americans. The rest are are white tourists and innocent observers just like himself. Eventually, somewhere around eighteen singing groups appear from different tribes and reservations. They will be summoning the dancers into what is known as the grand entry. Nettle notices that the overall style of the music remains the same among all of the different groups, or `drums.' People are able to interact by taking pictures, video and tape recording what goes on. In that

While researching the country of Hawaii’s musical culture and history I was able to find some very interesting things that are present in modern Hawaii. From the causes of musical oppression, fight for independence and revival of Hawaiian culture I will talk about how all of these contributed to the current culture of Hawaiian drum dance.

Native Americans culture is unique for many ways. Living on the reservations they were in touch with nature as well as their ancestors. Native Americans are disputed in the country, diverse among tribes, culturally mixed, and recognize their own political stands (Bordewich, 1996, p. 71). These have changed over the years, but before the reconstruction of the Native Americans the people were identifiable and knew who they were.

The roots and customs of Native American tribes run deep. A feeling of respect and tradition is in the air. Every little detail has meaning and a certain level of pride and of importance to each individual taking part in the ceremony. According to Access

In the United States, few symbols represent the American culture and spirit as much as the banjo. Indeed, it is not only symbolic of the evolution of American music, but also of the way in which cultural influences and relationships have evolved since the country was young. When the historical roots and subsequent evolution of this instrument are examined, it becomes clear that it has become an inherent part of the history and culture of the country. From its origins as an imported African instrument, the banjo has evolved to become representative of not only intercultural communication and tolerance, but also of liberation and freedom.

Recently there has been a new found interest in music history along with its cultures but the revival or interest in American Indian music is nowhere to be found. One issue with popularization or revival of American Indian music is its unique use of timbre which most western music lack, along with the variations on sound, American Indian music is best understood from the context of their culture, past, religion, and spiritual beliefs. When listening to music today there is a correlation with pitch of the singer’s voice along with the instruments complementing these sounds. In many of the cultural song of the Indians it could be hard for someone in modern day to find a correlation with the pitch and the instruments because at times it seems

Often folklorists and ethnographers use the terms: flute, flageolet, and whistle rather loosely and interchangeably. Since the flute or transverse flute and the flageolet, a type of recorder, allocate similar meanings and usage in American Indian Culture, they will be treated as one. For the purpose of this paper, the term flute will be used in reference to the instrument in general. It is important to note that the implications of the whistle are distinctively different from that of the flute and flageolet; for this reason, research about the whistle and accounts of the rituals involving whistles will not be included in this