Native American Almanac by Yvonne Wakim Dennis

Author:Yvonne Wakim Dennis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781578596089
Publisher: Visible Ink Press
Published: 2016-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Native music and dance occur everywhere at specific sacred places, like Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, and at public harvestings, such as powwows, fairs, and graduation ceremonies. Many performances have secret and invisible meanings that cannot be categorized by outsiders. Even though some music and dance has always been for entertainment, spirituality and worldview affect most of the performances. Many Native ceremonies are practiced to renew the world or keep it in balance. Others, such as those of the Tewa Pueblo, maintain relationships with spirits, each other, and other communities through music and dance. These activities range from extremely private and sacred harvestings, restricted to the initiated or birth clans, to some that are public and joking in nature and that may be accompanied by carnivals and concession stands.

Dance is still important to Native ways of life. Due to their spiritual origins, and because dances are often tied to seasonal or life-cycle events, they are regionally or tribally specific, the singers usually perform in Native languages, and the ceremonies themselves unfold according to local customs. Rather than expressing individual prowess, dancers usually adhere to established patterns and movements. While many dances have vocal and drum accompaniment, often the dancers themselves, activating the rattles and bells that adorn their ceremonial dress, set their own beat.

Many Pueblo dances require the dancers to move forward into the plaza, dance in lines, then move together to the next dance plaza in a circling of the village. Most ceremonies are seasonal, are organized, directed, and regulated by clans and societies, and feature specific roles for ceremonial leaders, singers, dancers, and supporters. Many are called Feast Days because the members of the Pueblo expect their friends, relatives, and sometimes visitors to drop in and accept their hospitality. Some ceremonies are open to outsiders if they respect the sacred aspects of the events, behave with decorum, and do not take pictures or make recordings without permission. Some of the more famous ceremonies are the Zuni Shalako (a masked winter dance), San Ildefonso Corn Dance (a harvest dance), and the Okeh Owingen Deer Dance (a winter game-hunting dance).

Among the Apache and Navajo, curing rituals and girls’ puberty ceremonies are the best known contexts for music and dance. The White Mountain Apache Sunrise Dance (for a girl who is becoming a woman) and the Navajo Enemy Way exemplify these ideals. Each reinforces group beliefs and brings a person into the community or back into the community. Apache and Navajo song style are similar: tense, nasal voices, rhythmic pulsation, and clear articulation of words in alternating verses with vocables, words made up of sounds or letters that do not always mean something and are common in Native American music. Both Apache Crown dancers and Navajo Yeibichei (Night Chant) dancers wear masks and sing partially in falsetto or in voices imitating the spirits.

In the desert area and urban sprawl of southern Arizona (Tucson and Phoenix) and in northern Mexico, the Tohono O’odham, Akimel O’odham (Pima), and the Yaqui continue to carry out traditional ceremonies alongside innovative and hybrid ceremonial forms.

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