Musical Styles of North American Tribes
Natalie Curtis Burlin, an American ethnomusicologist and family friend of Theodore Roosevelt, summarizes the musical styles of several indigenous tribes of North America as an introduction to a larger compilation…
From: 1907 C.E. To: 1907 C.E.
Location: North America
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
"Introduction" from The Indians' Book compiled by Natalie Curtis Burlin, 1907.
Different Indian tribes differ as widely in their music and in their manner of singing as in their life and customs. Yet there is one characteristic peculiarity of Indian song that is almost universal. This is a rhythmic pulsation of the voice on sustained notes somewhat analogous to the effect produced on the violin when the same note is slightly sounded several times during one stroke of the bow. This pulsating accentuation is expressed in this book wherever tied notes have vocables or syllables written out beneath them. The effect must be heard, however, in order adequately to be reproduced. Also it should always be borne in mind that Indian music is essentially for singing. It cannot properly be performed on an instrument of percussion, such as a piano, but must be sung, or at least played on a stringed instrument. Nor can it be too emphatically stated that all notation of Indian music, however accurate, must necessarily be but as a skeleton to the living form.
The actual melody can be recorded, with its rhythmic accompaniment of drum or rattle. But the rendering of the song; the vocal embellishment, the strange gutturals, slurs, and accents that make Indian singing so distinctive; all this is altogether too subtle and too much a part of the voice itself to be possible of notation.
The Indians of the Lakes and Plains whose lives in the old days were exposed to all the severities of weather, and who still sing constantly in the open air and against the wind, have voices more striking for their stirring ring than for actual beauty, as we deem it. The voices of the men extend in range from a sort of falsetto tenor to a bass so deep as scarcely to sound the pitch of any given note. Accents are made by an almost harshly aspirated staccato attack, and sustained notes are often sung with a tightening of the throat that produces a peculiar quaver.
The songs frequently begin with high quavering tones, then gradually descend and end with low phrases that break off or die away on open vowel syllables. This is consistent with the sounds of nature and with the cries of animals. Indeed, the Indian can so imitate the call of a bird or the howl of the wolf as to be entirely deceptive.
The singing of the Plains women is less violent in its accent and more legato than that of the men, and its mellow nasal quality suggests the rustic note of the oboe.
The song of the Plains Indian has its fitting surrounding in the fire-lit lodge or the open prairie. The drum-beat, vibrant in the crisp, cold air of a winter night, adds its throb to the life-puIse of this music which is exciting, exhilarating, and inspiring through its spirit and vitality.
Strikingly different is the song of the Pueblo Indian. The shrill coyote cry of the Plains warrior is unknown to the Southwestern tiller of the soil. The song of the Pueblo men is a strong, clear out-pouring from full lungs, while the note of the ceremonial chant is deep and solemn. The women of the Rio Grande and Zuni Pueblos have high and flutelike voices; but the gentle Hopi women sing with veiled tone of peculiar feminine charm, and the long-drawn slurring of their phrases gives to their singing a certain vagueness of quality and intonation that is altogether alluring in its suggestion of the surrounding empty desert.
The sacred songs of the Navajos and Apaches are chanted with low nasal swing, but the dance-songs are sung with lusty vigor, and the call of the shepherd on the mountain-side echoes in clear-cut beauty through cliffs and canons.
Like all folk-music, the music of the Indian is the spontaneous and sincere expression of the soul of a people. It springs from our own continent, and is thus, of all music, distinctively American.
Natalie Curtis Burlin, comp., The Indians' Book (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1907).
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