In this article, Whidden examines 33 songs sung by Metis women. These songs tell the unique and often untold history of the Red River Valley Metis people.
Whidden, Lynn. “The Songs of Their Fathers.” Ethnologies 252 (2003): 107–130. DOI:10.7202/008050ar
Visions of Sound by Beverly Diamond, M. Sam Cronk, and Franziska von Rosen explores the traditional musical instruments of various Indigenous groups. This book provides photographs of artifacts from many museums across North America along with the history of the pieces. Visions of Sound also examines authenticity and the complications that arise when trying to prove the authenticity of Indigenous music and culture.
Diamond, Beverley, M. Sam Cronk, and Franziska Von Rosen. Visions of Sound: Musical Instruments of First Nations Communities in Northeastern America. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1994. Print.
As you can probably tell, Powwow is about powwows. Powwow gives a history of the powwow, highlighting the cultural significance in the practice and examining powwow traditions. As well, Clyde et al. explore how powwow practices have changed over the last few decades, from influences from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
Ellis, Clyde, Luke E. Lassiter, and Gary H. Dunham. Powwow. Lincoln, Neb.: U of Nebraska, 2006. Print.
Native American Music in Eastern North America by Beverly Diamond is a small, textbook like book which includes information about several traditional styles of Indigenous music, based off of the region they came from. Below is part of the description from the back of the book:
“Native American Music in Eastern North America is one of the first books to explore the contemporary musical landscape of indigenous North Americans in the north and east. It shows how performance traditions of Native North Americans have been influenced by traditional social values an cultural histories, as well as by encounters and exchanges with other indigenous groups and with newcomers from Europe and Africa.”
This book also comes with a CD containing 18 tracks that are referenced throughout the text.
Diamond, Beverly. Native American Music in Eastern North America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York, NY: Oxford U, 2008. Print.
Gesturing Indigenous Futurities Through the Remix by Karyn Recollet is a paper analyzing the YouTube video Ay I Oh Stomp by Skookum Sound System. In her paper, Recollet suggests that Ay I Oh Stomp uses remixing to bring Indigenous peoples out of the past and into the future, through the use of colours, overlaying one video over another, and mirroring the image. Recollet argues that “the layering of moving bodies is an instance wherein relatives are repatriated back to this time/ space continuum” (99). Ay I Oh Stomp layers a clip of a Kwakwaka’wakw Thunderbird dancer from the 1914 film In the land of the headhunters, onto footage of popper Julious iGlide Chisolm, dancing. This effect compares the traditional Thunderbird dancing to the modern style of popping. iGlide represents Indigenous Peoples in the future while the Kwakwaka’wakw Thunderbird dancer breaks into the frame, representing that Indigenous Peoples are not only a people of the past.
Here is the citation for this article and below is also the link to the Ay I Oh Stomp video. I would advise you to watch it, as it will make the paper more interesting.
Recollet, Karyn “Gesturing Indigenous Futurities Through the Remix.” Dance Research Journal, vol. 48 no. 1, 2016, pp. 91-105. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/617353.
Alexa Woloshyn’s article Hearing Urban Indigeneity in Canada: Self-Determination, Community Formation, and Kinaesthetic Listening with A Tribe Called Red, describes the way that Indigenous peoples are using music to bring people together and form a community around their shared experience of listening to and dancing to music. Woloshyn speaks of the experience at Electric Pow Wow, an event held at Babylon, a club in Ottawa on the second Saturday of every month. A Tribe Called Red often performs their “powwow step” at this event, which Woloshyn describes as “a genre that blends samples of powwow drumming and singing with dubstep,” (1). Woloshyn claims that the importance of A Tribe Called Red’s music and of Electric Pow Wow comes from the fact that “the music and movement of the Electric Pow Wow dance floor allow Aboriginal youth to express pride in their culture, celebrate their contemporary urban-based identities, and reject colonial regulation of the Aboriginal body,” (2). Woloshyn also examines three songs from A Tribe Called Red’s first two albums.
Included below is the citation for this article as well as links to the three A Tribe Called Red songs analyzed in the article.
Woloshyn, Alexa. “Hearing Urban Indigeneity in Canada: Self-Determination, Community Formation, and Kinaesthetic Listening with A Tribe Called Red.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 39.3 (2015): 1-23. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Feb. 2017.
Songs of the Indians Volumes 1 & 2 were edited by John Robert Colombo. These two books are a collection of traditional Indigenous songs from various regions throughout Canada. The first volume contains songs from six main linguistic groups, the Beothukan, Algonkian, Iroquoian, Athapaskan, Siouan, and Kootenayan. The second volume contains songs from the Salishan, Wakashan, Tsimshian, Haidan, Koluschan, and Chinkookan.
The full citation and ISBN is included below:
Colombo, John Robert. Songs of the Indians. Vol. 1-2. Ottawa: Oberon, 1983. Print.
ISBN 0 88750 492 2 (Hardcover)
ISBN 0 88750 493 0 (Softcover)