How Native American music carries cultural knowledge

Music in Native American culture is created, used, and performed by Indigenous peoples across North America, and Gertrude Bonnin collaborated with William Hanson to create the opera Sun Dance in 1913. The lessons answer how music carries cultural knowledge and helps people understand history, beliefs, and ways of life. They consider how music connects learning, community values, and cultural practices.

3 articles, 1 book · about 41 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   "Building appreciation for Indigenous cultures in Mexico via music education" · dspace.library.uvic.ca · 2 min read

   Huasteco Music Culture Bearers say music making serves secular and ritual purposes throughout Huasteco people's lives, connecting it intrinsically with their worldview. They favor embedding Huasteco music making in the educational system when it is rooted in cultural values and practices, so its transmission acknowledges that worldview.

2. Read
   "Northwest Coast Indians Musical Instruments" · metmuseum.org · 4 min read

   Northwest Coast music is largely associated with ceremony and potlatches, where songs accompany ceremonial dances and potlatches regulate the ownership of music, land, title, and ancestral names. Cultural taboos surrounding song and dance ownership have remained intact into the twenty-first century, with some leniency for varying degrees of observance of traditional lifeways.

3. Read
   

   the significance of music in native american culture · Wikipedia · 35 min read

   In Native American music, the Navajo historical song "Shi' naasha'" celebrates the end of Navajo internment in Fort Sumner, New Mexico in 1868. The Bird songs, a song cycle in Native American music, depict the southward migration of the Cahuilla people and contain lessons on life as well as other topics. Altogether, they make up more than 300 pieces of music, traditionally performed in a specific sequence.

4. Book
   

   Ceremony · Bookshop.org

   Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko describes Tayo's return to the Indian past, traditions, and ancient stories, as his search becomes a curative ceremony that defeats despair. It also shows how ritual and inherited stories can offer comfort and resolution.

Book links are Bookshop.org affiliate links. Curiate may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you — Bookshop.org also gives a share to independent bookshops.