The thesis attempts to fill one of the many gaps in the research of Northwest Coast Indian musics by providing the first study of Bella Coola songs as they have been preserved on tape. The work is based on my own field recordings and notes, the wax cylinder recordings and contextual reconstrucr tions of T.F. Mcllwraith, tapes made by the B.C. Indian Language Project, by Mildred Valley Thornton, by Philip Davis, and by the Bella Coola. themselves. Part One of the study describes the ethnographic context of the songs. A discussion of the situations in which they were used, the performance organization (principal performers, instruments and so on) with which they were associated, and the two types of compositional processes employed to create them is included. Part Two consists of an analysis of the music's structural characteristics. Modal and formal processes, drum rhythms, language-melody interactions, and style change (over a 51 year period) are examined. Dance, language, and histrionics played significant roles in determining certain of the music's attributes. The hierarchy of the music's structural characteristics was found to strongly reflect that of their functional categories. Finally, Part Three provides 73 original transcriptions that encompass a broad spectrum of the Bella Coola ceremonial and non-ceremonial repertoires. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

Hopi traditional songs or taatawi are more than aesthetic objects; they are sound-based expressions of Hopi authority. As I argue in this dissertation, creating, performing, circulating, and remembering taatawi are what we might call acts of sonic sovereignty: a mode of authority articulated within ongoing, sound-based networks that include Hopi people, plants, weather systems, land, and other living things within Hopi territories. I begin by exploring the generative process through which taatawi do their connective work, which includes long-term collaborations between yeeyewat (composers) and environmental actors that establish a collective vision of prosperity that is realized when these songs are performed. Hopi composer Clark Tenakhongva’s taatawi performances during Grand Canyon National Park’s Centennial (a Hopi sacred space currently controlled by settler governments) exemplify the ways Hopi people are actively using taatawi to (re)assert Hopi relations to colonized territories. Because taatawi are closely tied to Hopi relations to one another and the land, and sometimes contain specialized forms of knowledge held closely by Hopi clans and ceremonial societies, their ownership and circulation remains of vital concern to Hopi people. Laura Boulton’s recording of Hopi singers Dan Qötshongva, Thomas Bahnaqya and David Monongye in the Summer of 1940, and the travels of those recordings afterwards, show us the complex politics of Hopi song circulation in the early Twentieth Century up through the present, and how settler cultural and intellectual property laws provide only limited possibilities for indigenous groups seeking to bring their ancestors’ voices back under their control. And even if tribes could reclaim taatawi under settler property laws, these laws require physical and conceptual transformations that effectively sever them from the networks of relations from which they were created. To better support Hopi sonic sovereignty going forward, I offer brief sketches for three potential interventions: (1) an indigenous works amendment to the United States Copyright Act; (2) the use of indigenized licensing frameworks to embed indigenous protocols into the governance and circulation of indigenous creative works both on and off indigenous lands; and (3) establishing a right to indigenous care, similar to Europe’s right to forget, whereby our ancestors’ voices can be subject to indigenous care rather than preserved anonymously and perpetually as archival objects. My hope is that these will allow indigenous communities to better assert and maintain control over their modes of sonic sovereignty despite the increasing colonization of the sonic world by global intellectual property regimes.

Slahal is a gambling game played by North American natives on the North Pacific coast. This activity is of particular interest to the ethnomusicologist because of the large body of songs which not only accompanies but also is intimately linked with it. The thesis which follows is a résumé of research done over the past two and one-half years and deals with the slahal songs of the Coast Salish. I begin with a description of the game itself the object of which is to guess the location of two tokens concealed in the hands of the opponents. We soon learn that gambling music, as one may say about music in general, has a certain power -- the ability to elevate the entire game experience into a different and more exciting realm than that of an ordinary game. The main bulk of the thesis is in the second part where I have presented 77 representative songs out of 194, transcribed from over twelve hours of music. Along with the songs are analyses and comments which are found in summary form in Part III. The concluding section touches upon the significance of slahal in present-day Indian culture. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

My paper defines and analyzes the use of Native American elements in classical piano repertoire that has been composed based on Native American tribal melodies, rhythms, and motifs. First, a historical background and survey of scholarly transcriptions of many tribal melodies, in chapter 1, explains the interest generated in American indigenous music by music scholars and composers. Chapter 2 defines and illustrates prominent Native American musical elements. Chapter 3 outlines the timing of seven factors that led to the beginning of a truly American concert idiom, music based on its own indigenous folk material. Chapter 4 analyzes examples of Native American inspired piano repertoire by the "Indianist" composers between 1890-1920 and other composers known primarily as "mainstream" composers. Chapter 5 proves that the interest in Native American elements as compositional material did not die out with the end of the "Indianist" movement around 1920, but has enjoyed a new creative activity in the area called "Classical Native" by current day Native American composers. The findings are that the creative interest and source of inspiration for the earlier "Indianist" compositions was thought to have waned in the face of so many other American musical interests after 1920, but the tradition has recently taken a new direction with the success of many new Native American composers who have an intrinsic commitment to see it succeed as a category of classical repertoire. Native American musical elements have been misunderstood for many years due to differences in systems of notation and cultural barriers. The ethnographers and Indianist composers, though criticized for creating a paradox, in reality are the ones who saved the original tribal melodies and created the perpetual interest in Native American music as a thematic resource for classical music repertoire, in particular piano repertoire.

American Indian music and dance traditions unilaterally contain the following three elements: singing, dancing, and percussion instruments. Singing and dancing are of the utmost importance in American Indian dance traditions, while the expression of percussion instruments is superfluous. Louis W. Ballard has composed a piece of music for percussion ensemble which was inspired by the music and dance traditions of American Indian tribes from across North America. The controversy that this presents is relative to the fact that there is no American Indian tradition for a group comprised exclusively of percussion instruments. However, this percussion ensemble piece, Cacega Ayuwipi, does exhibit the three elements inherent to all American Indian music and dance traditions. Cacega Ayuwipi is consistent with American Indian traditions in that the audience must see the instruments, watch the movements of the percussionists, and hear the percussive expressions in order to experience the musical work in its entirety. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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The purpose of this study was to determine the instructional methods of Oklahoma's elementary school music educators with respect to the inclusion of an authentic repertoire of American Indian music in the curriculum. The research was conducted through two methods. First, an analysis and review of adopted textbook series and pertinent supplemental resources on American Indian music was made. Second, a survey of K-6 grade elementary music specialists in Oklahoma during the 1997-1998 school year was conducted.