Introduction

Listen to “Darling Don’t Cry” from Buffy Sainte-Marie’s 1996 album Up Where We Belong. This song beautifully captures a small snapshot of contemporary Native American music by combining powwow music and mainstream pop music, as discussed in Chapter 3 with her song “Starwalker.”

Sainte-Marie based her version of “Darling Don’t Cry” on the powwow song “Darling Don’t Cry” sung by the Red Bull Singers. Today’s Native American culture includes mainstream American culture, nation-specific traditions, and intertribal traditions.

Intertribal activities are those that, while specifically Native American, do not belong to any specific nation; intertribal music is music that is made by and for Native Americans and is not connected to a specific nation. Native American commercial/popular music is intertribal because rock, rap, and other contemporary styles are Native American when performed by Native American artists, but are not styles associated with specific Native nations. Music of the Native American Church and music played on the Native American flute are intertribal, as is Waila/Chicken Scratch and Powwow music. This chapter will include discussions of Powwow music and commercial music.

Powwow Music

Why we dance
To dance is to pray, To pray is to heal, To heal is to give, To give it is to live, To live is to dance.
-Marijo Moore, Gathering of Nations Program, 2020; page 25.

“Whenever you have one singer, one drum, one dancer, you powwow; you’re good to go.
It begins with the drumbeat , that is the center.”
-Jonathan Windy Boy, Gathering of Nations Program, 2020; page 54.

A powwow is a gathering to sing and dance.   Powwows have always been intertribal – i.e.  they are not associated with a single tribe nor have they ever been. The origin of the powwow lies in pre-colonial trade gatherings among different plains nations, while the modern powwow dates from the mid-20th century (Keillor et al 2013).  Many tribes host one powwow per year, ensuring that it is on a different weekend than all other powwows. This is a vibrant, modern performance culture with many people traveling from spring through fall to hundreds of powwows across the nation. Each weekend there is a different powwow in a different place.   Some people make their living as competitive dancers by doing this.

Today, Powwows create a Native American space to celebrate identity and heritage. While anyone is welcome to come to a powwow, they are organized by and for Native Americans. Some participants go to buy or sell traditional crafts and food, while others attend to compete in the music or dance. Some audience members come to watch and learn. Everyone goes to a powwow to have a good time.

While Powwow songs all involve a big drum accompanying a group of singers all singing the same tune, as we hear in the Red Bull’s performance of “Darling Don’t Cry,”  the music and the dance at a powwow function in different ways for different people. Artists go to powwows to compete in dancing and singing as a way to earn money. For many, the dance is a sacred connection to a traditional spirituality.  You can find various videos on YouTube capturing different dances from different powwows. In 2019 FNX TV: First Nations Experience posted the documentary, California Powwow. In this film, participants in the San Manuel Powwow explain what the gathering means to them. In the spring of 2020 instead of canceling the events, many powwows went virtual (Fonesca 2020). This demonstrates how important these events are to the participants. Here is another short video view of powwow and what they can mean in the lives of participants: Experience America’s Largest Powwow.

Powwow music and dance communicates and celebrates Native American identity outside of a powwow event. In 1996, Powwow singers and dancers performed at the Atlanta Summer Olympics.

Powwow songs build community at many types of gatherings, including protests. This video of  “Darling Don’t Cry” at the Idle No More protest in Salt Lake City Utah shows a flash mob singing Red Bull’s powwow song “Darling Don’t Cry” in Salt Lake City in December, 2012 at an Idle No More protest.

Singing groups record powwow songs on CDs for personal and radio play. Even outside of a powwow, the music reinforces identity. As scholar and dancer Tara Browner notes “For many participants, [powwow] songs fill a specific sonic and emotional void, especially when speeding down a rural highway played at full blast on the car stereo. Detached from their original function and meaning, the songs create a kind of portable Indian space, not really an extension of the pow-wow arena but instead an intensification of self” (Browner 2009).

Hundreds of powwows run each year throughout North America. As large gatherings, they are held in outdoor or indoor arenas; Spectators sit in the stands watching the dancers in the center. They can be held anytime of the year, but most are held between spring and fall. They usually run all day over long weekends. Anyone from anywhere can go to a powwow to be in the audience.  Some songs in the powwow are specifically set aside for everyone – native and non-native- to dance. Other songs that are part of the competition are only for Native Americans to dance.

Both men and women have always danced in powwows. Both men and women can dance in the songs that are for all people,  but men and women compete in different dances, grouped by both gender and age.  Boys dance men’s dances separately from adults and girls dance women’s dances separately from adults.    In competitive dances, men and women dance separately and are grouped by ages. There are several different types of dances for men and women.   For example,  jingle dance and fancy shawl dance are women’s dances.

The grass dance and fancy dance are men’s dances.  Competition dancers usually choose one type of dance on which to focus their activities. The different dances for the different age and gender groups are scheduled throughout each day at specific times. Page five in the program for the 2020 Gathering of Nations powwow shows the schedule of dances for the 2019 powwow. Page 36 of the same booklet  summarizes some of the different styles of dancing together with the associated regalia.

The audience for Powwow music and dance goes well beyond individual events, and the best groups make records to sell commercially. While not necessarily mainstream, Powwow music can be a commercial style of music just like country or rap. Also like country music and rap, Powwow music can be strongly tied to, and expressive of, the listener’s identity. As Tara Browner (Choctaw) says:

Detached from their original function and meaning, the songs create a kind of portable Indian space, not really an extension of the pow-wow arena but instead an intensification of self.
-(Browner 2009)

The music for Powwow dancing is made by a small group of men sitting around and striking a single large drum as they sing. This type of group is called a Drum. Drum with an uppercase D refers to the ensemble, while drum with a lowercase d refers to the instrument.

The distinctive singing style of Powwow Drums carries well over large distances through large arenas, but even so are normally amplified at powwows. The men in these groups, like Red Bull Singers who performed the powwow song “Darling Don’t Cry,” are frequently family and friends, trained informally through repetition and practice with more experienced members, passing on their songs and skills to younger men. Multiple groups might play at larger powwows, and groups will travel to many powwows each year just like dancers do, and there are competitions for drum groups to earn money just like there are for dancers. Traditionally women are not part of powwow Drums. Today, most groups are all male, some groups include women, and a few drum groups are all women. The recognizable sound of a powwow song is the prominent drumbeat of a single large drum and an identifiable singing style that is tense and rhythmic. The voices each pulse on the beats with enough yell to be heard over large crowds in a large space.

Songs sung at a powwow can be old and traditional or newly created. They can be nation specific if the powwow coincides with the hosting nation’s specific ceremonial calendar. Because powwows are gatherings for multiple nations and non-Indians as well, most songs are inter-tribal And most frequently sung in vocables rather than a specific nation’s language. Most rely heavily on vocables while some also include a text in English. The form of the songs is set and uniform so that dancers from different places can participate even if they don’t know the song (Diamond 129). The lead singer starts with one phrase that the group then repeats. The group sings three or more phrases that they repeat immediately as a set. So, for example, if there are four separate phrases this format would look like this: A A B C D B C D. This entire structure is repeated four times after the initial statement. Melody length can vary. The song discussed below (Darling Don’t Cry) has a longer form with six different phrases, so its structure is A A B C D E F B C D E F.

Now listen to the powwow song “Darling Don’t Cry.” After the first time through the full song, listen to it again and drum along as suggested in this exercise.

Edmund Bull, who taught the powwow song “Darling Don’t Cry” to his group The Red Bull Singers grew up singing this song with his mother [Warner 2018]. Listen to it one more time and this time follow along with this listening guide.

Musical Traits connected to the Five Ws: “Darling Don’t Cry” performed by the Red Bull Singers

The five W’s center around the why.

The “where” is a large space because the function involves a large gathering. The musicians are male singers beating a drum, which is the traditional “who” and “how” for this type of event. The recording used is commercially    made to connect the audience with the identity celebrated in these events. As the function drives the where, who, and how, it drives the musical traits of the song. Powwow music supports dance and identity at a large celebration. The texture of the music includes only a melody and the identifiable heartbeat pulse so perfect for dancing. The melody is straightforward and easy to follow. After the first ear-catching leap, the tune descends in small intervals. The pitch range is high for male voices, the vocal timbre is bright, and the dynamics are loud. These three musical traits create a melody that can be heard easily in a large indoor or outdoor arena. The form fits the common powwow format, in this case with six phrases. This makes it easy for musicians and dancers from all different nations across North America to join together. The text mixes vocables and English, which also aids participation since these are known to all participants.

Commercial Music

Buffy Sainte-Marie (b. 1941) has racked up many firsts in her career. She is the first Native American musician to win an Oscar for best song (“Up Where We Belong” for the 1982 movie Officer and a Gentleman) and the first Native American to be a regular on Sesame Street. The first musician to produce a recording using the internet for her 1992 album Coincidence and Likely Stories (Warner 2018). She is the first artist to mix Powwow musical traits into Rock and Roll for mainstream audiences with her song “Starwalker” (1976), the song which opens Chapter 3) Her recording of “Darling Don’t Cry” (1996) is the first full out powwow rock song. As you repeat the same listening exercise with this song that you completed with the original Powwow song, think about what kinds of changes she made with the powwow song to make it into a rock song, and what musical traits remain the same.

Sainte-Marie, (Cree), was born on the Piapot reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada. She was adopted and raised in the United States by a non-native family. As a young adult she reconnected with her original family on this reserve to participate fully in traditional culture. Her college years coincided with the beginning of the folk music movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. While she wrote and played songs from a very young age, she honed her craft performing regularly in coffee houses with other luminaries of the style, such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

After majoring in philosophy at college she focused much of her music on social messages. Her first album It’s My Way! (1964) includes two of her strongest protest songs “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone,” and “Universal Soldier.” In addition to songs that discussed important indigenous issues, her albums includes musical sounds reflecting indigenous cultures. It’s My Way! includes the Appalachian-style folk song “Cripple Creek,” accompanied by a mouthbow, one of the oldest traditional instruments. Sharing and teaching has always been an important part of her performance career, as can be seen here in one of her many performances on Sesame Street (use this link to see her perform “Cripple Creek” with the mouth bow on Sesame Street.) As she told her biographer about the song Darling Don’t Cry,

Music, whether it’s pop music or movie scores or whatever, is destined for the ears of an audience much bigger than me and my friends. I know that it’s going to reach new people. Some people may be miseducated, some may not be knowledgeable, some have not been exposed to Indigenous music before, but I thought that I could give it to them in a way that they would really like. It’s as simple as that, but I was a little strategic about it, too.”
-Buffy Sainte-Marie, as quoted in Andrea Warner, Buffy Sainte-Marie . Greystone Books. Kindle Edition. 2018.

She adapted the song “Darling Don’t Cry’ for her 1996 album Up Where We Belong. She consciously mixed powwow and pop music together by retaining distinctive traits of both styles. She asked Edmund Bull if she could use his powwow song, and then asked his Drum group, the Red Bull Singers, to join her on the recording. She wrote a love song verse and used the powwow song as the chorus. She added the full recording studio accompaniment underneath the tune, singing at least the beginning of it in a soft pop style. She later told her biographer about her creative process for this song:

“How much powwow you use and how you use it makes a difference to how listeners of the time are going to perceive it. … ” ‘Darling Don’t Cry’ is a love song. I knew that if I just started singing pure powwow in the early 1990s, most listeners were going to think that they tuned into the Smithsonian folklore channel. They didn’t recognize it as legitimate music; it was just that ‘screaming thing that Indians do.’ [At the beginning] I’m singing it the way I’d sing a pop love song, I’m not singing it the way that we’re singing at the end when Red Bull are singing with me. The odd elements—the elements that vanilla listeners have never heard before—I kind of get them ready for it in the beginning [of the song], and that’s almost a metaphor for how my career has been.
-Buffy Sainte Marie, as quoted in Warner, Andrea. Buffy Sainte-Marie . Greystone Books. Kindle Edition. 2018.

Musical traits connected to the Five Ws:  “Darling Don’t Cry” performed by the Buffy Sainte-Marie

For “Darling Don’t Cry,” the who and the why are so closely intertwined as to be inseparable. Buffy Sainte-Marie is a contemporary commercial musician working in popular and rock styles. Her Indigenous identity is important to her as a musician and social activist. She uses her music to celebrate Native American music and introduce it to mainstream audiences. She combines musical elements and instruments associated with both contemporary commercial music and Powwow music to reach mainstream audiences. She creates and delivers this fusion in ways common to all commercial music and audiences – recording studios, computers, compact discs (in 1996) and the internet (today). In this way she reaches the audience where they are and brings them into her world.

When Sainte-Marie started recording in 1964, she was the first identifiable Native-American artist working in popular music at the national level. Since then, however, many Native American musicians are recording and selling music. In 1998 the Native American Music Awards were established as “the first trade organization formed to promote the genre of Native American music and popular musicians and entertainers of Native American heritage” to “celebrate the rich music heritage of the nation’s first people and educate the general public.” Using this link [NAMA] explore the Native American Music Awards website to gain more of an understanding of the exciting variety of music that flourishes. You can see musicians working in traditional styles, but also in different varieties of contemporary style from rock to hip-hop. Award categories for 2019, for example, included blues, country, folk, gospel, new age, pop, powwow, hiphop, and rock.

Artists, like Sainte-Marie, combine aspects of traditional culture into their music. For example you can watch MikeBone mix powwow and hiphop in their song “Beat of the Drum.” Many, like Buffy Sainte Marie and Sihasin, use music as social activism, and as discussed in Chapter 3, as medicine. In this short documentary, Medicine on the Rocks, the artist Nahko discusses his views on music as medicine.

Conclusions

Now consider the beginning of this unit in Chapter 3 when you listened to Sainte-Marie’s “Starwalker.” You were asked to think about the familiar and unfamiliar sounds in this song. Listen to “Starwalker” again. What sounds more familiar to you now than when you first listened to the song? What are the powwow influences that you hear?

In this chapter we have explored examples of powwow song and powwow rock. We analyzed “ Darling and Don’t Cry” sung by The Red Bull singers, which alternates English text with vocables in a melody with six phrases. The singing is high and bright and strong almost to the point of yelling, accompanied by a loud consistent drum beat. This style aligns well with outdoor performance for many people both dancing and listening. The recognizable loud, vibrant, outdoor sounds create space in which Native American identities are celebrated. We also studied Buffy Sainte-Marie’s version of the song, noting the changes she made to it to turn it into a pop/rock song. By fusing the drum beat and vocal style of powwow music into a rock song she brings outsiders into her world and takes her indigenous identity out of the powwow circle into the public arena.

Finally

Before you leave this chapter, use this link to find several playlists of songs that won a Native American Music Award. Listen to some and pick one. Do a little research on the artist to learn something about their own individual musical world. Listen to the song and describe the musical elements that you hear in the song you chose. Think about how the sounds of this song connect to the artist’s musical life.

Works Cited

American Roots Music. Edited by Robert Sanrelli, Holly George- Warren, and Jim Brown. Ginger Group publications, inc. and Rolling Stone Press. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.

Browner, Tara (2009) “An Acoustic Geography of Intertribal Powwow Songs” in Music of the First Nations : Tradition and Innovation in Native North America, edited by Tara Browner, University of Illinois. Pp 131-140

Browner, Tara (2000). “Making and Singing Pow-Wow Songs: Text, Form, and the Significance of Culture-Based Analysis.” Ethnomusicology, 44:2, pp. 214-233.

Fonesca, Felicia. 2020 “Powwows move online amid outbreak” Lewiston Tribune. May 28, 2020. https://lmtribune.com/coronavirus/powwows-move-online-amid-outbreak/article_2424c6da-a05c-11ea-b64a-570bff41fa81.html

Keillor, Elaine, Timothy Archsmbault, and John M, H. Kelly. Encyclopedia of Native American Music of North America. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood. 2013.

Mathews, Dr. Lita, ed (2020).   Gathering of Nations 2020.   https://online.flippingbook.com/view/199601/36/