The Evolution of Pow-wow Singing

      Growing up on the drum in the late 1960s provided me a valuable opportunity to witness and learn from legends of pow-wow singers throughout Southwestern Oklahoma. Never did I know as a young man that there were other pow-wow songs other than Comanche and Kiowa music. It wasn't until my relatives brought their friends to the drum that I first became aware of so much intertribalism in pow-wow singing. They were Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Caddo, Wichita, and Kiowa-Apache. It was a site to see all the blending of many singers sit down at the big drum all in one large circle in the middle of the pow-wow arena. I remember those singers had distinct styles of singing and drumming. Many singers had drumsticks made of dogwood. Today, we use fiberglass drumsticks. You see, this was the beginnings of my training and knowledge of Southern style pow-wow singing. I was so proud to be among such accomplished singer-so many that prohibits mentioning them all.

      It was an honor to sing with many elders of the drum, those that preserved and even composed many of the Southern pow-wow songs we sing today in 1997. I don't remember back in the early '70s that anybody was recording any pow-wow songs as frequent as they do today. I was told by older singers that you should learn the songs at the drum, so I didn't bother buying a tape player to record songs while singing at the drum. Traditional singing was learned from rote memory, by listening to singers who had remarkable memories. Many singers are able to learn new songs, even from different tribes, by hearing it sung over and over. Lead singers can have as many as one-to-two hundred pow-wow songs in their musical repertoire of Indian music. Singers are truly gifted and talented in their musical ability to compose songs and to sing all as one.

      Indian singing comes from the heart and it interweaves the spiritual realm with their everyday world and broadens them in many special ways. Pow-wow singing is a fusion of modern American and tribal life into music and dance. It is part of the oral tradition with inner meanings that depend upon cultural memory and preservation. Music, like sound itself, is one of the ancient natural forces given to Native peoples by the Creator. Sounds, including music, are apart of space which is also a part of nature. Music is clearly the sound of the natural mind and natural world. The entire sound of music, with its movement and rhythmical reality, is traditional. Most pow-wow singing is close communion with nature and a singer maybe inspired by a song heard only in a vision or dream. This event or process is natural instead of rational.

      Pow-wow songs in Oklahoma prior to 1970 were mostly old recordings on small commercial recording labels or companies. They were large "48s" albums manufactured in different colors schemes. The only location that I could by commercial Indian music in those times were in Indian stores like Snoopy's and at Indian City near Anadarko, Oklahoma or anywhere else that stocked them. This period introduced pow-wow songs on 8-track tape recordings. Most of the early first half-century musical recordings were initiated by ethno-musicologist or those non-Indian people working for museums.

      In the mid '70s I moved on to college at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma where I began learning many of the pow-wow songs of the Ponca, Osage, Pawnee, Oto, Sac/Fox, and Shawnees. Their songs also were taught to them by their elder singers. Once I began to understand the basic meaning of their songs in their tribal languages, they became so meaningful and beautiful to sing. Their songs were similar to the songs of the Comanche and Kiowa. They had family songs, veteran songs, memorial songs, flag songs, trot songs, snake dance songs, two-step songs and of course, 49 songs. Additionally, I began to understand the significance and concept of the "closed drum." This was only when invited signers could sit at the drum, usually family and ceremonial songs were sung throughout the session. Many of these songs later became commercially available on cassette tape at the Lyons' and Supernaws' Indian Stores in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

      Contest pow-wows started to get strong in the early 1980s all over the country. More commercial pow-wow songs were being recorded by popular Northern and Southern drum groups. The recording companies were both Indian and non-Indian owned by now. Contest pow-wow songs started a evolution as new compositions were being brought out at the larger pow-wows throughout the United States and Canada. Song composers were young and older Indian singers. I started to see the beginning of live recordings of pow-wow singing during this era. From albums, to 8-tracks, to cassette tapes and now to CDs, pow-wow songs have truly transformed itself into a new technological era.

      The 1990s exploded with commercial pow-wow songs from all over the country, both Northern and Southern style singing. Many drum groups travel the contest pow-wow trail across the country registering their drum group hoping to win enough money to pay their expenses for travel, food, housing and sometimes entertainment. The better known drum usually got invited to the more elaborate pow-wows that announced top prize money that showcased outstanding drum groups. Tribal casinos started to sponsor giant contest pow-wows offering record-breaking amounts of prize money. Competition to win the drum contest at these big-money pow-wows became fierce. They usually invited only the most popular drum groups across the United States and Canada. Drum groups started marketing their commercial recordings through regional distribution outlets and through personal contacts. The evolution of pow-wow songs by now had come a long way since the beginnings of just coming together and enjoying the pleasure of singing and dancing. Pow-wow singing now in the 1990s is big business and as in many cases it's the only profession and income for those singers that do this full time, year-after-year.

      I'm very familiar with the human side of traveling to pow-wows and all that it entails. Fifteen years of traveling across the country with our own drum group, the Alliance West Singers, we shared many of the same experiences of being on the road going and coming, weekend-after-weekend from contest pow-wows: making travel plans with your group, questions about how many singers can we bring, where will they all stay, will they feed us all, how much expenses will the host organization going to pay, will they allow a blanket dance song for the host drum, will we be able to sell our own commercial tapes, will we sing only the contest songs, what about the flag song or grand entry song, etc. We can't dismiss the reality of personal problems that occur among group members like intertribal racism that occurs within singers and pow-wow committees, ethnocentrism within regional dances, tribal jealousies and feuds, break up of drum groups, as well as confronting cultural challenges like allowing women to sit at the drum with men, singing with other tribes' songs, song compositions coming from non-traditional pow-wow cultures, and so forth. There are so many unforeseen elements of culture that one sometimes gets blinded by all that goes on at pow-wows. Of course, everybody wants to feel good and have a good time, but unfortunately, contest pow-wows today have to be operated like any other business or enterprise, especially given the thousands of dollars handled out as prize money.

      I also see an evolution of the world "traditional". For a while back in the 1970s and 1980s I began to witness similar contest standards displayed across the country when a pow-wow announcer said, "give us a traditional song." Today in many part of this country, traditional song could be any pow-wows song a drum group could think of at that moment in time. The introduction of technology has also played an important role in the evolution of today's songs. What is common today is to have microphones assigned to each drum at large pow-wows, huge loud-speakers standing tall--towering in front of the drums, electricity hook ups necessary for amplifier connections, and even cordless microphones rotating around the arena.

      The evolution of pow-wow songs is also the reflection of who we are as Native people-an evolving, ever changing human beings. Whether the high pitched vocals of Northern style singing to the low monotone voice of Southern style singing, pow-wow singing slowly changes over time to fit the need of a changing Indian society. while tribal society changes, so does the people of their culture. However, some of the ancient tribal values still remain the same. These traits are what reflect and reminds us of who we are as tribal people. Without music there can be no dances or pow-wows, therefore, there must be singers committed to carrying out this rich tradition for another generation of Native people to enjoy. It's about who we are as tribal people. It's about our Indian identity. So as we venture into the 21st century, the challenge of singing at pow-wows is to remind each other of the songs and respect for the people who have created these beautiful songs. Can our time-tested tribal values be able to preserve pow-wow songs in the future? That is my hope for the next millennium for I have hope for younger generations of Indian singers. Today, we still continue to compose new songs yet sing traditional songs at pow-wows for the Seventh Generation.