Volume 20 Number 1
October 1980

Thomas F. Johnston

TRANSCRIPTION, classification, arrangement and use of Alaskan Eskimo and Indian musical materials collected in rural communities during the period 1973-78 was a project sponsored by the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies at the Fairbanks campus of the University of Alaska. The materials include tape recordings of traditional musical ceremonies, explanations of song texts, videocassettes of dances, and photographs. They were collected in social context by an experienced ethnomusicologist trained also in cultural anthropology, who has taught public school music for several years. They will be prepared and adapted for incorporation into text books of traditional music and dance suitable for the educational use of Alaskan Eskimo and Indian schoolchildren, and also for the use of the general community in extension courses (see Note 1). Preservation is not the main goal of this project.

There are three main kinds of musical change occurring over time: (1) Change in the total inventory of distinct musical styles. For instance, square dance fiddling has been acquired by the Kutchin; Eskimo children’s game songs have practically disappeared due to non-use; the Aleut have acquired Russian orthodox hymnody. (2) Change in the trait content of each musical style. Tlingit potlatch singing has borrowed features from the Ahtna of Copper River (such as Athabascan scale and non-gapped drumming); the Koyukon have borrowed features from the Yupik Eskimo of Norton Sound (such as use of ay-ya-yanga vocables); loss of rattles in Eskimo music. (3) Change in the aural shape of aboriginal traits. Plastic drumheads are replacing natural membranes; Tlingit singers are muting their strident nasality; there has been westernization of Aleut scalar characteristics.

Anthropological research has shown that culture is always changing. Thus it is important from a theoretical standpoint that the present project does not "freeze" Native music, but allows for internal growth and change.

There is no absolute, clear line to be drawn between the various kinds of musical change. There are many overlapping, merging areas between them. For instance, it is almost impossible to declare exactly when the addition of a new trait or series of traits ceases to be a change in trait-content and engenders the creation of an entirely new musical style.

Musical change is spurred by many social, esthetic, and technological factors. Traits shift from one musical medium to another, as when Lower Koyukon stick-dancers "borrow" Eskimo dancing. Performers embedded in one style transfer to or add another, adapting to the new style but carrying with them strong residual influences of the old, the latter having become ingrained during childhood. An example is the case of the musical saw players of Wainwright on the northwest Arctic coast.

Musical styles acquire new social functions, these new functions then generating internal change in the music. Alaskan Native music no longer placates capricious hunting spirits, but affirms ethnicity and community pride.

Technology adds new instrumental resources, as in the marketing of stronger yet thinner nylon cord, used to lap drumheads. Many Natives find the cassetterecorder an indispensable part of present-day socio-musical occasions.

Education offers new skills, as when Eskimo congregations learn to sight-read notation from hymn books, and Native college students learn to transcribe Native music. Travel to Canada and the shrinking of the global village tends to encourage cross-cultural musical borrowing.

Musical change has many causes. When a performance may have to be kept up all night, appropriate musical material may not be available, leading to the introduction of extraneous musical material (as in the rock group at the Koyukon stick dance).

Oral transmission is not always perfect. A social institution in decline is likely to evince weakening of authority or consensus in its structure, which can show itself in the failure of correct transmission.

With regard to Kutchin fiddling, the exact replication of a musical form is dependent upon the receptiveness of the society in question, and the ability of the form to find similar or new social functions justifying its acceptance. The extent of transfer of musical traits from one musical style to another is in proportion to the tendency of the styles to exclusiveness or innovation (the two are opposites). Exclusiveness and innovation often manifest themselves simultaneously within the same style, but at different levels. Alaskan Eskimos liberally add new song topics such as helicopters, but are exclusive in musical sound.

In musical change there is an accretive process. A Tlingit widow who "hears" a song in the waves after her husband’s tragic drowning, may 40 years later add a stanza upon the death of her son, but in the contemporary style.

The present project, as a form of applied anthropology, seeks to allow for and encourage cultural processes.

The project represents a new application of humanistic knowledge, a new dissemination mode, and the promotion of activity in an aspect of the humanities not normally exposed to it (Alaskan Native schoolchildren at present may reasonably be considered to be musically deprived). It also suggests a new possibility for a humanistic discipline (music) by combining it with one of the social sciences (anthropology). The quality of Alaska rural teaching will be improved by regarding Native musical behavior as an essential element of Native culture and personality, by considering it as being esthetically beneficial, and by restoring it to the life experience of the young.

Common to all of these studies is the question of conflict in culture change, and how to minimize it. This project proposes Native music in the schools as a buffer for shock.

Among Eskimo and Indian groups in Alaska are numerous social problems such as school drop-out, alcoholism, mental illness and suicide, often deriving from dislocation of the traditional lifestyle. The effect upon the individual often commences during the early school years, when youngsters are catapulted from traditional home to (usually) white-oriented classrooms. It also occurs when teenagers must leave their closely-knit kin group, their home, and their village to attend distant residential educational establishments. Cultural dislocation occurs again when seeking employment in the mainstream culture.

The present project involving use of Native musical forms will mesh aptly with the existing Alaskan Bilingual Education Program, and will aid in the reduction of culture-clash and culture-shock among Eskimo and Indian schoolchildren. The traditional materials will provide a vital and on-going musical curriculum, replacing the inappropriate white music (if any) currently in use.

Alaskan Eskimo and Indian communities are experiencing a remarkable cultural renaissance, sparked by the 1971 Native Land Claims Act and back-to-the-land subsistence. Music and dance in these communities is a social activity linked to seasonal subsistence activities. For instance, Eskimo dance motions mime scanning the horizon, harpooning, skinning, carcass-cutting, and skin-sewing. Both the musical sound and the musical behavior originate deep in the wellspring of Arctic lifeways.

The fact of musical change is partly responsible for the conception of the present project. In Alaska today, the sound and sight of traditional music has become almost a badge of ethnic identity. School use of it is being strongly demanded in village council meetings, in rural school board meetings, and by Native student bodies. The writer has received numerous letters from rural teachers requesting aid in the acquisition of traditional musical materials and knowledge. The importance of this project lies in its cultural appropriateness and esthetic relevance.

The anticipated results and benefits of the project are numerous. In the remote coastal and rural communities, children experience traditional child-rearing practices, the indigenous language, and ancient subsistence means. When entering the sphere of influence of the dominant culture, they often encounter their first brush with English, with canned and over-refined foodstuffs, and with teachers who have often just arrived from the Lower 48. At the end of their school years, they possess a Native childhood and a white adulthood. In this twilight condition, they frequently cannot relate easily to their parents who are traditional hunters, do not fit easily into urban employment by white employers (who often believe that Natives will quit after training). Contemporary young Eskimos and Indians often develop a lowered self-image and become a social problem.

Eskimo and Indian songs are a source of pride in present-day Native communities. The current musical renaissance is helping to restore confidence lost during the past century of cultural oppression, when teachers and missionaries opposed the graceful and esthetically beautiful traditional dancing as "the work of the devil." The most important expected result of the project is that the introduction and use of traditional music in the classroom will act as a social and psychological lubricant between child, teacher, and the "alien" classroom environment.

The younger generation will learn musical forms and dance forms which grew out of, rather than were imposed upon, their unique Arctic culture. Native children will relate more readily to story-songs about nanuk the polar bear and kusrhaak the Arctic fox, than about Mary and her little lamb. They will respond more readily to the music that is presented to them, and thus experience more esthetic fulfillment and enrichment.

An additional expected result is that the project will yield insight into musicality in the mainstream culture, with its myth of the unartistic majority. Supposedly simple Eskimo and Indian music can be shown to possess an emotional range and to be based on intellectual processes that are found in Western art music. We must then ask why musical ability is restricted to a chosen few in a society reputed to be more advanced. Is musical specialization a real advance in human sensitivity, or is it partly an exploitative weapon which reduces music to a diversion for elites? In western society, the cultural inhibitions preventing the flowering of musicality may be more significant than any individual ability to promote it. The assumption that complexity brings musical exclusion to the majority may effectively anesthetize latent musical ability.

The various Native musical forms, new and old, which will be presented to young Alaskan Natives within the context of formal education, are not as "simple" or "primitive" as has often been represented. They are the outcome of centuries of cultural evolution, and represent complex processes of intellectual generation. An Eskimo story-dance, with its motions, melody, song words, and drumming, may possess as much human value as a "complex" symphony emanating from the dominant white culture, and its use within Alaskan classrooms to aid the social adjustment of the young may suggest new ways of developing human potential within our own society.

The project involves the development of new curriculum materials, and their use in experimental courses in selected Alaskan rural schools, these latter being representative of the various ethnic populations: Inupiaq Eskimo (north); Yupik Eskimo (south); Athabascan Indian (interior); Tlingit Indian (southeast); and Aleut (islands).

The Center for Cross-Cultural Studies will select bodies of traditional songs of the most suitable type, such as story-songs and songs accompanying children’s games, and put these into readable musical notation. Below the notation will appear the indigenous song words in the currently approved orthography. This will be facilitated by cooperation with the Alaska Native Languages Workshop. Below the song words in the vernacular will appear the English translation, arrived at by working with small committees of Native language aides and the original singers. Below this, where possible, will appear stick figures indicating appropriate dance motions or string-figure movements.

Within the completed textbooks will be included the social background and social use of each song presented, a cultural explanation of the song words, and general information about the musical system and musical thought of each Alaskan ethnic group. Tape-cassettes bearing an authentic performance of the selected music, in social context, will be prepared in the originating village. The taped performances will be suitably edited, will contain helpful verbal cues, and will contain instructions to help the non-musical classroom teacher or community instructor.

The design and nature of the instructional materials on Native music will take shape over three years of experimentation in Alaskan Eskimo and Indian village schools, giving priority to those where a strong desire and need has been shown, but where local resource persons and local musical materials cannot fully fill the need, due to some loss of the musical heritage. The use of contemporary Eskimo and Indian singers, dancers, and drummers on the tapes and in on-going clinics will help to ensure validity, and avoidance of stereotyped "frozen" models.

The process will be as follows: Two main types of materials will be developed, following the specific needs already indicated by rural teachers. (1) There will be early-grade booklets and audiovisual aids dealing with children’s story-songs and game-songs. (2) There will be a Native dance course for teenagers, using color video-tape cassettes and supplementary booklets. The video-tapes will consist of carefully prepared lessons by Native dance experts, not merely repertory runthroughs.

The project director (author) will visit communities by arrangement in order to establish short experimental courses and clinics in conjunction with teachers and Native aides. At the University lab he will revise and rework materials in accord with demonstrated need and the requests of teachers, aides, and students. In this on-going shaping process, care will be taken to incorporate regional musical change, to adhere to regional language use, and to allow for local seasonal practice. For example, Selawik Eskimo high school students will need the song words in Inupiaq, the story-dance in the core Point Hope style, and a variety of song categories and dance categories to cover seasonal musical ceremonies associated with the mid-winter feast and the spring trading fair.

In addition to following local custom, the materials supplied will include examples of, and information on, the musical systems and dance styles of other Alaskan ethnic groups, for this has proved to be of great interest to students.

Mere salvage is not a viable anthropological goal. The museum approach will not effect this project. Cognizance must be taken of the fact that culture change is ever present and is indeed a necessary force in human development. The project intends to present Alaskan Native music as a living reflection of Native Alaska today, in flux, attuned to momentous social movements such as Land Claims and bilinguality, and one of the most valuable of Alaska’s cultural riches.

"Using Native Music in Education" is a joint project of the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies, the University of Alaska Music Department, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

1. Alaskan Natives number some 70,000. but there is little educational provision or recognition of their special musical heritage and musical needs.

2. Effective Teachers of Indian and Eskimo High School Students. Fairbanks, 1972.

3. Alaskan Eskimo Education, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1973.

4. A Long Way from Home, Fairbanks, 1973.

5. Tannik School, Alaskan Methodist University Press, 1975.

6. Cultural Influences in Alaskan Native Education, Fairbanks. 1974.