Highlights from the Ethnomusicology Archive: Native California
Submitted by Maureen Russell on November 14, 2017 - 4:48pm
In 1990 Congress passed Public Law 101-343 which authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation designating the month of November 1990 as "National American Indian Heritage Month." Since 1995 the President has issued annual proclamations which designate November as National American Indian Heritage Month, or since 2009 as National Native American Heritage Month. These proclamations celebrate the contributions of Native Americans and urge the peoples of the United States to learn more about Native American cultures. For more information, check out this page from the Law Library at the Library of Congress.
In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, I thought I would highlight some of the Ethnomusicology Archive's Native Californian recordings.
Traditional music of native Northwest California: brush dance, feather dance, and gambling songs. Discussion and performances by Loren Bommelyn (Tolowa), Aileen Figueroa (Yurok), Joy Sundberg (Yurok) and Charlotte Heth (Cherokee). Recorded at the UCLA Media Engineering Center on April 12, 1976, during the class session of UCLA Music 153C, Sociology of American Indian music.
Traditional music of native Northwest California: brush dance, feather dance, and gambling songs. Discussion and performances by Loren Bommelyn (Tolowa), Aileen Figueroa (Yurok), Joy Sundberg (Yurok) and Charlotte Heth (Cherokee). Recorded at the UCLA Media Engineering Center on May 23, 1977, during the class session of UCLA Music 153C, Sociology of American Indian music.
Cahuilla Birdsongs (1987). The Cahuilla people are the first known inhabitants of California's Coachella Valley. Cahuilla bird songs tell the stories of the origin of the Cahuilla. Fieldwork done by Edith Johnson, Brenda Romero, and Gail Schwartz. Professor Romero tells me that she uses this recording in her classes to this day.
Ethnomusicology M115, Musical Aesthetics in Los Angeles, Professor Steve Loza. UCLA Ethnomusicology graduate student Johanna Hofmann speaks about Native American music as expressed through powwow events and culture in Los Angeles. Hoffman's master thesis (1992) was "Spirituality in the Inter-tribal Native American Pow-wow."
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