If one were to go by what was offered for sale in New Age stores or in some of the World sections of music stores, you'd think the only type of music Native North American's created was by serious looking men playing flutes or doe eyed women singing rhapsodies to Mother Earth. In some ways that's not so very far removed from the singular way in which Natives were represented in early Hollywood movies where they were depicted as terrible savages.
This new definition is as one-dimensional as the earlier, and in some ways just as demeaning in that it reduces a whole culture down to the simplistic ideal of the noble spiritual savage. Not only does the depiction miss the point of the role music plays in the Native community, but it also precludes it from ever being anything but an artifact. It would be like keeping the visual arts of Europeans stuck back in their earliest cave drawings and not recognizing any of the progressions since.
There's a new series of DVD's that has been released by Arbor Records of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada that has broken down the components of the Native gathering know as Pow Wow into eight one hour episodes. In Pow Wow Trail Episode 7: Pow Wow Rock contemporary Native North American music is examined in detail. From the traditional playing of the Drum for the dancers to the contemporary musicians who carry that spirit forward with modern instruments, all aspects of aboriginal music in Canada and the United States is examined.
It's Buffy Saint-Marie, probably one of the most well known Native musicians today, who explains the term Pow-Wow Rock. She says it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the Pow-Wows per se. It's just that since the music is an extension of what happens during the gatherings, and that their music all originates from that base it makes sense to call their contribution to contemporary music by that name. It's also the name they choose for it, not what someone else wants to call it which is important.
Buffy is only one of a number of Native musicians whose opinions on the music are relayed through this disc. Although some of the interviews and performances have been picked up from other broadcasts and edited into this DVD, what each person has to say is so pertinent to the issue at hand you don't even notice until the credits what's been done. Also on hand are the three women from the a cappella group Ulali, Robbie Robertson, and Keith Secola of Keith Secola and Wild Band of Indians, a Native rock band that mixes traditional and contemporary instruments and music.
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