Chapters 2 and 3 in the book Native American Music in Eastern North America by Beverly Diamond together cover a number of important concepts that explain about Native American people and their music. The former generally explains how a number of significant differences even exist between individual Native American tribes, especially with the ways in which they approach their music. The latter generally explains how Native Americans have been able to successfully integrate non-American practices and ideas into their cultures while still holding on to their original ancestral values and ways with going about doing certain things. Looking at chapter 2 first, the main differences presented in the text among Native Americans are said to be present in their music (songs), dances, and live shows. A varying factor in this case can be gender roles in these live shows. The chapter states that, "in some cases, only men play the drum, while women sing the accompanying chorus. Women drum in some communities,...," (Diamond 40) which shows the lack of similarity. The general idea of Native American men and women trying to all be actively involved in their special events I definitely believe to be true. One example of this in American popular culture that helps with my belief is the Walt Disney animated film Peter Pan. In the film, the majority of the main characters, male and female (including Tiger Lily and her father who is the chief of his tribe), celebrate and dance in a around a fire at a Native American camp site in Neverland. Another example of this in popular culture that cements by belief is in Annie Get Your Gun, a movie shown in our class, in which a female plays an active role in a ceremony in which she is inducted into a tribe.
A second varying factor involves the specific methods in which tribal songs are sung and instruments are played. Examples of this mentioned in the chapter state that, "Songs from western Greenland, for instance, use only vocables in performance, although singers may recall words as they sing those vocables" (39). Another example states that Native Americans in the western Canadian Arctic regions of the world, "A group of seated drummers accompanies several dancers, who don't drum, unlike the solo tradition of Nunavut" (45). This fact definitely makes sense in my opinion since the book mentions how a number of Native Americans base the construction of their pieces of music off individual experiences in which they each got their own distinct perspective on life which affects the sounds they produce through the ways in which they experiment with their instruments, rhythmic musical patterns, voices, and other things too. This can possibly resemble a case of "self" vs. "other," since only the individual composer of a certain song would have insight into its actual meaning in comparison to the other people around that individual who don't. Chapter 3 in the book also presents some important details on Native Americans as well.
Chapter 3 in the book states a number of ways in which Native Americans have be able to represent similar non-Native American cultural ideas in their own methods, while not copying them exactly 100%. One way this has managed to happen is through religious ideology and festivities. A Christian religious practice that certain Native Americans came to accept was the recognition of Saint Anne. The chapter states that, "Many Innuat make an annual pilgrimage to the church of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in Quebec City. For Mi'kmaq, Se't A'newimk (Saint Anne) is their patroness,...," (77) in the text. Through this, some of the Native Americans still managed to hold on to original concepts of religious people in their cultures but with the exception of a name that didn't originate from their culture. This is so, because the book states that, "In some communities, she (meaning Saint Anne) is said to be 'a great helper and culture heroine who taught them moose-hair embroidery" (Howard 1962, 5; Diamond 77-78).
Another way this has managed to happen is through certain possible ways in which they form their songs. The book states that some people have claimed that certain vocables in Native American songs have sounded similar in certain ways to at least one type of other culture's song formatting. At one point in the book, a certain section of a Native American song is compared to songs in another culture. This part of the book says that in the section of the Native American song that, "Some hear lullaby-like-features (perhaps the 'do do do' vocables), while others associate it with children's songs such as 'London Bridge'" (83). This idea definitely makes sense to me, because when I listened to some sound clips of Native American music, the way it in which one of the songs was composed seemed to have a four chorus and three verse form to it with the chorus always being played before a verse. This form of a song is also present in regular English Christian American music, but the Native American song (and Native American songs in general) obviously has (have) its (their) own distinct sounds to it (them). In conclusion, both chapters in the book provided even more reasonable details about Native Americans, along with the first chapter.
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