The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Nothing in the corpus yet that this genre heard.

Plains ceremonial song

tradition · prehistoric–

Also called Plains drum song, Plains Indian singing

Unison chorus over a large drum: warrior-society, Sun Dance, and later intertribal powwow song of the North American Plains. This is a Plains seed, a sibling of Pueblo ceremonial song and Northwest Coast potlatch song, not a leftover “Native American music” bin. Lakota, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and others keep distinct repertories inside one drum-and-unison job. Reservation-era powwow leftover as later public life of that job, not a child. It already gives Peyote song the vocable-and-drum job recoded as Native American Church prayer. Hollywood Indianist leftover as reception, not a child. Native American leftover as a refused catch-all.

Listen

  1. Sun Dance song Plains ceremonial tradition (traditional) YouTube
  2. Grass dance / war-dance song Plains drum tradition (traditional)
  3. Northern plains powwow song Intertribal powwow tradition (20th century) YouTube

Passed on

Peyote song practice · 1870–

Peyote song takes Plains ceremonial vocable-and-drum song — tense falling phrases, unison, percussion as the clock — and recodes it as all-night Native American Church prayer with…

Influence

Plains ceremonial song → Peyote song

melodymeter and grooveperformance practicefunction and contextstrength: highscholarly consensus1870–1918oralliturgy

Mechanism

Peyote song takes Plains ceremonial vocable-and-drum song — tense falling phrases, unison, percussion as the clock — and recodes it as all-night Native American Church prayer with water drum and gourd rattle. Strength high. Powwow leftover as later public life of Plains song, not this church hop. Pueblo leftover as a Southwest sibling, not a parent of peyote song.

Evidence

Late-nineteenth-century Comanche and Kiowa meetings; Grove on peyote song’s Plains vocal style inside the Native American Church.

Debate

Whether peyote song simply is Plains ceremonial in church. The Sun Dance and society-drum job is Plains ceremonial’s; the named water-drum prayer school is the recoding.

Mediators

community: Comanche and Kiowa peyote meetings