From Pejuta To Powwow: The Evolution Of American Indian Music

• Main Author: Smith, Kelley Lyn
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: W&M ScholarWorks 2020
• Subjects: Indigenous Studies
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1593092004; https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6865&context=etd

In the current climate of American Indian culture in the United States, the impact of the internet on powwow music and the electronic sharing of music has superseded the more traditional sharing of music in Native cultures. Due to the unique history of American Indian cultures, Native music changed, or evolved, from medicinal uses, pejuta, to expressionism, a method in which to cope with and express the effect history has had on the American Indian people and a way in which to bond with one another in these shared experiences. The evolution of Native music is a traditional form of historical particularism as seen by Native people themselves, and the history of American Indians, ethnomusicology, and hip-hop prove that this is the natural trajectory of Native cultures in today's America. This paper poses to explore the movement of American Indian music from a sacred, private medicinal use, to continue being used to heal, but in a more public and adapted domain.