Music and Intertribalism of Woodland Indian Communities in Oklahoma

FAIN: FB-53787-08

Victoria Lindsay Levine
Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO 80903-3243)

This is a study of music, ceremonial life, and social relationships among the Woodland Indian communities of eastern Oklahoma, focused on the Yuchi but also including other Native Woodland people. Research began in the summer of 1998 and is being conducted collaboratively by myself and the anthropologist Jason Baird Jackson with Yuchi and other Woodland people. I am requesting an NEH Fellowship to support a 12-month sabbatical during the 2008-09 academic year, in order to write a book-length monograph based on this research. As the first comprehensive study of Woodland musical interaction and exchange, this study will illuminate the musical processes of intertribalism, which has been vital to the preservation of Native communities throughout the history of Native American peoples. The project will therefore contribute to an understanding of the role of music not only in Woodland intertribalism, but also in other intertribal movements throughout Native America.

Associated Products

"Regional Songs in Local and Translocal Spaces: The Duck Dance Revisited" (Article)
Title: "Regional Songs in Local and Translocal Spaces: The Duck Dance Revisited"
Author: Victoria Lindsay Levine
Abstract: The Duck Dance is the most widely distributed traditional song among the Native American tribes of the Eastern Woodlands. It belongs to a repertory performed during the nighttime portion of ceremonial events. The widespread diffusion of the Duck Dance song raises questions about regional ceremonial practices over the past 500 years. Some answers may be found by considering the historical, geographic, and social forces that shaped Woodlands cultures. An analysis of the regional distribution of the Duck Dance song and a comparison of how the song has been adapted to specific local and translocal spaces suggests that for Woodlands peoples, living within one's community of origin does not imply isolation from global culture, nor does participation in global culture imply a loss of either local or regional identity. This is the project for which I received NEH funding.
Year: 2015
Primary URL Description: Book, THIS THING CALLED MUSIC: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF BRUNO NETTL, edited by Victoria Lindsay Levine and Philip V. Bohlman
Format: Other
Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield

"Reclaiming Choctaw and Chickasaw Cultural Identity through Music Revival" (Article)
Title: "Reclaiming Choctaw and Chickasaw Cultural Identity through Music Revival"
Author: Victoria Lindsay Levine
Abstract: The revival of historic music and dance plays an integral role in reclaiming Indigenous cultural identity. Like other First Peoples the world over, Native Americans have endured acute pressure to relinquish their cultural identities, which are often expressed most tangibly through performance. Following a summary of social and political forces in the 1960s that stimulated Native American music revivals, I summarize the history of a Choctaw music revival begun in the 1970s and compare it to the Chickasaw music revival begun in 1992. I conclude that the Choctaw and Chickasaw have long confronted social, cultural, and economic change through conscious and creative transformations. Therefore, the story of their music revivals is about finding ways to reclaim cultural identity by integrating historic practice with contemporary experience. This was not the project for which I received NEH funding, but I started working on it during my fellowship year.
Year: 2014
Primary URL Description: Book titled THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MUSIC REVIVAL edited by Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill
Format: Other
Publisher: Oxford University Press

"Strophic Form and Asymmetrical Repetition in Four American Indian Songs" (Article)
Title: "Strophic Form and Asymmetrical Repetition in Four American Indian Songs"
Author: Bruno Nettl
Author: Victoria Lindsay Levine
Abstract: The songs of Native North Americans often employ strophic form, meaning they repeat the same music during each successive stanza or verse of the text. Many of these songs incorporate what we call asymmetrical repetition, that is, the alteration of a musical phrase upon repeat. The alterations introduce nuance into a musical form that otherwise would be highly redundant. Asymmetrical repetition thus energizes songs meant to be performed communally in social or ceremonial contexts. We present close analyses of four Native American songs from different tribes and regions to illustrate asymmetrical repetition, and suggest that similarities reveal systematic aspects of form related to larger cultural and social systems. Specifically, it seems possible to connect the similarities to underlying concepts of time and place, to widespread intertribal musical performance, and to deep historical connections among geographically distant communities. This was not project for which I received NEH funding, but I completed the article at the beginning of my fellowship year.
Year: 2011
Primary URL Description: Book, ANALYTICAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES IN WORLD MUSIC, edited by Michael Tenzer and John Roeder
Format: Other
Publisher: Oxford University Press

"Native American Music of the Southeast in Historical Perspective" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: "Native American Music of the Southeast in Historical Perspective"
Author: Victoria Lindsay Levine
Abstract: This lecture derived from information provided in the article, "Regional Songs in Local and Translocal Spaces: The Duck Dance Revisited," which had not yet been published (see my article by that title listed under grant products). The lecture also incorporated some information from other previous work of mine as well as some new information from secondary sources.
Date: 3/27/2015
Primary URL Description: This was a lecture in the University of Alabama School of Music endowed lecture series.
Conference Name: University of Alabama School of Music Endowed Lecture Series

"The Duck Dance and Musical Geographies of the Eastern Woodlands" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: "The Duck Dance and Musical Geographies of the Eastern Woodlands"
Author: Victoria Lindsay Levine
Abstract: Please see the abstract provided for the article, "Regional Songs in Local and Translocal Spaces: The Duck Dance Revisited." This conference presentation derived from research conducted during my NEH fellowship year and represented my initial attempts to formulate the results of that research. The later article offers a finished version of the conference paper.
Date: 3/20/2009
Primary URL Description: Annual national conference of a professional organization
Conference Name: Society for American Music

"Music and Dance the 'Eastern Way' in Oklahoma" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: "Music and Dance the 'Eastern Way' in Oklahoma"
Author: Victoria Lindsay Levine
Abstract: Please see the abstracts for published articles, including "Regional Songs in Local and Translocal Spaces: The Duck Dance Revisited" and "Strophic Form and Asymmetrical Repetition in Four American Indian Songs." This public lecture for a general audience combined information from both projects, which had not yet been published, and which I worked on during my fellowship year.
Date: 7/15/2009
Primary URL Description: Invited public lecture, Idyllwild Arts Foundation summer lecture series
Conference Name: Idyllwild Arts Foundation (Idyllwild, California)

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