Along with topics such as gratitude, food and family, Thanksgiving is a good time for learning and teaching about Native American cultures, including their rich and diverse musical traditions. As a nation, we have thankfully come a long way from the simplistic and offensive ways in which Native American music was sometimes represented in times past. It can sometimes be daunting to find materials that are respectful of the complexities of the various Native American nations (or tribes), which are also accessible to young children.
Ya Ha Haway is an inter-tribal greeting song. It is not associated with one particular Native American nation, but has been used as a cross-cultural welcoming song. This song also features a drum part that is fun to play on either drums or body percussion (clapping, stomping, patting, etc.)
There are many wonderful Native American game-songs. Wee Hee Nah is a “duck-catching” game played in a similar fashion to “London Bridge.” Two children (the duck-catchers) make a bridge with their hands outstretched high towards each other. The other children are the ducks, and they walk in a circle going clockwise, passing under the bridge. At the end of the song, the two duck-catcher children bring their hands down to catch whichever “duck” happens to be under the bridge at that point in the song. Some versions have the caught child excluded from the game or sent to sit in the middle of the circle, but I prefer to have the “duck” take the place of one of the duck-catchers.
Children often ask “what do the words mean?” and this can be confusing with many Native American songs. The lyrics of both Ya Ha Haway and Wee Hee Nah are “vocables” – sounds that cannot be translated into specific meanings in another language.
In addition to music, there is a rich tradition of Native American stories, and often stories and songs are combined in mutually enriching ways. There are a number of wonderful story-song combinations in the book The Singing Sack, including “Gluskabi and the Wind Eagle” (Abenaki) and our favorite, “The Boy Who Lived With Bears” (Iroquois).
Hey, Hey Watenay is a beautiful Ojibwa lullaby, which has made its way into the repertoire of folksingers such as Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt. The minor pentatonic melody is both haunting and comforting, and this song is accessible in both its original form and in English (“sleep, sleep little one…”).
There are also many songs about Native Americans and related subjects. Older students will learn a lot from Fred Small’s song “The Heart of the Appaloosa”. Nancy Schimmel’s 1492 and Two of a Kind’s Columbus Revisited both deal with the irony of “being discovered”.
I have heard a number of Native American speakers make a plea to educators that we teach children that Native Americans are alive and present in today’s world – not merely a part of past history. The vibrant traditions of Native American songs and stories can help to bring this point home.
This article was written by Two of a Kind.