Indian House is a Taos, New Mexico based record company specialized in traditional Native American Indian music in the United States and Canada. [1] Founded in 1966 by Tony and Ida Lujan Isaacs, the Indian House catalog has now around 150 titles. [2] [3] The company originally issued recordings on phonodisc and cassette tape, however almost all albums are now available in the CD format.
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts of musical behavior, in addition to the sound component. Within musical ethnography it is the first-hand personal study of musicking as known as the act of taking part in a musical performance.
Kiowa people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
Quanah Parker was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band of Tabby-nocca and grew up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been abducted as a nine-year-old child and assimilated into the Nokoni tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into near extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Indigenous music of North America, which includes American Indian music or Native American music, is the music that is used, created or performed by Indigenous peoples of North America, including Native Americans in the United States and Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Mexico, and other North American countries—especially traditional tribal music, such as Pueblo music and Inuit music. In addition to the traditional music of the Native American groups, there now exist pan-Indianism and intertribal genres as well as distinct Native American subgenres of popular music including: rock, blues, hip hop, classical, film music, and reggae, as well as unique popular styles like chicken scratch and New Mexico music.
Navajo music is music made by Navajos, mostly hailing from the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States and the territory of the Navajo Nation. While it traditionally takes the shape of ceremonial chants and echoes themes found in Diné Bahaneʼ, contemporary Navajo music includes a wide range of genres, ranging from country music to rock and rap, performed in both English and Navajo.
Kiowa music is the music of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. The Kiowa are a federally recognized tribe, meaning they have a functioning government-to-government relationship with the United States government.
Fancy dance, Pan-Indian dancing, Fancy Feather or Fancy War Dance is a style of dance some believe was originally created by members of the Ponca tribe in the 1920s and 1930s, in an attempt to preserve their culture and religion. It is loosely based on the war dance. Fancy dance was considered appropriate to be performed for visitors to reservations and at "Wild West" shows. But today, fancy dancers can be seen at many powwows across the nation and even the world.
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
The Society for Ethnomusicology is, with the International Council for Traditional Music and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, one of three major international associations for ethnomusicology. Its mission is "to promote the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts."
Alkali Ridge, also known as Alkali Point, is a set of widely scattered archaeological remains of the earliest forms of Puebloan architecture, representing a period of transition from scattered, pit-style dwellings to a settled agricultural lifestyle.
Gertrude Prokosch Kurath (1903–1992) was an American dancer, researcher, author, and ethnomusicologist. She researched and wrote extensively on the study of dance, co-authoring several books and writing hundreds of articles. Her main areas of interest were ethnomusicology and dance ethnology, with some of her best known works being "Panorama of Dance Ethnology" in Current Anthropology (1960), the book Music and dance of the Tewa Pueblos co-written with Antonio Garcia (1970), and Iroquois Music and Dance: ceremonial arts of two Seneca Longhouses (1964), in the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin. She made substantial contributions to the study of Amerindian dance, and to dance theory. From 1958 to January 1972 she was dance editor for the journal Ethnomusicology.
The Pueblo linguistic area is a Sprachbund consisting of the languages spoken in and near North American Pueblo locations. There are also many shared cultural practices in this area. For example, these cultures share many ceremonial vocabulary terms meant for prayer or song.
David Park McAllester was an American ethnomusicologist and Professor of Anthropology and Music at Wesleyan University, where he taught from 1947–1986. He contributed to the development of the field of ethnomusicology through his studies of Navajo and Comanche musics, and he helped to establish the ethnomusicology department and the World Music Program at Wesleyan. His recordings of Navajo and Comanche music led to the establishment of the World Music Archives at the University.
The Straight Dance, also known as Southern Straight Dance or Southern Traditional, is a style of Native American pow wow dancing. The dance recounts the story of hunting or war parties searching for the enemy.
Helen Heffron Roberts (1888–1985) was an American anthropologist and pioneer ethnomusicologist. Her work included the study of the origins and development of music among the Jamaican Maroons, and the Puebloan peoples of the American southwest. Her recordings of ancient Hawaiian meles are archived at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Roberts was a protege of Alfred V. Kidder and Franz Boas.
Slavery in New Mexico existed among the Native American (Indian) tribes prior to the arrival of the first Europeans. In 1542, the Spanish king banned the enslavement of the Indians of the Americas in Spanish colonies, but the ban was mostly ineffective. The enslavement of Indians was common during the Spanish exploration and colonization of New Mexico from 1540 to 1821. Slaves of the Spanish included a few of the Pueblos living in the Spanish colony, but most slaves were captured from other Indian tribes in the region. Women were more valued than men as slaves. Slaves were not only valued for their labour, but were also a prestige item among the more prominent and prosperous of the Spanish colonists. Enslavement of an individual was not always permanent. Slaves, especially women, often gained kinship relationships with their owners. The offspring and descendants of enslaved persons were called genizaros and made up one-third of New Mexico's population in the early 19th centuries. In the Spanish caste system genizaros had low status, but were important for frontier defense and cultural contacts with Indian tribes. Forced labor and debt peonage were also features of slavery in New Mexico. Some Indians captured and enslaved in New Mexico were sent south to work in Mexican mines or even to distant places like Cuba to work on sugar plantations.
Barbara Anne Lattimer Krader was an American ethnomusicologist, translator, librarian, and educator. She was the first woman to be elected president of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), serving her term from 1972 to 1973.