Seminole music

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Seminole music is the music of the Seminole people, an indigenous people of the Americas who formed in Florida in the 18th century. Today most live in Oklahoma, but a minority continue in Florida. They have three federally recognized tribes, and some people belong to bands outside those groups. Their traditional music includes extensive use of rattles, hand drums, water drums, and flutes.

Seminole folk songs include those used to treat the sick and injured, and to encourage animals to be easily hunted. Hunting songs are a cappella and call-and-response.

The two major ritual dances are the Green Corn Dance, held in June, and the Hunting Dance, held in October. Other informal dances are held throughout the year, with some specific dances only performed in either summer or winter. Many dances are connected with an animal spirit, such as the Snake, the Crawfish and the very important Alligator.

Western Presbyterian Christian missionaries and Creek translators developed Muskogee language hymns in the 1830s that continue to be sung in Creek and Seminole churches today in Oklahoma. The hymns are syncretic constructions with texts and performance practices that carry Muskogee and Western meanings at once. [1] [2]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seminole Nation of Oklahoma</span> Native reservation

The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the largest of the three federally recognized Seminole governments, which include the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Its citizens are descendants of the approximately 3,000 Seminoles who were forcibly removed from Florida to Indian Territory, along with 800 Black Seminoles, after the Second Seminole War. The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is headquartered in Wewoka within Seminole County, Oklahoma. Of 18,800 enrolled tribal citizens, 13,533 live in Oklahoma. The tribe began to revive its government in 1936 under the Indian Reorganization Act. While its reservation was originally larger, today the tribal reservation and jurisdictional area covers Seminole County, Oklahoma, within which it has a variety of properties.

Charlotte Anne Wilson Heth (1937-) is a North American ethno-musicologist, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is notable for her scholarship in and teaching of the traditional music, dance, and ceremonies of indigenous North Americans and for her publications and recordings in this field. She has worked to strengthen Native American studies for K-12 and has also curated exhibitions in museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Musical Instrument Museum of Phoenix. She was the director of UCLA's American Indian Studies Center. She set up the first American Indian Studies Master’s degree program and was the assistant director for public programs at the National Museum of the American Indian.

References

  1. Heth and Taborn. AmeriGrove. "Seminole Music", 2013
  2. Heth, Charlotte, and Karen Taborn. 2013. “Seminole.” The Grove Dictionary of American Music. 2nd ed. Ed. by Charles Hiroshi Garrett. New York: Oxford University Press, 433-434.