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Review Of The Power Of Kiowa Song: A Collaborative Ethnography By Luke E. Lassiter, Victoria Lindsay Levine

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In his informative and innovative exploration of Kiowa music, Luke Lassiter focuses on intersubjective, phenomenological, and experiential aspects of Kiowa song. Employing collaborative ethnography, a method that "fully embraces dialogue in both ethnographic practice and ethnographic writing," he discloses the ways in which his own social interactions with Kiowa consultants have informed his ethnography.

The book is divided into two parts. The first, "Experience, Dialogue, and Ethnography," recounts Lassiter's early impressions of Plains Indians and the gradual transformation of his understanding. The second, "Powwows, the Gourd Dance, and Kiowa Song," offers his interpretation of the social worlds in which Kiowa …

A Week Of Music And Dance An Introduction, Randall Snyder

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

During the second week of April 1999, the Center for Great Plains Studies hosted The Great Plains Music & Dance Festival and Symposium. This undertaking, three years in the planning, co-chaired by Ron Bowlin and myself with suggestions of various committees of local advocates, resulted in a multidisciplinary event which showcased the diversity of our music and dance heritage in the Great Plains. Performances of Plains music and dance ranging from Northern and Southern Native Drums to Jazz, Folk, Gospel and Classical were featured at a variety of venues in Lincoln. This phase of the symposium culminated in a premier …

The Omaha Gospel Complex In Historical Perspective, Tom Jack

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

In this article, I document the introduction and development of gospel music within the African-American Christian community of Omaha, Nebraska. The 116 predominantly black congregations in Omaha represent twenty-five percent of the churches in a city where African-Americans comprise thirteen percent of the overall population.¹ Within these institutions the gospel music genre has been and continues to be a dynamic reflection of African-American spiritual values and aesthetic sensibilities. By focusing the research on perceptions and descriptions provided by the music's practitioners, an examination of this genre at the local level will shed insight into the development and dissemination of …

Powerful Feelings Recollected In Tranquility Literary Criticism And Lakota Social Song Poetry, R. D. Theisz

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The anthropologist and ethnomusicologist William K. Powers, in his Beyond the Vision: Essays on American Indian Culture, laments that the discipline of ethnomusicology-and music pedagogy-with its emphasis on the vocal and instrumental "art music" traditions of musically literate peoples has been lax in accepting anthropological theory. Thus, Powers points out that ethnomusicology, where it is concerned with the music of oral, indigenous cultures, adheres to outdated theories on "primitive" music and displays a telling absence of ethnographic abilities.¹ Reflecting Powers' judgment, it seems to me that the conceptual seams between anthropology, ethnomusicology, and musicology are rather formidable.

At …

Textiles - An Art Form For The 90'S: Advancing Fiber With New Concepts & Marketing Strategies, Elizabeth Gaston, Laura Hill

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This panel discussion provided a forum for an exploration of the place and meaning of contemporary textile art. It was one of several concurrent panels held on the final afternoon of the Sixth Biennial Textile Society of America Symposium. Textiles An Art Form For the 90's brought together artists and enthusiasts from many backgrounds and with different perspectives. Four participants presented formal papers accompanied by slides. This was followed by a panel discussion.

The chairperson was Patricia Malarcher, editor of Surface Design Journal. She shared the viewpoint of the media. Malarcher also presented Susan Lordi Marker's paper. Marker …

Review Of Peyote: The Divine Cactus By Edward F. Anderson, Daniel Gelo

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The explanation of peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus central to several American Indian ceremonies, requires forays into many diverse fields, from chemistry and botany to ethnomusicology, frontier history, and legal studies. Other books approach peyote via the anthropology of ritual, appending material about the cactus itself. Anderson's work, which first appeared in 1980, places the plant at the heart of inquiry. This new edition offers minor reorganization and a major updating in style and content.

Kiowa Powwows: Tribal Identity Through The Continuity Of The Gourd Dance, Benjamin R. Kracht

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Today, intertribal participants at Southern Plains powwows (Oklahoma and Texas) celebrate common history and culture-their sense of "Indianness"-through the enactment of ceremonial song and dance. The Kiowa playa central and assertive role in the Southern Plains powwow network. and they use the Gourd Dance as the vehicle to identify their "Kiowaness." The thesis of this paper is that the Kiowa continue to maintain their tribal identity through performances of the Gourd Dance. which they claim as their own. The maintenance of identity is traced from the late nineteenth century through the evolution of Kiowa dances leading up to the Gourd …

Song Texts And Their Performers: The Centerpiece Of Contemporary Lakota Identity Formulation, R. D. Theisz

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

During the 1960s and 1970s both American Indians and non-Indians showed intense interest in and awareness of the Indian world, and many traditional activities became more popular. This boom atmosphere has waned in the late 1980s, and Indian youths and young adults have therefore changed the focus of their search for identity formulation. In this article, I have been concerned with an aspect of Lakota traditionalism that is being granted more and more significance in the Lakota scheme of things-traditional song and dance. I have based the article on my readings in ethnomusicological literature, my informal observations over many years …

A Bibliography Of Anthropology-Related Serial Publications In The University Of Nebraska Libraries, Kenneth P. Lohrentz, Ann Larson, Linda Mager

Nebraska Anthropologist

This bibliography of anthropological serials in the University of Nebraska Libraries has been undertaken primarily for two reasons. The first follows from the incredibly diverse nature of the discipline itself, for the study of man and his origins has given rise to various methods of inquiry and interdisciplinary overlays. As Sol Tax has pointed out, the study of man appears to have no natural boundaries. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that the bibliography representing the published record of such a varied field of study should itself be extremely diffuse. Add to this natural diffusion the characteristic pattern of dispersed …

Melvin Randolph Gilmore, Incipient Cultural Ecologist: A Biographic Analysis, David L. Erickson

Open Access Master's Theses (through 2010)

This thesis will be a study in microcosm of Melvin R. Gilmore’s Nebraska research. The study analyzes his ethnobiological field work and writings in terms of biographic factors.Gilmore’s ethnobiological research manifests both bioecological and cultural ecological rationales. The thesis shows that Gilmore’s pioneering work in ethnobiology, together with studies by Harrington and others, laid the groundwork for modern cultural ecology as practiced by Julian Steward and others. The author of the thesis used original documents from the Nebraska State Historical Society in his research.

While in Nebraska Gilmore developed an interest in ethnobiology. His initial ethnobotanical field work was related …

Tones And Intervals Of Hindu Classical Music, Donald A. Lentz

University Studies (University of Nebraska) (1888–1984)

ART IS ALL ENDURING and limitless, and defies positive, unvariable classification. No attempt is being made in this book to compare artistic, subjective or emotional factors. Only the objective elements, techniques and procedures of music that are tangible and definite are being compared and classified. Western music, having reached a plateau under the present harmonic system, is projecting into new channels for textural inspiration. Composers have exploited the present system, using existing intervals in every conceivable manner under existing tonal and atonal theories. Devices such as smaller intervals (example: tempered quarter tones), electronic combinations, aleatonic principles, etc. are being dealt …