Your opinion, please

[Ganieda]

I have these recordings and I love to listen to them.  I do NOT use them in any way other than to get pleasure from the voices, rythms and deep reverence evident in the recordings.  I would like to ask.... do you feel that making these recordings was wrong?

In the early 1980s, two men stepped into a studio at Sinte Gleska College and shared a group of sacred songs. The Lakota Ceremonial Songs were performed by John Around Him and translated by Albert White Hat Senior. The recordings were made in order to help teach others who want to bring the spiritual practices back to all of the people. While this music is preserved on tape, many of the elders like John Around Him are being lost. After a battle with cancer, Around Him passed away. John Around Him had a dream that all Lakota youth would be able to freely learn and speak their language.

The prayer songs in this record are treasured by the Lakota people who sing them with respect and love. It is believed if an individual uses these songs with faith of heart and mind, he or she will receive help from the spirits.

Includes Pipe Songs, Purification Ceremony Songs, Vision Quest Songs and Sun Dance Songs.

[earthw7]

I know the tapes and had a talk with John Around Him years ago about it.
he said that the college wanted to tape record him for student at the college
and he agreed. Someone took the tapes an sold to they became public.
It happens over and over again in Indian Country.
John never got a penny for the tapes.

[Defend the Sacred]

Someone took the tapes an sold to they became public.
It happens over and over again in Indian Country. John never got a penny for the tapes.

So it sounds to me like these songs were never meant to be heard by outsiders, and certainly not as entertainment.

[Ganieda]

John never got a penny for the tapes

I am sorry to hear that these recordings were, in effect, "stolen". 

certainly not as entertainment.

I do not use them for entertainment, as I stated, I listen to them for the "pleasure from the voices, rythms and deep reverence evident in the recordings".  Also,  "It is believed if an individual uses these songs with faith of heart and mind, he or she will receive help from the spirits."  I have not used these recordings in this respect, but I think that if I did the spirits would not deny me the help I might seek. 

[earthw7]

See what I mean about people wanting to use our culture.
First they must understand the words then understand the meaning
then to have done in the order that they would be done.

I can only see trouble with people not understand what they do.

[NanticokePiney]

 It's just another form of "selling ceremonies" and stealing culture that does not belong to them. Nauseating. Some knucklehead will be misusing them in no time.

 Rich

[Ganieda]

See what I mean about people wanting to use our culture.

Yes, I see.  I did not know that they were "stolen".  I understood them to be "made in order to help teach others who want to bring the spiritual practices back to all of the people."  As I said...I do not "use" them, but listening to them does invoke a sense of peace for me.  Is that really so wrong?  As long as I have respect for them? 

Some knucklehead will be misusing them in no time

Yes, and that person will no doubt have to answer for his actions. 

[NanticokePiney]

As I said...I do not "use" them, but listening to them does invoke a sense of peace for me.  Is that really so wrong?  As long as I have respect for them? 

 No, your not misusing them. But somebody else will. I'll bet my paycheck on it. ( Not that it's much. I manage a farm.). Which made it wrong to be released from the get-go.

 Peace- Rich

[dabosijigwokush]

As I said...I do not "use" them, but listening to them does invoke a sense of peace for me.  Is that really so wrong?  As long as I have respect for them?

how can any one who does not know what is said in the songs
even get any thing but confused
just because a song sounds peaceful does not teach a thing
just like the drums doing songs that they have no idea ,when the song is to be done
what the song is for, who the song is for,and because they do not under stand the lanauge they most likley mispronounce and even affend the people who know the song for real

[Ganieda]

just because a song sounds peaceful does not teach a thing

Your'e right.  But I'm not listening to them to learn anything other than the beauty of the voices and the rythm. 

because they do not under stand the lanauge they most likley mispronounce and even affend the people who know the song for real

Right again, but I'm not singing along or even trying to learn the words.  I have faith that the words were done correctly and simply listen to them.  That is all. 

[earthw7]

whatever!

This why we have so much abuse in Indian country
even when many of our things are stolen people
feel they have a right to them taken away the
reason why they are sung.

[Ganieda]

I have not taken away anything.  If something is stolen, it means that the person from whom it was taken, doesn't have it anymore.  That's not the case here, the music is still where it belongs.  If the people still use the music and words with respect and in traditional ways, then nothing is lost.  Music itself, and rythm, are universal languages understood by everyone. 

I hear it often said that non-Natives should learn more about Natives so they can understand better.  But that knowledge is repeatedly denied to us.  Many therefore, seek knowledge from unscrupulous fakes and frauds.  It's kind of a catch-22 situation. 

In my view, knowledge is like a candle. You light it.... then use that flame to light another and another and so on.  The flame from that first candle is never diminished, however the more candles that are lit the brighter the light becomes.  If you don't light more candles the flame will eventually go out. 

Now, I'm not saying that ALL Native American knowledge be shared.  There are some things that should remain within it's own culture and context.  And the same can be said about many other cultures and beliefs.  But it is also sadly true that, whenever an elder dies, we loose a library. 

It is also known that in "pre-Columbian" times the cultures and beliefs of many Native Nations melded, grew, evolved, changed.  In post-Columbian times Catholicism and other forms of Christianity were introduced and many Nations ebraced those beliefs, changing even more of the "traditions". 

I guess I just wonder sometimes, why it is okay for Native peoples to accept, embrace and use (and change & mis-use) so-called European Christianity, but it not okay for non-Native people to want to learn from Native cultures. 

Now, going back to the tapes.... would it be better for non-Natives to listen to contemporary NA artists and their music?  Much of that embraces the romantized notions of NA's that you so want to dispel.

And then, there is the ubiquitous "Amazing Grace" that almost every NA artist seems to feel obligated to translate into their own language and put on at least one album.  Some go so far as to claim that it has "become the Cherokee National Anthem"  (Appropriation?)

Personally I feel that Native people can sing any so-called non-Native song they wish, they can repeat the words of the "Apostles Creed" or the "Wiccan Rede".  Matters not to me.  I'm not the judge of whether or not they are being used respecfully.  That lies in the heart of the user. 

[earthw7]

When it come to that nasty christainity it was forced on us by rape, molestation, injured, death, they brought us destruction. They force the ideal on us, so today some of people turn away their back to our traditions.

They forbid our beliefs, songs and dances in 1885 and it was not until 1979, when the United States gaves us limited freedom of religion. 
My PEOPLE DIED TO SING THOSE SONG!  ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE TO KEEP THEM?
Do you pray for that the family of the John Around Him who is singing those song and his family is warm and feed. John has now left this world an it is shame that this has happen to him.

Today after only 28 years ONLY we are now fight to protect what little we have as the so-called non-indian think that it is Ok to steal our belief because Christian steal everything right. It is there culture to take and take some more and think it is OK!

I don't know nothing about those wicca people.  I don't want to know not my way not my belief system.

We have suffered under this damn christian rule for 500 years years in the United States. we do have people that have been so brain washed yes, they still follow christianity.
Those of us who have come back to our traditions fight each day to keep it alive while we defending our ways.

What is the belief of white privledge that they can come to any culture because it is their right for our culture to save them while they destroy the world around them.

Then people come to us and tell us they should be able to find peace in my culture while their government is still killing my people,

I want to say right up front I am sorry,  but it hurt so much to have deal with the these people who think they have some right to my culture.

I don't want to save anyone outside my people, All I want to be able to pray without being afraid of who will steal/use/abuse what is sacred.

[Ganieda]

Yes, I understand what you say.  The history of abuse is deplorable.  But I do have this to say.  I wasn't there, I did not do it....and neither did any of my ancestors.  If I had it in my power I would change it.  To blame ALL non-Natives is wrong. Do I pray for things to be better?  Ya, you can bet that I do.  And, BTW, I am not Christian nor am I Wiccan.   My point in using the "Apostles Creed" and the "Wiccan Rede", as examples, was this

"I'm not the judge of whether or not they are being used respectfully.  That lies in the heart of the user."

[Moma_porcupine]

Gee Ganieda, you really don't sound like are hearing what is being said. Why did you ask the question in the first place .... to agrue with people who say it hurts them to see those songs used like that?

I don't know about the songs that are being discussed here, but I do know that in many traditions the songs are really important.  They have a deep history and often there is very strict protcols around when they can be sung.

If something has deep meaning to someone, and someone uses this in a way that doesn't recognize that meaning, it can feel like a really horrible desecration.

There is no way a non Lakota person can recognize that meaning.

Imagine if you had a photograph one of the most special moments of your life, that was taken of you with a loved one, who gave it to you before they passed on,  and this is one of the few things you had to remind you of that person. Then imagine one day you found out a copy of that picture was being used to advertise McDonalds hamburgers,  a beer commercial, or something else that really doesn't fit with all the values of what that picture means to you. If you imagine that maybe you will understand a bit of how it feels.

Sure you still have your photograph....Nothing was taken...but....

And then how would you feel when the person who is using it in this way just wants to agrue with you about how you feel about that?

And what do you imagine listening to traditional songs stripped of all cultural context gives back to Lakota culture? 

I know I've seen Elders get upset to hear songs that have been recorded being played on somenes car stero system, even when everyone involved is Native, so I think there is some traditions around this that are being violated, and it isn't just people giving you a hard time, because you aren't Lakota. So the whole agruement of "why can't ndns just be nice and share like we share Christianity with them" kind of falls apart .  Even in Christianity if someone from another culture joins the Church ( and doesn't have it forced on them as happened to mosyt Native people ) these other cultures are expected to conform to the Christian way of doing things. They aren't free to show up for Mass and walk out with the bottle of wine and the crackers.