INTRODUCTION HISTORY BACKGROUND REPERTOIRE CHILDREN LITERATURE

In this semester, the focus of our folk and traditional music is Native American. We are beginning with Native American music because the Native Americans were the first Americans in this land. We have to let children know that native groups have legal rights to the land through laws and treaties (although those are often ignored or broken). Native Americans have been here 13,000 years. They don’t belong to the past. There are more than 1,000,000 Native Americans in the United States today.                     When the first Europeans came to this land they called the native peoples “Indians,” thinking that they were the Indians of India/Asia. The Hopi, the Sioux and the Menominee are not “Indians.” They are separate groups of native tribes with different names, cultures and languages.                     To introduce Native American music to children, “Ten Little Indians” is not a starting point. This song is not a Native American children’s song. It is a song which is used for teaching numbers rather than the culture. We as parents and teachers, are responsible for providing valuable knowledge and accurate information so that our children are encouraged to respect the Native Americans’ cultures. As Sparks and mentioned in his book--“Anti-bias: Tools for Empowering Young Children,” teaching tolerance and anti-bias is our responsibility.                     Native arts have long been the subject of interest and respect. Even more important in today’s world is the Native American philosophy of life--respect for the land, every form of life, and for living in harmony with nature. As Bruchac mentioned, “The native people of  North America speak of their relationship to the Earth in terms of family.... They speak of the Earth as Mother, the Sun as Father and the animals as brothers and sisters.” He also mentioned that the traditional use of the stories was always twofold. “First, the stories were meant to entertain. Second, and more important, they were meant to teach. If a child misbehaved, that child would not be struck or humiliated; instead, a lesson story would be told.” Please keep this in mind when you tell your children Native American stories. We want to teach our children in a positive environment, guiding them to be confident and comfortable with themselves. Positive encouragement and advice are the best tools in guiding and teaching children.                     It is impossible to provide all the information within one session. We encourage you to do more reading to your children. For field experience, take your child/children to the Cascade Park on Cuyahoga Street in Akron. There is an Oak tree there, several hundred years old, which was used as a signal tree for the Native Americans. When you take your child/children to the park, as “Brother Eagle, Sister Sky,” mentions, please encourage them to love nature, and help preserve the land and the earth which is our home. by Chet-Yeng Loong, Ph.D.

History of Native Americans

• the name Indian was first applied to them by Christopher Columbus, who believed mistakenly that the mainland and islands of America were part of the Indies, in Asia, but this is a misnomer
• the term Native Americans does not refer to a single homogeneous group, but it is rather a generic term for the people that represents many and varied languages and lifestyles, each differing somewhat from its neighbors