Northern Haida Songs

This book describes the musical culture of the Northern Haida Indians, who speak two closely related dialects. One dialect group lives on Graham Island, British Columbia, the other on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. The recordings on which the book is based were compiled over a period of more than a decade from a wide variety of historical and contemporary sources. Representing the entire range of the Haida musical traditiona tradition that nearly died out and is currently being revivedthis volume documents its changes over more than a century. Part 1 is a lengthy ethnographic description of musical genres that situates Haida music in the context of the Northwest Coast. Part 2 presents 128 songs, fully transcribed and analyzed and representing some twenty types, ranging from traditional genres such as peace-making and mourning songs to songs of personal expression composed during the modern period. Part 3 is a detailed musical and linguistic analysis of the songs presented in the second part. The integration of descriptions of these two facets of songmusic and languageis the particular goal of the book. The volume is a substantive contribution to the ethnomusicology of native North America and will be of special interest to scholars concerned with vocables in Native American music.Enrico, John is the author of 'Northern Haida Songs' with ISBN 9780803218161 and ISBN 0803218168.