181 TRADITIONAL CREE SONG AND THE PROBLEM OF …

181

TRADITIONAL CREE SONG AND THE PROBLEM OF CREATIVITY IN MUSIC

Lynn Whidden Universite de Montreal

Ethnomusicologists invariably approach the study of a music with

the assumption that it is a creative manifestation of man's expression.

Perhaps this assumption is a partial explanation of the neglect of north­

ern Cree music; ethnologists like to study the interesting, the piquant.

Certainly traditional Cree song does not fulfill our European American

expectations of what music should be, particularly the expectation of

music as a creative art form.

In this paper I want to argue that music need not necessarily be cre­

ative. Indeed by its very nature it is frequently the opposite. I am using

the adjective "creative" as it is typically defined, that is music with an

inventive ingenuity, originality, and imagination. In some contexts the

rigidity of music may hinder or prevent certain types of communica­

tion, for example, discursive communication, preventing insights and

information which can be gained from dialogue. To make my point I

will use Cree traditional song which I recently gathered in Chisasibi, a

community in northern Quebec, and song which is of particular interest

to Algonquianists.

Chisasibi, with a population of approximately 2000, was originally

on the island of Fort George in James Bay. Because of the James

Bay hydro-electric project relocation of the settlement to the main­

land began in 1980. About 400 men were employed to carry out the

move. They were well-paid and as a result, the typical large, two-storey

wooden dwellings are equipped with modern appliances including a

stereo record-player and cassette components. The external appear­

ance of the community is modern with the exception of tipis which

are constructed for the walking-out ceremonies and subsequently used

for cooking and visiting. Also striking is the arrangement of homes

into circular bays which consist mainly of consanguineous groupings

since during the planning of the community the Cree chose whom they

wanted for neighbours.

Families are now using up the last of their pay from the moving

project. There is much unemployment among the men but many of the

mothers work, particularly at government-related employment. Hunt-

182 Lynn Whidden

ing remains an important part of life, especially for families where the

father is not employed full-time in town. In the modern school approx­

imately 600 children receive instruction, most of them in the French

language. Since school is not compulsory, some 200 children do not at­

tend school but remain in the bush camps with their parents, hunting

and trapping. For this reason I do not think it absolutely certain that

the traditional music will vanish. The main language of the community

is Cree, most people speak English, perhaps some French. The Angli­

can church is well-attended by older people; the Catholic church has

few members. There is also a shaman in the community. People of the

community are brought together through bingos and weddings in the

new town centre. Other special occasions such as the school graduation

are cause for a dance and much socializing.

What genres of music did I find in Chisasibi? As one might expect

children like disco, rock music and some popular music in folk style.

Those in their 30s and over are country music fans. As in our society,

most people are listeners rather than performers. There is one native

rock and roll group and many youths play guitar, although few well

enough to be recorded. Three young men sang songs for me in folkstyle

accompanied by guitar. Older persons sing in the Anglican church

choir. There are several fiddlers, who are accompanied by guitarists;

for example, I heard two different fiddlers at two weddings. Not so

visible are the creators and performers of the Cree traditional music,

but I found that the traditional songs are remembered and sung by

many of the old people. Six elderly informants performed some of

the old songs and lullabies; one told stories and played on the button

accordion. Three others told stories and two of these also sang hymns

from the Cree hymnary.

W h o sings the old songs? None of the three elderly women I in­

terviewed could sing any of the old songs but two did sing traditional

lullabies. The four traditional singers were elderly men, most of whom

were no longer actively hunting. All four were interviewed and recorded

in their homes, frequently in the bedroom where it was quiet, by myself

and my interpreter. There was always much joking and talk.

The subjects of the traditional songs, in order of frequency, were:

16 songs about animals—beaver, porcupine, bear, deer, fox, rabbit, otter, fish 10 songs about birds—white bird, the loon, goose, seaguU, snow owl

5 songs about people—white man, woman, song about a sister, song about a poor young man who never used to kill anything

Traditional Cree Song 183

songs about "work"—going into town for food, how to make snowshoe., a song to fix the canoe, walking songs about nature—the rapids, morning, the rapids and the canoe

prayer songs, one song about witchcraft

songs about the Eskimo

song about the old days

song about singing—comparing it to the shot he takes

toboggan slide song

The focus of this paper will be on the songs of Robert Potts, an elderly man, blind and feeble, who lives in the home of his daughter and her family. Following are the transcriptions of two of the songs, followed by Robert Pott's explanation of the songs.

184 Lynn Whidden

Song about geese

"This is going to be my song about geese. There's front clouds.

That's what I used to feel when I used to hunt for geese. That's where

I made up my other song. There were times when I did kill lots of geese.

Just like cumulus clouds, clouds moving fast. How fast the clouds go

by when it's really windy. That's why I sang this song like this".

Song about daylight

"I used to think that the daylight wakes me up in the mornings.

That was my song".

Many Euro-Canadians barely consider this as song since it lacks the

interest that we require in music, for example, a variety of pitches, in­

tervals, rhythms and dynamics. But from an ethnomusicologist's point

of view it is definitely music, because it is distinctly patterned in a way

that speech is not.

I wish to explain the neglect of Cree music by discussing creativity.

I emphasize the word Cree, since some native musics have been well

studied and hold intrinsic interest for the Euro-Canadian. Music, in

our society, is assumed to be a creative art form. In Melvin Rader's

introduction to A Modern Book of Esthetics (1960), art is character­

ized in terms of three standpoints: the creativity of the artist, the

work of art, and the reception of art by the public. There are excep­

tions which I will point out, but generally we expect music to provide

contrasting melodic phrases—for example A A B A for popular songs, a

variety of pitches, usually our diatonic scale and perhaps a few key

changes. Harmony and instrumental accompaniment are enjoyed too,

but we are not a sophisticated society rhythmically and once a meter is

established we are content to leave it. However, we do like our music to

go someplace, to have a climax. Those musical characteristics belong

to the preponderance of the music our society enjoys, genres such as

country, popular, folk and classical. There are exceptions, such as jazz

and church chant. Indeed it is possible to construct a continuum of

creativity ranging from speech to Gregorian chant. According to the

ethnomusicologist George Liszt (1963), as one proceeds from chant to

song there is an expansion in the scalar structure, that is, the structure

of the scales becomes more formalized, as does the usage of pitches.

Contrary to many expectations I believe that the music to the pre­

ceding Cree songs is not endowed with a high degree of creativity. This

Traditional Cree Song 185

point is supported by Maurice Bloch (1974), who states that one must

understand the medium of communication or expression. In rituals

this is frequently song: "Song is, therefore, nothing but the end of the

process of transformation from ordinary language which began with

formalisation" (Bloch 1974:69). Speech has the ultimate propositional

force, but according to Bloch one "can not argue with a song" (Bloch

1974:71). Song denies choice of intonation, rhythm, and vocabulary.

Bloch admits to a continuum of creativity but says that in an ordinary

context the propositional force of all song is less than that of spoken

words. He attributes song with an illocutionary force, a social and

emotional force which denies all argumentation, and says that the only

means song has to reinforce its argument is through repetition.

Despite Bloch's penchant for over-generalizing the nature of music—

he does not consider the manifold genres of song which are used for

argumentation, making only brief reference to Eskimo song-dueling and

quickly dismissing it—I wish to illustrate his thesis using Cree song as

a specific case in point, as representative of a music which is essentially

not creative. As mentioned earlier, music is highly patterned or structured; once

it ceases to be, it is no longer music. W e noticed earlier that Cree

music partakes of this patterning—a point which we shall examine in

more detail shortly. W h y is traditional Cree music so tightly struc­

tured? Perhaps one explanation can be found in the function of the

music in the society. Bruno Nettl (1975), speaking of native societies

says that music permeated society, but that it was primarily associ­

ated with religion. Although we know little of music in northern Cree

Society we do know that across the North American continent there

was a wide belief in the power of music as it was used in rituals—the

northwest coast Indians punished singers who made mistakes; Pueblo

Indians have elaborate, codified song ceremonies, as do the Navaho. On

the whole, it was believed that songs were gifts from the spirits. They

were not man-made; for example, the most valued songs of the Plains

Indians were received through a vision quest. Acknowledging the su­

pernatural sources of music and its concomitant power, native society

granted individuals little scope for creativity, or for altering music ac­

cording to individual desires. The music was tightly structured and

changes were not allowed. Music was a way to communicate with the

186 Lynn Whidden

spirits and therefore had to be performed correctly. Since it was be­

lieved that particular sound patterns were pleasing to the gods, music

was accordingly structured. This brings us back to Maurice Bloch's

argument that ritual communication through song is not a dialectic

but a matter of repeating correctly. Indeed he states that repetition is

the major source of illocutionary force in music. If we accept this as

the case, then we have increased insight into the repetitive nature of

traditional native music. The number of reiterations of tones is much

higher, for example, in the religious songs of the Chippewa, than it is

in their social songs. Using Kolinski's method (1982) I have calculated

the average reiteration quotient of Robert Prott's two songs as 78.

It is also to be noted that native music exhibits not only a high

degree of internal repetition, but in addition repetition over time. For

example, the songs collected in 1914 by Christian Leden among the

Caribou Inuit are close versions of those collected in 1974-76 by Ramon

Pelinski. Remember also that they are completely orally transmitted.

Redundancy over time is undoubtedly characteristic of Cree music but

at present we have no evidence to validate this thesis.

W e see that because of its roots in the spirit world, most native

music is a conservative, not a creative, art. I contend that traditional

Cree music too, is essentially sacred, as was their society. Undoubtedly

there are instances where the Cree singers think of themselves not as

individuals creating a song, but merely as a medium for carrying the

message of the song; the song is a depersonalized force. Note too, the

frequency with which vocable and archaic language is used in native

music. Until recently we did not understand that nonsense syllables

formed a coded message, and to my knowledge there are as of yet no

studies of Cree nonsense syllables in song. Use of such syllables and

obsolete words tend to formalize songmaking, leaving less scope for the

individual manipulation of words and even of the melodies, since words

and music are often closely bound.

To demonstrate the restricted usage of the melodic elements of the

foregoing Cree songs I have prepared a table showing a tabulation of all

possible intervals that can be generated from the gamut of tones used

in the Goose Song and in the Daylight Song. In the Goose Song, of

the possible 12 intervals, only six are actually used, and in the Daylight

Song, again of a possible 12 intervals, only six are used.

Goose Song

Traditional Cree Song 187

Gamut Primes Ascending Intervals Decree

Descending Intervals

0 P

I P

4 P

» P

2MA IMA Tri'tone

2MA 3MA

SMA

IMD

2MD IMD

IMD 3MD Tritone

The intervals in italics are those which were not used by the singer.

Daylight Song

Ascending Intervals Descending Intervals G a m u t Primes

Degree

0 P

» P

* P

7 P

IMA 4MA 6MA

2MA 4MA

IMA

IMD

2MD 4MD

2MD 4MD 6MD

As one can see, creativity is a needless assumption of the attributes

of music. Obviously the creativity of a music may be plotted on a con­

tinuum; some Cree traditional music exhibits little creativity. Religious

music or music which is contextualized frequently is highly formalized,

and shows little manipulation of the musical elements.

Then too, societies value creativity differently. A necessary element

of oral societies is repetition, which is a vital aid for memory. Constant

repetition is not necessary in a print-oriented society, where one may

refresh one's memory by reference to a score. On the other hand, the

existence of print has cramped inventiveness for some music genres.

Consider the western classics and the strong traditions dictating how

the music should sound.

To conclude I quote Tony Seeger's (1979) comment on South Amer­

ican Indian music:

Our assumption that music is an 'art', a primarily aesthetic and therefore inci­

dental activity, has led us astray with respect to Lowland South American music. To these societies music is a fundamental part of social life, not merely one of its

options.

Surely Seeger would agree that creative music, music charged with

esthetic qualities has attributes closer to speech, that is music which

has the ability to convince, to make an argument through the progress

of time. In this case, music in itself lacks authority or absolute power,

but it may be changed or altered. Indeed, it must first be created to

make its point. Music in a religious context is essential, not incidental.

188 Lynn Whidden

It must not be altered, and in fact there are no social guidelines for doing so. The music has immediate and absolute power or authority

as it is. As stated earlier the only means to increase its illocutionary force is through repetition. I argue that the Cree songs discussed in this paper fit into the latter category.

REFERENCES

Bloch, Maurice

1074 Symbols, Song, Dance and Features of Articulation. Archives Europeennes

de Sociologie 15:55-81

Kolinski, Mieczyslaw

1082 Reiteration Quotients: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. Ethnomusicology 26:85-00

Liszt, George

1063 The Boundaries of Speech and Song. Ethnomusicology 7:1-16

Rader, Melvin

1060 A Modern Book of Esthetics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Seeger, Anthony

1070 What Can W e Learn When They Sing? Vocal Genres of the Suya Indians of Central Brazil. Ethnomusicology 23:373-304.