Native American Song

The oral traditions of Native American cultures cannot be traced in the same ways as written poetry, but their widespread presence and cultural importance among different groups can hardly be overestimated. Praise poems, chants, curses, and remedies existed in many Native American cultures, with song regarded as a powerful spiritual instrument. Arranged in the right way, language was and is believed to be a source of magical strength, drawing upon good or deflecting evil forces. This Apache song was employed in rituals involving masked dancers, or Gan, who represented divine beings:

When my songs first were, they made my songs with words of jet.
Earth when it was made
Sky when it was made
Earth to the end
Sky to the end
Black dancer, black thunder, when they came toward each other
All the bad things that used to be vanished.
The bad wishes that were in the world all vanished.

(“Songs of the Masked Dancers,” trans. Pliny Earl Goddard, 1968)



A Navajo farm-song ritually fulfills the growth of the staple foods corn, white beans, and squash, willing the cycle to completion by appeal to the House-God:

Now in the east
the white bean
and the great squash
are tied with the rainbow
Listen! the rain's drawing near!
The voice of the bluebird is heard.

From the top of the great corn-plant the water foams, I hear it.
Around the roots the water foams, I hear it.
Around the roots of the plants it foams, I hear it.
From their tops the water foams, I hear it.

(“Songs in the Garden of the House God,” trans. Washington Matthews, 1968)



In their repetitions and refrains, these songs belong to oral traditions reaching back to the oldest poetic forms.