Heartbeat of the People

Tara Browner is a professor of ethnnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the editor of Music of the First Nations: Tradition and Innovation in Native North American Music. She is Oklahoma Choctaw and dances in the Women's Southern Cloth tradition.

• CoverTitleCopyrightContentsAcknowledgmentsNotes on Terminology and Capitalization1. All about Theory, Method, and Pow-wows2. People and HistoriesIllustrations3. Dance Styles and Regalia4. Making and Singing Songs5. Pow-wows in Space and Time6. The Dancing of Six Generations: Lakol Wicoh’an Ki Wastélaka Imacage (I have grown up liking the Lakota ways)Illustrations7. The Musical Life of an Anishnaabeg Family: Nda Maamawigaai (Together we dance)Afterword: When the Pow-wow’s Over, Sweetheart . . .NotesBibliographyIndexBack Cover

"Keeps an even balance between respect for the topic and friendliness toward the reader. Essential for all public, academic, and tribal library collections."--Choice "As a dancer herself, [Browner] had immediate access to the community of pow-wow participants, and as a scholar, she brings a historical and critical analysis to a politically sensitive subject . . . An accessible work for both Native and non-Native, nonspecialist audiences."--Library Journal "Of Choctaw blood and an ethnomusicologist at UCLA, Browner is uniquely qualified to provide this glimpse into the cultural environment of the pow-wow . . . It is in the voices of her interview subjects that [the book] really shines. "--John Nettles, PopMatters.com "A truly significant contribution to the field . . . promises to be the most comprehensive and detailed source available on the pow-wow, including an excellent compilation of information on its origins as well as its various styles of music and dance."--Victoria Lindsay Levine, author of Writing Indian Music: Historic Transcriptions, Notations, and Arrangements "[Heartbeat of the People] is crucial because it subverts simplified stereotypical interpretations, demonstrating that pow-wow culture is multifaceted, sometimes conflictive, and always in process, shifting, transmuting. The book is a window, in effect, to a major contemporary cultural expression emanating from the Native communities of the North."--InÉs HernÁndez-Avila, member of the Nez Perce nation from Nespelem, Washington, and associate professor of Native American studies at the University of California, Davis