This guide is a selection of resources for researching, studying, writing about, and performing Indigenous & Native American music (North American-focused).
Feedback on improving this guide is most welcome → reach out to Janet Hilts, the Subject Librarian for music.
Related MU Libraries Guide: Native American/Indigenous Studies
Hungry Listening: resonant theory for Indigenous sound studies
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Sound Relations: native ways of doing music history in Alaska
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“Reclaiming Ownership of the Indigenous Voice: The Hopi Music Repatriation Project.”
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The Right to Let Culture Die
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Intertribal Native American Music in the United States
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Heidi Senungetuk (Inupiaq)
“Creating a Native Space in the City: An Inupiaq Community in Song and Dance. PhD diss., Wesleyan University, 2017. https://doi.org/10.14418/wes01.3.71.
Robin R. R. Gray (Ts’msyen & Mikisew Cree)
“Ts’msyen Revolution: The Poetics and Politics of Reclaiming.” PhD diss., University of Massachusetts - Amherst, 2015. https://doi.org/10.7275/7247509.0.
Dawn Avery (Mohawk)
“Native Classical: Musical Modernities, Indigenous Research Methodologies, and a Kanienkéha (Mohawk) Concept of Non:Wa (Now).” PhD diss., University of Maryland, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/15192
Jessica Margarita Gutierrez Masini (Detribalized accomplice, Mexican and Indigenous mixed ancestry)
“Native American Indigeneity Through Danza in Southwest Powwows: A Decolonizing, Feminist Approach.” PhD diss., University of California, Riverside, 2023.
Davita Aphrodite-Lee Marsden (Anishenaabekwe)
“The Sound of 1001 Indigenous Drums: The Catalytic Cycle of Fire Eagle, Golden Eagle, Thunderbird.” Ph.D. diss., University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2021.
Stephanie B. Thorne (Western Cherokee Nation)
“Looking Through Trees, Finding Squirrels: Healing Traumas in Native America with Traditions, Song, and Dance.” Ph.D. diss., The Florida State University, 2020.
Renata Yazzie (Diné)
“Jesus Woodlą́ą́jí Sin: Sounding a Self-Determined Navajo Christian Church.” Master’s thesis, University of New Mexico, 2022. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/mus_etds/38.
(Under construction. Stay tuned for more articles)
Robin R. R. Gray (Ts’msyen & Mikisew Cree)
Gray, Robin R. R. “Rematriation: Ts’msyen Law, Rights of Relationality, and Protocols of Return.” Native American and Indigenous Studies 9, no. 1 (2022): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/nai.2022.0010.
Trevor Reed (Hopi)
Reed, Trevor. “Sonic Sovereignty: Performing Hopi Authority in Öngtupqa.” Journal of the Society for American Music 13, no. 4 (November 2019): 508–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196319000397.
———. “Who Owns Our Ancestors’ Voices? Tribal Claims to Pre-1972 Sound Recordings.” The Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts 40, no. 2 (2017). https://doi.org/10.7916/d8ng536k.
For Zitkála-?á
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The journey of the horizontal people (2016)
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Decolonizing Methodologies (3rd edition)
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Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies
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Elements of Indigenous style : a guide for writing by and about Indigenous Peoples
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Encyclopedia of Native American Music of North America
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The Encyclopedia of Native Music: more than a century of recordings from wax cylinder to the Internet
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The Sound of Navajo Country: music, language, and Diné belonging
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Music and Modernity among First Peoples of North America
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Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: modernity and hip hop in Indigenous North America
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Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures
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Indigenous Pop: Native American music from jazz to hip hop
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Indian Blues: American Indians and the politics of music, 1879-1934
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May 25 and 26, 2024, Jaycee Fairgrounds, 1445 Fairgrounds Rd., Jefferson City, Mo.
This should happen again in 2025!
