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NEWE HUPIA

Utah State University Press

Introduction

From the Shoshoni perspective, nearly everything in life and nature is sacred and worthy of being put to song. Thus, many songs are about specific details of nature such as animals, plants, and geographical and meteorological phenomena. They are also about traditional human activities such as hunting game and gathering and preparing foods, as well as spiritual practices and themes. On the one hand, the poetry songs are a traditional art form for the enjoyment of all who sing and hear them. On the other hand, they are used to help people learn about the specific details of nature, which are extremely important for people living in a hunting and gathering lifeway.

The themes of Shoshoni poetry songs are often not what either songs or poetry might be about in the modern Western tradition. The beauty of the lyrics of the songs lies in their simplicity and their power to capture details of nature and human existence that some of us may overlook or not pay much attention to. The poetry songs offer us a fresh look at the world, making the familiar vivid and alive. They give us insight and invoke clear imagery of the ordinary yet wondrous world we live in, expressing the experience of seeing the world as it is.

The poetry songs invoke imagery rather than describe it. In fact, elaborate description is avoided, and the songs use as few words as possible. Thus, the poetry songs are minimalist, simply illuminating the wonders of everyday life and celebrating its sacredness. The imagery is what is important, and so what is invoked is to some degree individual. Different singers of the same song and different people listening to it may have different interpretations. Each person has his or her own experience in the world, and so different interpretations of a given song are possible. What is important is taking delight in the wonders of nature and the world, to see it clearly as it is. The songs help one pay attention to the world and delight in it. In this regard the poetry songs are much like Japanese haiku poetry but without restrictions on numbers of lines and syllables within the line.

However, Shoshoni poetry songs are different from Old World poetry in that they are always sung, never simply recited, and always sung in the context of other activities such as dancing, playing handgame (= stickgame), healing ceremonies, and other rituals. The poetry songs are sung to provide a background invoking energy and power for the other activities, so the same song may be sung over and over again during a particular dance or ceremony before another song is sung. And in some songs the same line is repeated several times for rhythmic effect. The repetition is important in order to emphasize the imagery and power the song invokes for the hearers, whether they are dancers in a dance, players gambling in handgame, or healers and patients in healing ceremonies. The songs serve an important function by invoking puha 'supernatural power' in whatever context they are being sung. In this way, the poetry songs play an important role in the lives of the Shoshoni people.

The Newe (~ Neme) 'Shoshoni (people)' have a rich oral tradition which includes historical narratives and mythological stories as well as songs (see Canonge 1958; Crum 1980, 1985, 1993; Crum and Dayley 1997; Lowie 1909, 1924; Miller 1972; Smith 1993). Traditionally, older singers would teach younger people who wanted to learn the songs, and so the songs were passed down orally from generation to generation as something of especial value. Occasionally, a singer would create his or her own new song. Different singers may sing slightly different versions of the same song, and sometimes the same singer may sing slightly different versions. But as each generation of people who know the songs dies off, fewer and fewer young people have an opportunity to learn them. So, it is with a sense of urgency that we have collected and recorded them.

All of the poetry songs in this work are sung by Beverly and Earl Crum, both native speakers of Western Shoshoni and traditional singers. They live on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation straddling the border between Idaho and Nevada, have been married for fifty-five years, and have three grown children. Earl was born on a hillside near Battle Mountain, Nevada, in 1923 and learned many of the songs from older relatives and friends while growing up. Earl also learned some of the songs by hearing them at dances and other social gatherings and in healing ceremonies and other rituals. In addition, Earl's mother, the late Mabel Rodrigues, tape-recorded many Newe hupia that she had learned in her lifetime and gave them to Earl before she passed away to add to his collection. In recent years, Earl and other Shoshonis who enjoy singing the poetry songs get together to share each of their personal repertoires of the songs. Earl has lived and worked most of his life on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. He also has lived and worked off the reservation in various periods of his life. As a young boy he went to Stewart Indian School in Nevada. Later he served as a marine in the Pacific in World War II.

Beverly Crum was born on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in 1926. Throughout her life, she has lived both on and off the reservation. During the years on the reservation, she learned the songs from relatives and friends and at various dances and other social gatherings. Much later in life she lived in Salt Lake City pursuing an M.A. degree at the University of Utah, where she wrote her master's thesis on Shoshoni poetry songs.

For many years, both Earl and Beverly have had a keen interest in the Shoshoni language and have recorded, transcribed, and translated various oral traditions in the language, including myths and stories, histories, and poetry songs, as well as the everyday speech of elderly Shoshoni speakers. They have also spent many years teaching how to read, write, and speak Shoshoni on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation to many tribal members as well as to some non-Indians who work and live there. Their hope has always been that Newe will continue as a viable language.

This collection of hupia or poetry songs represents only a small fraction of the Shoshoni poetry songs known in the past and still sung today. The poetry songs presented here are a gift and legacy from the Shoshoni people to the world. They are also a means of preserving a small but important part of the Shoshoni language for future generations, for the Shoshoni people, and also for all who appreciate music, poetry, culture, and language. The songs are wonderful pieces of music, often with rhythms and melodies that differ from the classical European tradition. They can only be fully appreciated as pieces of sung verse, not simply printed on a page. For this reason, we have included a CD of the songs being sung in Shoshoni so readers can appreciate them as music even if they don't understand the Shoshoni words.

Song and Dance Types

The Shoshoni tradition offers several different kinds of hupia or poetry songs. The first three songs presented here are natayaa hupia, which are sung in the ritual called natayaa performed especially before the round dance. In this ritual, an elder or several elders lead a procession of people singing the songs. The people march counterclockwise to the dance ground, which has a pinenut tree or an aspen planted in its center. Then they offer prayers to the 'Maker of People', Newi Manemenaippehkante, for a good harvest in the current year and for harvests to come in the future. The people then purify themselves, nampuisitai, by washing themselves and putting red ochre or white clay on their bodies. Afterwards, the round dance begins.

The ceremonies during the harvesting of pinenuts are typical of combining dance with poetry songs and music. Recalling the rituals that went along with the pinenut harvesting festival, one elderly Shoshoni woman narrated the following:

Our old people used to work very hard during the warm months before the cold winter months set in. That's the way it was with gathering pinenuts. Some years the pinenuts were plentiful; other years there were hardly any. The times when the pinenuts were plentiful, we would choose a tepattaikwahni 'pinenut chief'. He would tell us to purify ourselves before we went to gather the pinenuts. So with prayerful thoughts we would wash our bodies. Then we would put on pisappi 'red ochre' or aipi 'white chalky clay'. We did this so the pinenuts would not be wormy, and so we would have strong healthy bodies. Only then would we go and gather the pinenuts. When we finished, our pinenut chief would ask us to get ourselves ready for the dances. Right away, the old women would grind up some of their pinenuts into flour and make pinenut pudding with it. Then, we would begin our dance with a special one called natayaa. This dance had its own special songs [namely, Totsantsi 'Cleansing', the first song in this collection]. They would sing these songs as the old women took spoonfuls of pinenut pudding and walked circling the dance place. In this way we celebrated the harvesting of pinenuts.

After the ritual natayaa dance, the people would join together for social dances. The dance performed most often during festive occasions was the round dance. In the round dance, men, women, and children dance in a circle, intertwining their arms and holding hands while moving in short measured steps to one side. As one elderly woman laughingly remarked:

Tammen nanah kwi'naa wa'ihku yotikkinna. we (incl) just bird like fly (pl) along

'We just fly along like birds.'

Taking part in the round dance is fun and energizing, and everybody enjoys it.

Songs sung during dances in general are called nekka hupia 'dance songs', and those sung at round dances are called nua hupia 'movement songs'. Most of the songs we present in this work are round dance songs. Traditionally, people begin dancing in round dances in the evening and dance all night until daybreak. Throughout the night various songs are sung by different singers. During the day other activities go on, such as handgame, races, and other activities for everyone, young and old. The celebration goes on for several days and nights, and on the last day people dance until noon and then begin to go home.

Another kind of dance performed during the round dance is called ta aipuntu nuan nekkanna 'this direction round dance'. This dance is different from the regular round dance in that the music is faster, the dancers hold hands and move in a peppy jog. When the singer says "aipuntu" the dancers stop and start moving in the opposite direction. The change in direction is signaled by songs called aipuntu hupia which are transitional songs that singers sing when people have been dancing for two or more hours, to change the direction (clockwise or counterclockwise) in which people are dancing. The aipuntu songs give the dancers a break to relieve tired legs and hips. Aipuntu literally means 'this way' or 'this direction'. An aipuntu song is sung and then the word aipuntu is repeated several times, which is the signal to turn and change directions, and then the song may be sung again several times.

Another Shoshoni dance is called ta wehe'neki nekkanna 'the rasping dance', named in reference to the noise made by a rasping instrument which beats the rhythm for the dance. Nowadays this dance is commonly called the bear dance in English. In this dance, participants dance with a partner, moving back and forth in a linear fashion. Songs sung during the bear dance are called wehe'neki hupia, literally meaning 'rasping song'.

Other traditional songs are puha hupia, literally 'power songs'. These songs are also called nanisuntehai hupia 'prayer songs' or nattahsu'u hupia 'medicine songs' and are used in various kinds of ceremonies and healing services to invoke puha or supernatural power.

Handgame songs are also traditional songs sung to invoke luck while playing handgame (or stickgame), a very old traditional gambling game among many North American groups. However, handgame songs are not represented in this selection.

Finally, there are more contemporary songs that Shoshonis sing at powwows, which are modern nontraditional intertribal gatherings with dancing, singing, and drumming, as well as competitions for all of these. Pow-wow songs include flag songs like one presented at the end of this volume. It should be noted, however, that a few flag songs are traditional, and they might better be called banner songs since they are about banners identifying different groups of people. Other modern pow-wow songs not included here are honoring songs and songs sung during what are called the war dance in English, but called tan tase'yekinna 'moving the feet' in Shoshoni. These are not traditional to the Western Shoshoni but rather had their origins in Native American Plains culture, then spread to many North American Indian groups in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These songs differ from traditional ones in rhythm, cadence, and lyrics.

Other more contemporary songs are peyote songs sung in Native American Church services. The Native American Church movement began among the Kiowa and Comanche in Oklahoma in the 1890s and spread to most other North American Indian tribes at the end of the nineteenth century and during the first part of the twentieth century. The church was formally incorporated in 1918. Members of the Native American Church consider peyote a very sacred medicine and take it as sacrament in church ritual. Peyote songs are considered nattahsu'u hupia 'medicine songs' much like traditional medicine songs. One peyote song is included near the end of this book.

The Shoshoni Language

Since the hupia or poetry songs presented here are sung in Shoshoni, a few words about the language are in order. Here, we simply present a short sketch of the language in general and also mention special characteristics of the language used in poetry songs.

Before Europeans began colonizing western North America, Shoshoni was spoken by several thousand people in the valleys and mountains of the Great Basin area, the Snake River Plain, and the northern Rocky Mountains. Shoshoni territory included a large triangle-shaped area stretching out from a point in southeastern California through central Nevada and into southern Idaho and northern Utah and on into southwestern Wyoming. There are still several thousand Shoshoni people living on Indian reservations and in towns and cities scattered throughout the same area today. However, the number of people who still speak the language fluently has been dwindling fairly rapidly in the last few decades, so there are only a few hundred people who use the language on a day-to-day basis as their first language, although a few thousand still know it to one degree or another.

Shoshoni belongs to a large family of genetically related languages called Uto-Aztecan, which includes some thirty languages whose speakers aboriginally inhabited a vast territory stretching from the Salmon River in central Idaho, southward through the Great Basin and Southwest, into much of northern and central Mexico, and with colonies of speakers in Central America in parts of present-day Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Aztec (or Nahuatl, called Pipil in Central America) is the southernmost member of the family, and Shoshoni is the northernmost member. Other languages scattered in between are listed below. The language family gets its name from combining Ute and Aztec. Shoshoni belongs to a subbranch or subfamily of Uto-Aztecan called Numic (much like English belongs to the Germanic subbranch of the Indo-European language family). The word Numic in English is borrowed from cognate words in all the Numic languages meaning 'Indian, person' and the name of the language in each of the Numic languages. For example, in Shoshoni neme (~ newe) means 'Shoshoni, Indian, person' and also 'the Shoshoni language'; and similarly in Panamint Shoshoni, nümü means 'Tümpisa Shoshoni, Indian, person' and also 'the Tümpisa Shoshoni language'.

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Excerpted from NEWE HUPIA by Beverly Crum Earl Crum Jon P. Dayley Copyright © 2001 by Beverly Crum, Earl Crum, and Jon P. Dayley. Excerpted by permission.
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