| The Northern Haida Indians comprise two closely related dialect groups; one lives on Graham Island, British Columbia (one of the Queen Charlotte Islands), the other lives on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. This book describes Northern Haida musical culture and is based on recordings compiled over a period of more than a decade from a wide variety of historical and contemporary sources. It represents the entire range of the Haida musical tradition - a tradition that nearly died out and is currently being revived - and documents its changes over more than a century. | |
| Part 1 is a lengthy ethnographic description of musical
genres that situates Haida music in the context of the Northwest Coast. Part 2 presents a collection
of 128 songs, fully transcribed and analyzed, representing some twenty types, ranging from traditional
genres such as peace-making and mourning songs to songs of personal expression composed during the
modern period. Part 3 is a detailed musical and linguistic analysis of the songs presented in the
second part. The integration of descriptions of these two facets of song - music and language - is
the particular goal of the study. JOHN ENRICO has been engaged in linguistic research on the Haida language since 1975. His publications include The Lexical Phonology ofMasset Haida (1991) and articles on aspects of Haida grammar. He is currently working on a pan-dialectal dictionary of Haida, a grammar of the Masset and Skidegate dialects, and a book on Haida place names. WENDY BROSS STUART is an accomplished performer of Japanese and Yiddish music who has spent twenty years studying samisen and koto and holds an advanced teaching license in samisen. Her first ethnomusicological publication was Gambling Music of the Coast Salish Indians (1972). In 1980 she began collaborating with John Enrico in the transcription and analysis of Haida songs. |
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