Closed Captions

Two Omaha drum groups share their musical heritage, discussing the origins of grass dance songs and the big drum tradition. Speakers explain the significance of specific songs—including the Omaha Nation flag song and half-breed song—and describe how their families have maintained singing and dancing practices across generations while living between Omaha cultural traditions and broader American society.

Transcript

0:02 Lewis and Clark, it's a story of them, the men that went with them on this expedition, the woman who accompanied them to the Pacific Ocean and back with her baby. It's a story of all of the Native Americans that they met along the way and the ones they didn't get to meet who were out doing their buffalo hunt. It's also a story about all the people who have come along since then and
0:24 10 of many voices is a place where all of those voices can be heard so that people from different perspectives and different walks of life and different stories to tell can come here and tell their story. We're very fortunate to have with us today the Omaha Lodge Singers. So thank you very much and we'll turn it over to you.
0:52 Do
5:11 Yeah
5:20 It's just
5:26 Good afternoon. Those of you, most of you here know who we are. We got a few here that don't. Um, as you mentioned, we are the Omaha singers, and that song that we just sing there is, uh, one of the songs we sing for grass dances.
5:43 And all of this stories probably been told here, um, the grass dance as it is dance today originally had its start here with the Omaha tribe. It was originally called, uh. The Omaha dance by a lot of the tribes, and this is one of the songs that we sing throughout the circuit, on the pollo that we traveled to.
6:08 We've seen, uh, different styles of for, for the different styles of dances and at this time, I wanna uh introduce members of our group here.
6:19 my left here starting here would be my brother Heaven.
6:24 Next in line would be my brother Dustin Griffin. My brother Quentin,
6:31 my nephew Pa South C. And my brother Edward Baxter Junior. My brother Tony Puttle.
6:41 Brother Darryl Blackbird My nephew Justinsons. And we're gonna sing a few more songs here. Uh, if you have any questions, uh. Feel free to ask away.
7:01 Yeah.
12:09 They
12:12 There
12:14 OK
12:16 That's
12:21 Any questions?
12:25 Cut us all this up. That was the inner tribal song used for general dancing Nepal arena.
12:32 It was made by my nephew, uh, Bradley was here today.
12:38 And in our drum group here, uh, a lot of the songs that we do sing are composed by, uh, the members of the group here. We all have a little part in all the songs I made and whatnot, um. And
12:54 um we also sing other uh drum group songs, other tribe songs and stuff like that. Our singers are diversified in a way that some of the singers here, they attend sun dances, they attend Native American church meetings, um, and we also have Sun Lodge and some of us participate in that, and we sing songs in there too,
13:18 so it's not just that and with the big drum that we sing.
13:22 Uh, if there's no questions, uh.
13:27 Any questions? All righty.
13:33 Oh, you did and I missed it. Sorry.
13:38 Sure that gentleman over there in the red shirt. You really have a nice voice. Oh. Thank you.
13:49 Well, you sound very good. Thank you.
13:51 Um, if nothing else, we'll continue on to next.
14:00 OK.
14:22 I
16:43 Yeah.
19:20 I
19:35 That
19:37 we got.
19:41 Oh
19:46 And
19:48 Can you explain why the drum is different. It's not sitting on the ground. The difference of the drum, you're holding on to the drum. What kind of a drum is that?
20:01 Yeah.
20:03 I've seen drums that sit on the ground, but never that people hold on to. Can you explain that? Um, it's not really, uh, a different, you know, any significance or anything, just the way that the drum was built, was like, uh, some of these drum makers, they try different styles and this is more.
20:25 Like one of the other d drums that are used is like what they call a hand drum, a smaller handheld drum, and just kind of like a variation on that. As far as any kind of real significance, it's just, you know, it's just not as thick as the regular drums. It does have a different sound because with the bigger. Drums, you know, uh, they have the bigger, you know,
20:49 resonance inside and all of that, so it will uh come off with a different sound. And Well, one of the things that uh. It's important for the drums is that you keep the hides tight so that you can get the resonance out of them so they can be heard out there. And right now, given the weather and things like that, the drum hides aren't real solid so
21:14 but yeah, to answer your question, it's that it's. It's just a different style that somebody. And it, it's up to the, the drum groups, I guess, what type of sound they prefer. Uh, this really isn't our regular drum. Our regular drum is like the ones that you mentioned, the bit of drums that's sitting around,
21:34 uh, this is the one that we want to bring out of uh.
21:39 The chair is more. Uh, this drum, particularly drum here happens to belong to Tony here. Uh, this had come from his, um, uncle who has, uh, gone on to the spirit world. And he had left his strong with Tony here, so, uh, and that's another thing that a lot of our members here, you know, they do have their own.
22:03 It's just a complete way of life, really, that uh we've adopted and adapted to and uh I it's, it's just like almost uh everyday part of our life somewhere somehow. Even within the group here we are always doing different things together, you know, we go to different places together. We spend a lot of time even away from the drum,
22:28 you know, with each other so that kind of, you know, that unity that that this drum builds. Yes it's very important. It's very sacred and, and it's, you know, giving us a lot of support. Any one of our members, you know, we have one of them has a hard time and the rest of us are there and try to back them up and. Uh, it just goes on and off, you know, so.
22:51 We can, we, you know, we love it. We keep doing it, you know, we probably all keep doing this until we're ready to go, you know. So with that, you know, we're gonna sing one more song, we're gonna sing a round that song and um. Those of you that want to get up and dance, you're welcome to dance, and that will conclude our program. Thank you.
23:54 Um,
24:55 Yeah
27:35 You
27:38 I thank all of you that attended that will conclude our program here.
27:46 I'd like to thank the Omaha Lodge singers for coming to our core of Discovery 2 and the 10 many Voices, and I'd like to thank everyone for coming to the core of Discovery 2 and the 10 many Voices. This is our last program for the day, but we do, but we do open tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Many voices in the core of Discovery 2. It's been great being here, uh, in Macy in the Omaha Indian Reservation. Uh, today in the 10 of many voices for this hour,
28:10 we are going to have Standing Eagle Native song and dance troupe. So let's welcome them and uh thank you for being here and sharing with us.
28:22 Thank you. I wanna say, uh, welcome to the Lewis and Clark Core of Discovery Group, uh, from Saint Louis, Missouri. Welcome to the Omaha tribe. We're the San Eagle singers of the Omaha tribe. Uh, we got our start singing about around 1969 with my father, uh, older brothers, and older relatives. And it transpired down to uh what you see today. Uh,
28:45 today we have like about 20 members within our group, but due to uh school and uh work commitments, so we could all be here, but those of us that are here are here and we're trying to share a little bit of our music with you, um. Like I said, our family comes from a, uh, a culturally oriented family of song and dance and also, uh, religious, uh, beliefs to our Native American church.
29:09 But what we're doing today is with our big drum and our grandfather, we have to thank him, uh, Mr. Perris Oy who, uh, made a way for us years and years ago. Uh, unfortunately, none of us, we had the opportunity to, uh, be. Here when uh my father was still our grandfather was still here he had passed on before uh we were brought into this world, but yet he'd already made a way for us within this big
29:31 drum as well as our small drum in the Native American church. And today, like I said, we're the Eagle singers were a family group coming from mostly from the Burg clan, although we have others that are in the thunder. Clan and uh other uh buffalo clan, but yet we still have one family. Um, today we have uh my daughter here, Holly Hollyanna Sheridan, uh, my nephew here, Fred, uh my brother Sean,
29:55 my nephew Ammon, nephew Mike, and my grandson Siber. um, and today we're gonna try to share a little bit of our music and try to, uh. I let you know what the song means, what the meaning is, and why it was, uh, composed and the whole when it was composed, but, um, like I said, we're very happy to be here and be a part of, uh, history here
30:19 maybe some years down the line when we're, we've already gone on to, uh, that place that God's prepared for all of us that. You know, our, our generations to come will be able to look at these things and maybe use some of what, uh, we're leaving behind here. So today I wanna say thank you to, uh, the Louisa Clark Corps of Discovery Committee and ask us to be here and be a part of the program and we're as Omaha people and as a family we're more
30:42 than thankful to be a part of this as as a history of the Omaha people. Thank you.
31:25 But
31:31 Yeah.
32:01 Hey
32:53 Oh.
33:15 OK.
33:20 day
33:25 Uh
33:29 Oh.
33:39 The far
33:42 Was, uh, is known as the Omaha Nation flag song. It was composed by my grandfather Pas Santosi after, uh, the First World War, and the song talks about my brother, you're going across the big waters to fight for this flag that we have going uh amongst our tribe today. Uh that's a little bit of uh how that song was, was composed, um, and now we're gonna move on to a couple of, uh,
34:07 older songs that are, uh, not really, uh, say when the song was composed or, uh, how long ago, but, uh, we'll try to elaborate on that a little bit when we, we finish the song.
34:59 OK.
37:37 Well
37:56 you
37:58 I was just saying is known about more people as the half breed song. Um, my mother told me, uh, years ago that, uh, members of the Lamson family and there's a couple others that came to my grandfather, uh, Paris Sany's camp during the power when, uh, one morning and asked for, uh, something special to signify the, the half breed members of the tribe and
38:23 I think I don't know if it was that day or the next day that my grandfather sang that song. It's component by Paris Sasi talks about uh being the well hey hey they being half white, you know, that's the way it is, but it's good today and be strong because of who you are. So, uh, we have a lot of hares amongst. A lot of people and that song was composed by my grandfather for them to use whenever uh they felt
38:46 that they were being honored or sometimes sung and all happy people will get up and dance to that song. So uh it's a little bit about where that song comes from and uh composer.
41:11 the job.
41:23 So that song that um tells that my grandfather had a hand in uh composing along the way and it talks about uh a little soldier in this this song has uh the exact date of when it was composed or like that is, uh, I'm not known to myself but I doubt any others do, but it's one of our older songs that we do have amongst our people, um, unfortunately, you know,
41:46 our people were dancing some 200 or more years ago, um. Yet, uh, I don't know whether you have songs from those times or not. Maybe the tunes are still here. They put different words put for them, but these are some couple of songs that we sing a couple of the older songs that we do have, you know, uh, from years gone by early last century, so, um. Now we're gonna try to move on to a little more update, you know, uh,
42:10 my father started singing, uh, back with our group back in 1969 and I just started with my older brothers and older relatives, and what you see today has been a product of that. My mother and father was really instrumental in raising us in the city of Lincoln. Uh, my father retired after 38 years from the, uh, VA hospital there, uh, as an employee, and they always taught us that we need to know, you know, where we come from, who we are,
42:35 and always be be proud. Of who you are because you came into this world um Maha and you're gonna leave the same way, um, and along the way, you know, being raised in Lincoln, we had to we had to live in two different worlds and, um, when you came into our yard, it was we had to do things in our um Maha way with ourmaha beliefs, and yet we went out of the yard and to, uh, play with our other friends and other nationalities. We have to live in a in a whole new new different
42:59 world as well as going to school and trying to compete and academics as well as athletics and um. So it was, it was a little tough during those times, but after I got older, I understand that there's a lot more to uh being Omaha or native or Indian, however you wanna, you wanna call it, whatever word you wanna use. And uh at a young age, you kind of get Get away from those things,
43:24 not thinking about them as you get older, you gonna be you start to get to feel that belief of being proud of who you are and that goes for any nationality. But today, you know, we're, uh, a product of, uh, Clyde Sheridan and William Sansi Sheridan, our drum group, and they also paved the way with the singing and dancing as well as this big drum and a small drum and N American church and uh we're trying to follow along those ways and that's been uh.
43:48 Some 30, 3, almost 35 years that we've had a drum group within our family, maybe not the same name but the name has changed over the years but uh we're still a group and we're still singing as a family we try to encourage all of our younger ones. Um, one time we counted all the singers in our, in our family alone on both sides of our family and there was over 50 singers that we have amongst our family, so we're kind of proud of that fact. I don't think uh
44:13 too many families. And many other tribes can, uh, make that statement and also with uh my grandson and uh my nephews and my brother here and my daughter, other relatives we also as known as the Rough Riders when we first started as the younger group and we were the first group back in 1992 we were the first group drum group native drum group that sang with the symphony orchestra on stage when we did the uh
44:37 that the lead center at the University of uh. Uh, the braska Lincoln when we did the West Meets West and we did a composition with, uh, the Omaha Symphony on stage as well as doing that with the Symphony in Omaha. So we have the distinction of being the, the only and first and only that I know of a drum group native drum group to sing with the symphony on stage. So, uh, we're very, very proud of that fact and, uh,
45:00 so today we're still continuing with our music and, uh, we try to stay together as a family, stay strong. So for now we're gonna uh go on to more of a. The modern style of singing or the, the beats up tempo and the songs are a little different than uh most of the songs are composed by composer myself for our group.