The Brush Dance
The Brush Dance[1] is traditionally performed to cure a child who is feverish or sickly. In the center of a pit, a medicine woman and her helper work on the baby; they hold it in steam produced by certain herbs, massage it, and wave burning sticks of pitchwood over it. The duties of the medicine woman were described in chapter 2 and a more detailed account is found in Keeling (1982a ).
Because of the use of burning pitchwood the dance is called hont naht weht ("fire-waving dance") in the Hupa language. The Yurok word for it is meyli or melo - and the Karok term is hapish .[2] The English expression "Brush Dance" presumably derives from the fact that the male dancers hold brush in front of them rather than carrying regalia on the first night. Today they use salal brush for this purpose, but Sam Jones (Yurok) mentioned that they used to dance with blue spruce (February 5, 1979). The blue spruce is only
found at higher elevations and is less abundant today because of logging.
The public component of the ritual takes place during the night. While the medicine woman works on the child, males of various ages (and some younger girls) file into the pit and sing in order to help the doctoring. The singers are supposed to concentrate on the well-being of the baby, and this augments the prayers and good thoughts of the medicine woman. All of the songs are short, generally about one minute in length, and there are two types: heavy songs and light songs. Each set of songs begins with a heavy song, and these are more religious in character and slower in tempo than the light songs which follow. The heavy songs are always wordless and are sung only by men. After the heavy song is sung three times, any of the men or girls can sing a light song. A light song is also sung three times, and between each rendition there is a brief silence. After any song is sung three times, there is another, somewhat longer pause which lasts until another soloist is moved to begin. In all, a set of songs typically lasts about one half hour. Nowadays, two "teams" take turns in the pit, and they alternate through the night until morning.
The Musical Texture
At an actual dance, the listener's impression of Brush Dance singing is dominated by the unusual manner in which the male singers accompany the soloist. The soloist starts alone, and after a few phrases by him the others begin their rhythmic ostinato. This is done softly at first, but it becomes increasingly louder and more markedly rhythmic until toward the end they all but drown out the soloist because of the volume of their chanting.
This unusual vocal technique is rather difficult to describe in words, though Woodruff simply referred to it as "a weird grunt" (1892:59). In its most basic form, the ostinato consists of a series of forceful glottal stops that mark a regular one-beat rhythm. One singer might assist in this manner (sharply accenting each beat), while the man next to him softly murmurs vocables with resonant nasality and much tremolo or vocal pulsation. Yet another accompanist might add a soloistic part that trails the main part hetero-
phonically. Thus the various accompanimental parts are often rather individualistic, but these differences are largely obscured as each man's voice becomes lost in the complex sound of the ensemble.
As in other dances, this accompanimental singing is called "rhythm" by the Indian singers themselves, and example 8 shows some patterns which are frequently used.
Although framed in repeat signs, these would not be repeated exactly but rather with considerable flexibility. Moreover (as mentioned previously) each would begin quite softly and grow louder throughout the course of the song. Many of the vocable patterns suggest 4/4 meter when sung by individuals in demonstration, but accent is uniform, and the collective effect in an actual performance is one-beat meter. The simpler patterns shown in the upper examples would occur in faster tempos, and the more irregular patterns shown in the lower examples would be used in slower songs.[3] Use of X's rather than note-heads indicates lack of pitch-focus, and parenthesized grace notes are meant to depict a sort of "glottal trill" which resembles sobbing.
In example 9 I have transcribed one phrase-group of a heavy song sung by soloist Fred Davis (Hupa/Chilula) accompanied by Herman Sherman, Sr. (Hupa).[4] Rather than using a conventional "rhythm" pattern throughout, Mr. Sherman chooses to accompany this part of the song by faintly trailing the descending melody of the soloist. He does so quite softly, as if he were humming rather than singing. Then toward the end of the phrase-group he and the soloist both employ more conventional "rhythm."
In an actual dance the accompanists sometimes take even greater liberties than this; the parts they add not only "echo" the solo part but loudly assert their independence. This is heard on a (light) Brush Dance song sung by Dorothy Moore (Yurok) and a group of men on a recording made by Margaret Woodward in 1953 (see appendix 1).
Heavy Songs
The heavy songs are wordless, and they are generally performed with a "sobbing" vocal delivery much like that heard in the Deerskin Dance or the Jump Dance. The solo part of a heavy song
Example 8.
Typical "rhythm" parts chanted by male accompanists in the Brush Dance.
Example 9.
Segment of a heavy song with accompaniment in heterophonic style.
by Elmer Jarnaghan (Hupa) is transcribed in example 10. The song is typical in beginning with a short intonation that establishes a tonal and rhythmic framework for what will follow. This bit of "rhythm"[5] also sets the tempo for the accompanists or "helpers." It also usually defines the tonic pitch of the solo part, and indeed it does so here though Jarnaghan has somewhat masked the fact by echoing the final note of each phrase-group (except X) with a measure or two of "rhythm" sung a minor third lower.[6]
Example 10.
Brush Dance heavy song performed by Elmer Jarnaghan (Hupa) and recorded
by Richard Keeling in 1979.
Example 10.
Brush Dance heavy song performed by Elmer Jarnaghan (Hupa) and recorded
by Richard Keeling in 1979. (continued)
As in most Brush Dance songs, each phrase-group begins with a melodic leap to a relatively high pitch and descends gradually to cadence in the chanting of "rhythm." Thus each section typically ends with the solo singer allowing his voice to become absorbed in the glottalized ostinato of the group.
Most of these songs include a contrasting (B) section in which the singer moves up to a higher pitch level and delivers new melodic material in a climactic fashion. Thus the most typical structure is an AAB-type form, though note that the letters refer to phrase-groups rather than to motives as in previous analyses of other genres. The song in example 10 has an extra phrase-group (X) and a recapitulation which make its form AA(X)BA, but this follows the basic pattern and is only one of many possible variants that are heard.[7]
All of these Brush Dance songs are rhythmically exciting. Even though example 10 is rather slow in tempo and modest in its use
of syncopation, the singer is constantly "stretching" the beat against that of the ostinato, much as a modern blues singer might. When Indian singers tap their foot to the music, they raise the toe on the downbeat and let it fall on the offbeat, thus producing a cross-accent like that produced by a jazz drummer when he strikes the ride cymbal on the weak beats of a 4/4 measure.
In the dance itself this cross-accent is particularly noticeable, as all the dancers rock their bodies in a similar counter-rhythmic fashion and wear heavy shell necklaces which rustle loudly in concert with the movement. The men heave their torsos up and down from the waist in a rather forceful way, and if there are girls in the pit they bob up and down on the balls of their feet in a more restrained way. All these songs have a duple feel, and 4/4 meter is the general rule.
The reader may have noticed that the pitch level of the song drops one half-step between phrase-groups X and B, and instances of "pitch drift" (in either direction) are common in the repertory as a whole. Adjusting for this, we find a scale that is anhemitonic and pentatonic, but here again (as in examples 3 and 7) the scale is irregular in that notes of the upper octave and lower octave do not correspond exactly. As mentioned previously, this is not the general rule but occurs often enough to be regarded as stylistic. Here again the melodic range is wide, and the overall contour is descending or perhaps terraced-descending. Finally, the ending of the song is signaled by a closing "flourish" shouted by the soloist, and this is a general characteristic of Brush Dance songs.
While the song in example 10 seems to have a relatively static or "fixed" character, others such as the one transcribed in example 11 are more spontaneous or improvisatory in nature.
In example 11 the formal structure is ABB1 , the B1 phrase-group being drawn out into a rather lengthy improvisation. Thus the tension increases as the song moves toward an end. The songs are sung three times, and a superior singer often embellishes the last section of the song more and more each time, dramatically extending the climax of the music. Ewing Davis was a master at this, but other modern singers use a similar approach.
Having examined different versions of the AAB-type form in modern recordings, it is interesting to compare a Brush Dance song performed in 1906 by Domingo (Yurok), a famous singer from
Example 11.
Brush Dance heavy song sung by Ewing Davis (Hupa) and recorded
by Frank Quinn in 1956.
Example 11.
Brush Dance heavy song sung by Ewing Davis (Hupa) and recorded
by Frank Quinn in 1956. (continued)
Weitchpec. Generally speaking, the style is typical of that heard on cylinder recordings collected among Yuroks around the turn of the century.
Like the modern songs discussed previously, the song in example 12 is wordless. The early song also resembles recent ones in that its melody consists mainly of an alternation between motives sung in the upper register and "rhythm" motives chanted in the lower part of the singer's range. But instead of having the AAB-type form, which has been postulated as a sort of norm in modern singing, this one has an irregular structure in which "rhythm" motives are much more prominent. This occurs in other early recordings and seems to suggest that the relatively common AAB-type form in modern recordings could be a recent development. A similar trend was noted with respect to Deerskin Dance songs.
The Light Songs
While the heavy songs are always wordless, light songs often have meaningful texts or lyrics which reveal their secular character. Example 13 is a transcription of a light song sung by Herman Sherman, Sr. (Hupa). Although many of the men's light songs are sung entirely in vocables, this one has a text. Addressed by an older man to the sweetheart of his youth, the words could be translated, "Where we used to meet the grass is grown up high now." While locals are quick to point out the humorous or sexually suggestive character of Brush Dance lyrics, the tender sentiment in this text shows the expressive range that they can cover.
Example 12.
Brush Dance heavy song sung by Domingo (Yurok) of Weitchpec and recorded
by A. L. Kroeber in 1906.[8]
Except for its use of a text and a somewhat quicker tempo, this light song is similar in style to the modern heavy songs considered previously. It begins with a measure of "rhythm," and in each phrase-group the musical interest centers upon the progress of the solo part as it first rises above the ensemble's ostinato, then gradually descends to merge with it. The use of a text in sections A and B makes this juxtaposition apparent, as words are used in the beginning of each phrase-group and vocables are used for the "rhythm" motives at the end.
Example 13.
Brush Dance light song sung by Herman Sherman, Sr. (Hupa) and recorded
by Richard Keeling in 1979.
Example 13.
Brush Dance light song sung by Herman Sherman, Sr. (Hupa) and recorded
by Richard Keeling in 1979. (continued)
Once again the postulated AAB-type form is interpreted quite freely, and the actual structure of this song is A X B B1 . Very seldom are phrase-groups repeated exactly in this style, but section X is clearly new material and seems to be improvised. Possibly (I feel) the singer began a new musical thought here and then decided against it for one reason or another. The style provides much freedom in this respect, for the soloist can chant "rhythm" motives virtually any time he wants to abandon one melodic idea and move on to another.[9]
As mentioned above, light songs in the Brush Dance may be sung by women as well as by men, and this is the main occasion for female singing in public ritual music today. In example 14 I have transcribed a light song sung by Aileen Figueroa (Yurok). Humorous and sexually explicit texts are common in this genre, and this text (set in sections V and VI) has been freely translated, "She was just an old woman, but she was a helper from the bottom." Lyrics like this often originate from spontaneous wisecracking at the dance itself, but then they might be used and remembered by local audiences for generations. This light song, for example, is still known by many today as "Grandpa Natt's Song," and it was first recorded as sung by Robert Natt (Yurok) himself in 1932.[10]
This example illustrates general characteristics of the female style, as opposed to that of the male singing in the Brush Dance: (1) the melodic contours tend to be undulating rather than descending, (2) the formal structure typically consists of one short phrase-group repeated several times with variation rather than using the AAB-type pattern,[12] (3) the motive at the end of the song is soft
Example 14.
Brush Dance light song by Aileen Figueroa (Yurok) recorded
by Charlotte Heth in 1975.[11]
Example 14.
Brush Dance light song by Aileen Figueroa (Yurok) recorded
by Charlotte Heth in 1975.[11] (continued)
and brief compared with the shouts or "flourishes" that men use as a way of signifying conclusion,[13] and (4) elements of the glottalized ostinato accompaniment are not integrated into the solo part of girls' songs, as they generally are in the men's solos.
The last-mentioned point is especially significant, for it illustrates how male and female soloists differ in relation to the ensemble. The male soloist interacts with the other male singers, his part alternately rising above the ensemble and descending to merge with it. By contrast, the girls' songs remain more independent of the ensemble, dancing over the surface like a bubble in a brook. Typically, however, the girls' songs include syncopations which gently contradict the steady and emphatic beat of the ensemble.
Finally, the girls' singing differs from that of the men in vocal
quality. Compared with the men's singing, there is much less glottalization, pulsation, and raspiness in the voice. In the men's songs there is a tense and nasalized vocal delivery in the upper registers alternating with diffuse and glottalized articulations on the lower notes. By contrast, Aileen Figueroa's voice has a light and tuneful quality throughout the song, and this is very typical of the style used by girls in the Brush Dance.