Why are "Native American Flutes" so expensive?

[Zubivka]

I was just wondering how the topic of NA flutes and all the attendant funning around tie into this.

I wondered too. Then I spottted (linked in parcours25's profile) that site talking bodhrán mystique, and figured some have to take eveything, or any thing, so seriously. Remember we even had a bit of bassoon mystique here. Yeah, Spirit of da Fagott.

[Pat Cannady]

Obviously this is important to you, and I have no such above-stated misunderstandings about matters of your faith, myself. Can you imagine the hordes of ersatz "pagans" popping up like a plague if money were to become involved? Keep in mind that "pagan" is a Christian term, too.

Actually, not to nitpick too much, but "pagan" comes from pre-Christian Latin "pagus", meaning "bumpkin", "rustic", "hick", etc. The Romans of the Republic and early Empire liked to refer to people in the provinces in this manner. When the Emperor Constantine converted in the 330s(? not sure, memory's a bit fuzzy), it became fashionable for the powerful and wealthy to convert. "Pagus" took on its pre-Christian, tribal/traditional religious associations shortly thereafter, when the provincials stuck to their pre-Christian ways and had to be converted by missionaries from - you guessed it - ROME.

[Nanohedron]

Thanks, Pat.

[ravensdream]

On behalf of the Woodland Native Americans some of which are the Delaware, Miami, Shawnee, Mingo, Wyandot (just to name a few). The NA flute is a very important item in their religion. Sometimes the cost of one of these flutes may reflect how the materials were accquired. People making NA flutes that are NOT NATIVE AMERICAN are making a NA style of flute. A true and pure NA flute goes through a long jouney before it is released as beautiful music. The wood that these are made of comes from something special. Sometimes, it is from a replaced pray pole or a special cedar tree that has been blessed, etc. Therefore the cost is usually directed to discourage the non Native American from purchasing it.

As for the Celtic Pagan... On August 8, 1780, George Rogers Clark came into the Ohio Valley with 1,000 men and fought the battle of Peckuwe and nearly wiped out the entire Shawnee Nation. 98% of his men were Scotch & Irish!

[Zubivka]

Whoops... sorry, I should have said I recently acquired a NA style flute. I mean I don't have a reliable pedigree from the maker, so I guess it's not 100% kosher.

Well, I'm sure that true pure blood (? ) believers are right to discourage acquisition of authentic NA flutes by NA style flautists, just as I wouldn't like to buy some crockery then learn it was stolen from a Church Where It Had some Special Ceremonial Meaning.

Same way, I (attempt to) play Irish style whistles, none of which are Irish but a terrible Walton "mellow D" (got their pun? ha-ha...), and all of which are only penny style whistles except maybe for the Walton "mellow d" even if it cost me closer to a shilling.

And, sometimes, when I blow in these, I tend to forget the taters starvation and the bombings, and repression of these, just as I can hear Rachmaninov and forget about October 1917, or remember I was borne in Vietnam, 1954, and forget the slaughter in Dien-Bien-Phu. And still enjoy Núoc Mam.

I even listen to Bach, forgetting I'm not even a Protestant.

Maybe all this 'cause I believe my mundane/immature/light/trivial/unconsequential/un-PC/sacrilegious (check one) approach to all these musics may be the sign of a limited conscience, but better yet than just plain ignoring anything out of my native culture. Like Núoc Mam.

Now, I would appreciate of you makers that aren't guaranteed Irish to please advertise from now on you're making only penny style whistles. Really.

[ravensdream]

To the Message Board,
If my last post sounded mean and hostle, I appologize. It was not my intentions. The question was asked as to why NA Flutes are so expensive. In reading the responses it appeared that some where not aware of what goes on in making some NA flutes. I admire any craftsman that can make ANY kind of instrument that gives the world the opportunity to hear and feel the beautiful music it produces. In using the word style, how else would you suggest I differentiate between the two?

However, as for the Pagan Persecution.... In what year were you allowed to vote? Did you know that the Native Americans didn't get to vote until the early 1970's! And they still have to show their BIA cards when they leave the reservation. Hard to beleive this is the 21st century! I am not trying to argue the point .... just educate.

[Zubivka]

And they still have to show their BIA cards when they leave the reservation. Hard to beleive this is the 21st century! I am not trying to argue the point .... just educate.

You just did. I'm shocked.
Now, is it a price to pay so as to be a recognized as a NA Nation?
Btw, can a NA be drafted by Uncle Sam?

[Jerry Freeman]

Just a point of information, Zub.

In the aftermath of the Vietnam war, the U.S. military draft was abolished. The United States has an all volunteer army. As to who was drafted and forced to fight in Vietnam, we'll have to wait for someone more knowledgeable to address that one.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[OutOfBreath]

To the Message Board,
Did you know that the Native Americans didn't get to vote until the early 1970's! And they still have to show their BIA cards when they leave the reservation. Hard to beleive this is the 21st century! I am not trying to argue the point .... just educate.

If that's what passes for education in Ohio...

Growing up in the SW and now living in Texas, not too far from the OK border, I've lived adjacent to or very near reservations most of my life. In all that time (beginning in the early 60's) I have never seen any reservation where a Native American had to show a BIA card to leave the reservation. If anything, you might have to show a BIA card to get on some reservations, or to some parts or facilities of reservations -- where that is true it is at the request of, and administered and enforced by, tribal government and tribal police. I.e. it's to keep us out, not them in (and I'll be the first to acknowledge that that was not the original purpose of reservations).

I grew up adjacent to the Ute reservation in SW Colorado. I was on the youth swim team and we used the indoor pool at the nearby town on the reservation because it was the only indoor olympic sized pool in the entire region. Every time we used that facility we had to sign in and explain why we were there, that the swim team had an agreement with the tribe, etc.

Just out of high school I had a construction job building government housing on the reservation, there were no checkpoints at all to simply get on and off the reservation.

In short, treaties vary from tribe to tribe, and some tribes have been shafted royally while others have actually made out pretty well. Growing up close to both Ute and Navajo reservations drove this point home very well -- the Ute reservation was quite wealthy and modern while many, maybe even most, of the Navajos were still living in adobe huts or mobile homes without adequate sewage and water. However, Native Americans have not been required to live on reservations for many decades, let alone show a BIA card to leave a reservation. In these times, a BIA card (if they're even still using them) is nothing but identification for tribe membership and entitlements.

As for voting, I'm pretty sure you're way off the mark there, too. I lived within a stones throw of the Ute reservation from the early sixties right through the mid seventies. All of the NA kids from the reservation went to our schools. The nearby NA town didn't have a major supermarket or department stores, so they did a lot of shopping and just general hanging out in my home town -- making the effective NA population of our community about 25 percent. Now, if they'd just been getting the right to vote about that time, don't you think I just might remember some mention of it, pro or con? Why, I bet it might even have been a topic of discussion in my high school government or history classes! :roll:

John

[ravensdream]

Well John,
Perhaps rules on the reservations in the SW are different than the ones on the SE Coast.

As for voting...perhaps if you would have been at the big party we had for my father when he received his rights to vote then maybe you would remember!

Now enough is enough! This is a message board for whistle players. I respect your opinons but I will not respond further on this matter. I learned a long time ago...You can drag a dead horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

[Zubivka]

No hard feelings!

This is a whistle board, and here we happened to talk NA* flutes.

And some fundamentalists might even think it OT.

Now it is hard to refer to an ethnically rooted musical instrument without expanding to culture, harder yet mentioning the culture while putting a lid on the the history.
We've had our debates, and sometimes heated, on the pennywhistle since it had to bring in Irish culture, hence history.
I even remember a thread on the origins of the hornpipe (dance) which turned out less than 100% consensual.

Otherwise, let's leave any topic alone, except maybe for the Boehm flute: this seems clinically safe enough.

* PS: I'm not American, so my perception has to be different. Nonetheless:
this NA acronym sounds so... PC. Surgically "safe" and cold as a rubber.
I understand talking of «Injuns'» flutes would be doubly misleading, what with the bansuri, but hasn't anyone suggested a better expression? After all the A standing for American is already a Columbian reference, i.e. colonial term, so in what way is it really better? Any peau-rouge or pale face with an explanation or suggestion?

[herbivore12]

Okay.

As a person of Arapaho descent, who spent quite some time on the reservation with family in Wyoming, I have also never seen or heard of the practice of checking BIA cards, except by tribal government itself. It's never happened to any of my native friends or family, regardless of tribal affiliation. That's not to say it couldn't happen elsewhere, but I think it'd be illegal, since all native Americans have been full U.S. citizens since 1924, with right to free travel, etc., as any other citizen.

Here's the facts about voting, from a web FAQ (short version: all native Americans have had the right to vote in national elections since 1924; however, some states did not extend the privelege for local elections until later; still, a travesty):

"Are Indians U.S. citizens?


Not until 1924 were all Native Americans granted citizenship. Before this juncture only individuals who were mem bers of federally recognized tribes and "naturalized" individuals were given the rights of a United States citizen. Presently all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States are by law citizens. Native Americans have had the privilege of voting in national elections since 1924; however, until recently some states prohibited Native Americans from voting in local elections. New Mexico, for example, did not extend the vote to Native Americans until 1962. Most native people, of course, also are members of their respective sovereign tribes."

None of which is to say there aren't still problems in white-Indian relations: as a child, I remember being denied service with my grandfather in a restaurant because the owner was angry about fishing or hunting rights that he felt the native folks took advantage of. It was odd for me, because in California I generally pass as white, or maybe part Asian, but in Wyoming, people could identify someone of native ancestry; I wasn't used to being so noticed. I remember reverse racism, too, on the res: just as some whites disliked us for being "halfbreeds", so did some of the natives, who considered themselves more purely Indian, and us as a lower sort of mongrel. It was confusing to a kid, I'll tell you.

Zub, interestingly enough, almost all of the native people I know refer to themselves -- if they don't refer to themselves by their tribal name, e.g., Arapaho, Navajo, etc. -- as "Indians". Some use "Native American", but more of them use "Indian". I don't know if it's the same sort of appropriation and subversion of the term that black Americans have done with the infamous "N-word", or if it's habit, or what. My white friends are careful to use Native American, usually, and sometimes seem shocked when I or my family use "Indian" in conversation. It took me a while to get used to the "NA" term, in fact, having grown up among Indians who called themselves "Indian".

I suppose now the term "NA" might be a convenient way to differentiate between Indians from India (of which there are many in the U.S.) and native peoples, though. In the San Francisco area, where I live, it's more likely that someone who is Indian is actually of the Asian subcontinental variety, I think. The Native American population in this area is quite small (as it is throughout the U.S. generally, Europeans being so good at the imperialism thing when they really put their minds to it).

Since I'm half Arapaho, and half European Mongrel, our American Thanksgiving holiday was always veeerrryyyy interesting around our house, especially if members from both sides of the family were there . . .

[The Weekenders]

Interesting post, Herbi. I always think Native American is clunky and pretentious to say because all the Indians I know say "Indian," too or just refer to their own folk, like Cherokee and so forth.

The real sprouty folk say "Native Peoples." Because I do school assemblies and we perform a few songs from the California tribes (?), I always trip on my tongue trying to not say Indian, because the teachers won't like it, yet distinguish between a current California native (like me) versus pre-Colombian California natives. And aborigines always sounds like Down Under.

Man, this thread endures.

[Zubivka]

Thanks, Veggie12. I suspected the acronym to be... hmm-—proper?

The first Indian I met was in Nam, 1959; at that time, all I knew was that in cowboys movies, there were Indians, too, and the long-word NA was not invented yet, or not widespread. He was a Counselor and officer, as all Americans in Pleiku, but him being the only one Blackfoot around. As a kid, I liked him much, maybe since his room was full of so interesting things, like a feathers hat. But, boy, was he alone, and from what I got at the time--and since--it wasn't really his choice. Take Blackfoot as half "black", and there definitely was no black officer around.
Oh, yeah, same year Christmas, and I'm spoilt as any blonde kid around, with all them American officers here far from their home, and I'm offered a belt with two guns, one each side...

Now what, a few decades later? I just received my first Indian flute. No, rather "NA-style"--it's plastic, after all. Sounds lovely; the low whistle brought me to Irish music, and this can't do less.