Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:39:15.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Sonic Sovereignty: Performing Hopi Authority in Öngtupqa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2020

Abstract

In this article, I explore the ways territorial authority or sovereignty emerges from within a particular mode of Indigenous creativity—the creation and performance of Hopi taatawi (traditional songs)—despite the appropriation of Hopi traditional lands by the American settler-state. Hopi territories within Öngtupqa (Grand Canyon) are just a sample of the many places where Indigenous authority, as expressed through sound-based performances, continues to resonate despite the imposition of settler-colonial structures that have either silenced Indigenous performances of authority or severed these places from Indigenous territories. Drawing on the work of Hopi composers and intellectuals, I explore how Hopi musical composition and performance are deeply intertwined with Hopi political philosophy and governance, resulting in a form of sovereignty that is inherently sonic rather than strictly literary or textual in nature. Recognizing that this interconnection between territorial authority and sound production is common across many Indigenous communities, I propose listening to contemporary Indigenous creativity not just as an aesthetic form but as a source of sonic sovereignty.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atalay, Sonya. Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by, and for Indigenous and Local Communities. Oakland: University of California Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L.How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Balenquah, Lyle. “They are Still Here: Wupatki Pueblo and the Meaning of Place.” In Hisat'sinom: Ancient Peoples in a Land without Water, edited by Downum, Christian E., 1116. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Barker, Joanne, ed. Sovereignty Matters: Locations of Contestation and Possibility in Indigenous Struggles for Self-Determination. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Basso, Keith H.Wisdom Sits in Places: Notes on a Western Apache Landscape.” In Senses of Place, edited by Feld, Steven and Basso, Keith H., 5390. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Black, Mary E.Maidens and Mothers: An Analysis of Hopi Corn Metaphors,” Ethnology 23, no. 4 (October 1984): 279–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blasi, Vincent. Freedom of Speech in the History of Ideas: Landmark Cases, Historic Essays, and Recent Developments. 2nd. ed.St. Paul, MN: West Academic, 2016.Google Scholar
Bruyneel, Kevin. The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of U.S.–Indigenous Relations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Cave, Kate, and McKay, Shianne. “Water Song: Indigenous Women and Water.” Solutions 7, no. 6 (November 2016): 6473.Google Scholar
Coffey, Wallace, and Tsosie, Rebecca. “Rethinking the Tribal Sovereignty Doctrine: Cultural Sovereignty and the Collective Future of Indian Nations,” Stanford Law and Policy Review 12 (2001): 186221.Google Scholar
Coleman, Elizabeth B., and Coombe, Rosemary J., with MacAlrailt., FionaA Broken Record: Subjecting ‘Music’ to Cultural Rights.” In The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation, edited by Young, James O. and Brunk, Conrad G., 173210. London: Blackwell Publishing, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulthard, Glen Sean. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dangeli, Mique'l. “Dancing Sovereignty: Protocol and Politics in Northwest Coast First Nations Dance.” PhD diss., University of British Colombia, 2015.Google Scholar
Deloria, Vine Jr.Intellectual Self-Determination and Sovereignty: Looking at the Windmills in Our Minds,” Wicazo Sa Review 13, no. 1 (Spring 1998), 25–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dueck, Byron. Musical Intimacies and Indigenous Imaginaries: Aboriginal Music and Dance in Public Performance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esposito, Roberto. Communitas: The Origin and Destiny of Community. Translated by Campbell, Timothy. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Falk, Richard. “Sovereignty.” In The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics. 2 vols. Edited by Krieger, Joel, 2:398. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Feld, Steven. Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Feld, Steven. “Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea.” In Senses of Place, edited by Feld, Steven and Basso, Keith H., 91136. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Forbes, Jack D.Intellectual Self-Determination and Sovereignty: Implications for Native Studies and for Native Intellectuals.” Wicazo Sa Review 13, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 1123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garner, Bryan A.Black's Law Dictionary. 11th ed.Toronto: Thompson West, 2019.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1978.Google Scholar
Grand Canyon Association. “Who Owns the Grand Canyon? Nature, Culture and History at the Grand Canyon.” Arizona State University. http://grcahistory.org/history/who-owns-the-grand-canyon/.Google Scholar
Havens, William Michael. “Intercultural Dynamics of the Hopi-Navajo Land Dispute: Concepts of Colonialism and Manifest Destiny in the Southwest.” Master's thesis, University of Arizona, 1995.Google Scholar
Hill, Kenneth C., Malokti, Ekkehart, and Black, Mary E.. Hopi Dictionary/Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni: A Hopi-English Dictionary of the Third Mesa Dialect. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Indian Office. Executive Orders Relating to Indian Reserves from May 14, 1855 to July 1, 1902. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert. Sovereignty: Evolution of an Idea. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007,Google Scholar
Joyce, Erin. “From Navajo to Arctic Landscapes, Exploring the Aesthetics of Sound,” Hyperallergic, May 5, 2016. https://hyperallergic.com/273964/from-navajo-to-arctic-landscapes-exploring-the-aesthetics-of-sound/.Google Scholar
Ka‘ili, Tēvita ‘Ō.Marking Indigeneity: The Tongan Art of Sociospatial Relations. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuwanwisiwma, Leigh J., Fergusson, T. J., and Colwell, Chip, eds. Footprints of Hopi History: Hopihiniwtiput Kukveni'at. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lassiter, Luke Eric, Ellis, Clyde, and Kotay, Ralph. The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Porter, Catherine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Levine, Victoria Lindsay, and Robinson, Dylan, eds. Music and Modernity among First Peoples of North America. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2019.Google Scholar
Loftin, John D.Religion and Hopi Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Lomayestewa, Lee Wayne. “Podcast: Returning Hopi Songs—A Hopi Perspective.” Hopi Music Project, February 5, 2011. MP3 audio, 15:00. https://hopimusic.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/podcasting-returning-hopi-songs-a-hopi-perspective/.Google Scholar
Memorandum of Understanding by and between the Navajo Nation and Confluence Partners LLC 1-2. Signed February 25, 2012. Grand Canyon Trust. “Escalade: The Saga.” https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/stopping-grand-canyon-escalade.Google Scholar
Mesa Media. Taatawi: Puwvitstawi pu Tiitaptawi Hopi Lullaby and Game Songs. Mesa Media, 2010, compact disc.Google Scholar
National Park Service. “More than $1 Million Goes to Fund Arts Projects in National Parks.” National Park Service Office of Communications, May 10, 2016. Updated June 22, 2016. https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/05-10-2016a.htm.Google Scholar
Perea, Jessica Bissett. “The Politics of Inuit Musical Modernities in Alaska.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2011.Google Scholar
Povinelli, Elizabeth A.The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raheja, Michelle H.Sovereignty.” In Native Studies Keywords, edited by Teves, Stephanie Nohelani, Smith, Andrea, and Raheja, Michelle H., 317. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Raheja, Michelle H.Visual Sovereignty, Indigenous Revisions of Ethnography, and Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner).” In Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film, 190220. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Trevor. “Reclaiming Ownership of the Indigenous Voice: The Hopi Music Repatriation Project.” In The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation, edited by Gunderson, Frank, Lancefield, Robert C., and Woods, Bret, 627–53. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Robert. “Selected Hopi Secular Music: Transcription and Analysis.” EdD diss., Arizona State University, 1973.Google Scholar
Richland, Justin B.Hopi Tradition as Jurisdiction: On the Potentializing Limits of Hopi Sovereignty.” Law and Social Inquiry 36, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 201–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richland, Justin B.Jurisdiction: Grounding Law in Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 42 (2013): 209–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richland, Justin B.’What Are You Going to Do with the Village's Knowledge?’: Talking Tradition, Talking Law in Hopi Tribal Court.” Law and Society Review 39, no. 2 (June 2005): 235–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickard, Jolene. “Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sensors.” South Atlantic Quarterly 110, no. 2 (April 2011): 465–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Dylan. “Public Writing, Sovereign Reading: Indigenous Language Art in Public Space.” Art Journal 76, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 8599. Revised April 24, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, David W.Putting a Song on Top of It: Expression and Identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Schafer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Sekaquaptewa, Emory, and Washburn, Dorothy. “They Go Along Singing: Reconstructing the Hopi Past from Ritual Metaphors in Song and Image.” American Antiquity 69, no. 3 (July 2004): 457–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheridan, Thomas E., Koyiyumptewa, Stewart B., Daughters, Anton, Brenneman, Dale S., Ferguson, T. J., Kuwanwisiwma, Leigh, and Lomayestewa, Lee Wayne. Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, Volume 1, 1540–1679. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Tengan, Ty P. Kāwika. Native Men Remade: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Hawai'i. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tengan, Ty P. Kāwika. “Unsettling Ethnography: Tales of an ‘Ōiwi in the Anthropological Slot.” Anthropological Forum 15, no. 3 (November 2005): 247–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warrior, Robert Allen. “Intellectual Sovereignty and the Struggle for an American Indian Future.” In Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions, 87125. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Whiteley, Peter M.Rethinking Hopi Ethnography. Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (December 2006): 387409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolford, Andrew W., Benvenuto, Jeff, and Hinton, Alexander Laban, eds. Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar