Tim Grant, lead singer for the White Tail drum group. Photo by Milt Lee.
Tim Grant: Powwow Singer
with Milt Lee
[audio:https://www.wisdomoftheelders.org/s2_progs/201_cr.mp3]Arlie Neskahi :
Arlie Neskahi:
The Powwow has come of age. Like rodeo, the Powwow circuit begins in March and lasts through fall. It’s not unusual to find a drum group from Nebraska in California or Tucson, or one from Washington State in Connecticut. I can tell you personally, its 60 hours from Seattle to the Mashentucket-Pequot.
Today, on contemporary rhythms, we travel with Milt Lee to Macy, Nebraska, and discover what it’s like to be a modern day Powwow singer.
Milt Lee:
When I pull up to Tim Grant’s house, a guy is outside working on a nine-seater van. Tim comes out of the house in shorts and t-shirt and listens to the engine. It sounds terrible–bad news for the White Tail Singers who are on the road every weekend during the Powwow season. Tim is the lead singer for the White Tail drum group.
Tim Grant:
My name is Timothy Grant. I’m a member of the Omaha tribe. My clan name is Nakaglesha (sp?) ; it comes from the Tapa people, Deer Clan people, and translates into a spotted back. Ah, when the young bucks they have the spots on the back to kind of camouflage from the predator so that’s what that Omaha name means. (Milt: Say that again). Nakaglesha. Naka referring to your back and gleshia means spotted.
My father is a composer of songs, my grandfather, probably goes back more than that but, ah, in recent times, there was a gentlemen, they used to call me a third generation singer by my mother, I said I was a fourth generation singer so my children are actually fifth generation singers and they’re still here.
Milt:
The Powwow world is an odd mix of old and new. Some say Powwow music has homogenized diverse native tribes. Others, like the White Tail Singers, carry the old musical traditions into the twenty first century.
Grant:
Yep. And a lot of MC’s forget that Omaha’s were going to put that tail on unless they specifically ask us not to. Let’s say in singing competition, they say ah, four push ups for intertribal, six, or four push ups for contest song, no tails, six pushups for intertribal, no tails, they actually put it on there and if you put that tail on there then you can be deducted points for that. A lot of things. Sometimes we forget and we’re singing and we’re done with our four pushups and boom, the tail comes automatically if we’re not thinking correctly because that’s the way we were taught to sing. A lot of times I got to stop and give them a hand signal that says “no tail”. If we’re going to add one on, I actually say, “Sinte.” During that last pushup, I say, “Sinte.”
Milt:
In the music of Powwow, a tail refers to the part of the song that comes right after you think the song is over – after the singers have sung four verses, or pushups.
Milt:
If you listen to some of the songs, you hear a key change in the middle of the song. It intrigues me. What’s that all about?
Grant:
What we were taught by our elders was that sometimes the people around the drum didn’t all know the particular song you were singing because we didn’t sit there and decide what we were going to sing, it went with, let’s say, that dance, there’s particular songs that go in order with that dance, that Helushka Dance, the Tail Dance and um, some of the younger ones that’s the best way to teach them so what we did was started at a slower tempo so that all the singers would pick the song up.
Okay, we just recently came from a Powwow down in Tucson, Arizona. A lot of people are aware of Kenny Scabby Robe but he was the MC down there and he recognized the Omaha’s as the originators of that dance and he made a public announcement down there that he was glad that the Omaha’s were there (phone rings). Hello, who’s this? What’s up?
Milt:
Organizing a drum group to travel each weekend must be a logistical nightmare. There are no fancy busses, no airline budgets, just a bunch of guys piling into vehicles and hitting the road-one more time.
Grant:
Ah, we’re going to the North Dakota, time out, so why you got something going on down there, oh? Oh? We’re going to leave Friday morning.well, call me when you guys get close or call me when you get to town. All right, later.
Milt:
Most of the large Powwows are competition events-and big business. The largest, called the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque has 3,000 singers and dancers, 800 vendors, and a $4000 purse for the winning drum group.
Grant:
And we never been to Tucson, that’s the first time we been down there and ah when we first got there we just started right off because we were kind of short on travel money and you know, some Powwows feed you but this one didn’t, so we had to try to get our money together so we could feed the boys, and CD sales were going slow as heck. But then after our first session was over, man, they were coming to the drum to ask for them and because I guess they like our songs and the way we were singing, so they kind of helped us. All the CD’s we took down we actually sold out. But on the other hand, we went to a Gathering of Nations last year and only sold three of them.
Drum groups are not “hired” to play, they enter the competition and sometimes they win, and sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they make enough money to travel.and sometimes they don’t. Getting ten guys to an event half way across the country is not cheap.
You always got to save that hundred-dollar bill to get home on, just to make sure. Now days, the way gas prices are, you need to save three hundred dollars to get home (laughs).
Milt
But it is not the call of money, or fame, or celebrity that brings the drummer to the drum. To men like Tim Grant and his singers, it is a higher call.
Grant:
And I was taught that arena, once you make that circle, tobaccos laid down out there, that’s holy ground, that’s sacred ground. You know, but of course not everybody has the teachings that we have. So in 1989, my Uncle Jacob Drum, Uncle Clifford Kyle, he talked to me and my brother Kally. He says, “You guys been taking your drum around,” he said, “but I’m going to put food in front of god, make a sacrifice for you that we’re going to give you that right to take that drum in the four directions.” He said, “You do things in the right way, that drums going to take care of you and you’re going to be watched over by god because these prayers and the food that we sacrifice for you.” And he said, “You’ll see the changes for the fact that if you’d do things the proper way, you’ll see all the good things that will come your way.”
From Macy, Nebraska, this is Wisdom of the Elders.
Neskahi:
Contemporary Rhythms is written and produced by Milt Lee of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe and his wife, Jamie Lee, who live and work in Rapid City, South Dakota. Check out their website, realrez dot com for more of their work.