Review of War Dance: Plains Indian Musical Performance

Authors

Mark Mattern, University of Minnesota

Date of this Version

1993

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 13:1 (Winter 1993). Copyright © 1993 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

Powers' stated goal in this book is to "provide some background, including the history, the continuity, and the change" that he has witnessed in American Indian culture from the perspective of musical performance over the last thirty to forty years. He has easily succeeded in this task. As an observer and participant in Indian song and dance since 1947 as an eighth grader, Powers knows his material. He writes from the vantage point of a veteran surveying his field, offering description and analysis of it.