Heartbeat: Voices of First Nations Women Summary

In "Heartbeat: Voices of First Nations Women," the authors discuss the musical roles that women have in specific areas of Native American society, and the level of importance of their roles.  One common theme that should be noted is that the role and importance of women in specific parts of culture such as ceremonies, social dance and play, and participating in the drum, varies from tribe to tribe.  While one tribe may allow women to play a more prominent role in a ceremony, another tribe may not allow women to be prominently involved in ceremonies.  In the pow-wow drum, for example, women from both the Northern Plains and Southern Plains, women take on a vocal role, singing behind the drum as accompaniment to the drum leader.  However, overtime, there has been a growing number of mixed-gender drum groups, yet there are still no women's drum groups.  Women did have an important musical role in social dance and play as most of the social song and dances were sung by women singers.  Women also have an increasingly important role in song making, an action that had been predominantly male.  In contemporary Native American  music, Native American women are able create lyrics, and and composing music for traditional songs, as well as new songs, which is both preserving and revitalizing Native American music.