Peyote Songs
Peyote is a cactus found natively in Mexico. The buttons of the cactus, when chewed, act as a hallucinogen used in the ancient Aztec religion and continued by area tribes to the present. Peyote ceremonies spread north and east, reaching the Apache tribes in the 18th century and then spreading to most every tribe in North America, along with some Apache music and Plains-Pueblo characteristics. Peyote songs accompany the peyote ceremonies, and are mostly the same throughout the area of peyote's entheogenic use. These songs are most similar to traditional songs of the Plains area, but are characterzed by a rapid rhythm composed of two note values, transcribed as quarter and eighth notes. Vocables, or non-lexical syllables are used, as are cadential and closing formulas.
Read more about this topic: Arapaho Music
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)