Newly released: a video for my version of a Native American Sun Dance song. Instruments and vocals by John Eye.
Growing up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts I was very intrigued by local Eastern Woodland Native American history and culture. I was born into the oldest original standing home in the United States (built between 1640 and 1670), and my parents fascination with colonial history led me to the history of the Indigenous cultures.
I guess the rigid cultural codes of the puritans just didn’t resonate for me, but the idea of living on a river, running around barefoot and barely clothed, building dug out canoes, and tree bark covered homes was paradise. I wiggled my way into working for the Wampanoag Indigenous Program, first volunteering, then hiring on full time when I was fourteen.
My days were spent carving bowls and spoons, or stone working while sitting on a river watching the fires hollow out dug out canoes and listening to Darrel and Star sing traditional songs. It really was a perfectly simple and fulfilling time. Looking back now I can’t believe how lucky I was to have that experience.
All my friends were Wampanoag, Mic Mac, Cherokee, Nipmuc, Osage, Sioux, and the irony was that I was bringing them home into a house that was built by puritans. More strange was that it was one of the only structures in the area that was not burned to the ground during King Phillips war in 1676.
If the Wampanoag had burned that house down in 1676, my parents would have never ended up living there, and I would not have lived in such close proximity to a wealth of indigenous culture. I would not have learned the traditional songs, nor had the melodies burned into my memory only to surface years later when I began my career as a musician.
I recorded the Sun Dance song as a tribute to a teacher of mine from those years on the river. He was a great Wampanoag leader, and just his presence in my life influenced me greatly, and changed my perspectives about the world as a whole. I wanted to record an Eastern song, but couldn’t find one that had the emotion I was looking for, so I settled on the Sun Dance. Even though the song’s origins are Western, I hope it serves as an appropriate tribute to my teacher, and a thank you to the Wampanoags for not burning down the house I eventually grew up in. With the experience and knowledge I gained as a result of that benevolence, perhaps one day I can return the favor.
Many Eastern Woodland songs have never been recorded. Hopefully someday that will change before they are lost forever.
