The Feminine Native American Flute

adapted from The Native American Flute: Myth, History, Craft

by C.S. Fuqua

Everyone who knows anything about the Native American flute has certainly heard the love flute myth, how the flute itself was developed by and for men for use as a courting tool. One crafter's website even suggests a woman's sheer touch destroys a flute's "power." And Mary Youngblood, one of today's premier Native American flautists, has encountered flute chauvinism in the form of native male performers refusing to take the stage with her.

Most Americans, both of native and immigrant heritage, maintain a stereotypical image of early native women, an image created, in part, by the prejudiced, ethnocentric accounts of early explorers from Europe and perpetuated later by Hollywood westerns. The general view of women over the years has come to include their association, or lack of it, with the native flute.

During research of Native American flute history, the facts, as they so often do, undermined popularly accepted history and mythology. Most know and promote the native flute solely as an extension of the male, an instrument invented specifically to enable a young man to cast a magical love spell over the rather feebleminded female he desires as his mate. Early written accounts of American Indian life come primarily from missionaries and explorers, folks definitely not in the best position to understand or judge Native American life enough to write about it. But judge and write they did, thus creating a horrendously detailed picture of savages who threatened to steal European ladies of culture and turn them into white squaws if they happened to wander too far from camp. Those "red devils," these accounts maintained, were notorious for unbridled sex among themselves and for attacking and scalping good Christian explorers who desired only to bring European civility, social harmony, and redemption to an evil and barbaric world.

Despite early accounts and accepted bigotry, native women weren't the docile and ineffective servants they were portrayed to be. They were far more independent, powerful, and equal than the frail, genteel women of European society. Native American women once possessed as much or more power within the tribal structure as men, a role that deteriorated as European values became internalized, but a role that has experienced a strong resurgence over the last fifty years. What does this have to do with the Native American flute? The flute is not now nor has it ever been the sole domain of the male.

At most powwows these days, at least one or two venders of the Native American love flute preach the flute's power over the will of a woman. Maybe concentration on the flute's courting aspect results from cultural drift away from a maternal social structure to a paternal structure, inspiring a revision of history that negates or denies cultures that once enabled women with equal stature centuries before non-native women even thought about wearing pants or casting a vote.

In native cultures, women and men assumed certain responsibilities and tasks. A woman's importance in native society was emphasized by the fact that a family's ancestral line was traced through the mother, not the father. Women participated in all decisions affecting the village, their viewpoints considered equal to those of the men. Some would even take part in battle when needed. They were anything but cowering slave woman, existing only to service her brave warrior, fresh in from battle or the hunt. The commonly accepted mythology of the native flute does nothing but reinforce that negative view of women. Take, for example, entries on various internet sites, most maintained by male crafters or performers, that claim that, historically, only men played the flute -- no matter the culture or tribe. Such stories make for appealing romantic and chauvinistic mythology, but not for accurate history. Its uses numbered many more than courting, were more diverse in intent, and were not restricted to the male.

For native Americans prior to the arrival of European explorers, songs and music were like breath itself, an integral part of existence. Songs encompassed all social aspects, from honoring Creator or Great Spirit, to shaman medicine songs for cures, rain, and help in locating game, to a mother's lullabies, children's games, vision quests, harvests, war, and death. Music was so important that, when a village member returned from visiting another village, one of the first questions from others would be, "What new song did you learn?"

Although customs and practices differed between Native American cultures, the flute was one trait common to most, and they placed great value in the power of the flute. Plains Indian traditions suggest that tribes could be identified from a distance by the songs they played as they traveled. Some tribes' members would announce that they came in peace by playing flutes on their approach to villages of other tribes.

Foremost, the flute was a social instrument, used for the sheer joy of making music just as any instrument is used in society, ancient or modern. Musicians of both genders played flutes in various ceremonies, depending on the native culture. Even today, despite the love flute myth, flutes continue to be used in various ceremonies other than courting rituals. Depending on the specific culture, flutes were and are used in ceremonies for weddings, in giving thanks to various gods for a good harvest or hunt, in rites of passage ceremonies, and in appointment ceremonies of new tribal leaders. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the talents of both men and women flautists were nurtured as soon as they were discovered, usually at a young age. Tribal members valued their flute players, believing their musical ability had been divinely bestowed.

While many early descriptions allude to or explain in detail the flute's use in courtship, descriptions by others mention different uses. Documenting an expedition in 1528 on the west coast of Florida, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca writes that, on June 17, "a chief approached, borne on the back of another Indian, and covered with a painted deer-skin. A great many people attended him, some walking in advance, playing on flutes of reed." Some of those people were probably women since the explorer avoided defining them all as men.

In 1539, a member of the Hernando de Soto Spanish expedition to Florida wrote that "some Indians arrived to visit their lord, and every day they came out to the road, playing upon flutes, a token among them that they come in peace." In yet another account, the same writer, describing events in what is now Alabama, writes that "the Cacique came out to receive (de Soto)...and he was surrounded by many attendants playing upon flutes and singing." It's extremely unlikely they were courting the good de Soto.

In Pueblo country around 1540, Pedro de Castaneda recalled in his writings that "the people came out of the village with signs of joy to welcome Hernando de Alvardo and their captain, and brought with them into the town with drums and pipes something like flutes, of which they have a great many." Later, he describes the grinding of corn as "a man sits at the door playing on a fife while they grind, moving the stones to the music and singing together."

During the same period, Antonio de Mendoza describes in a letter to the king how flutes are used for the sheer pleasure of music, writing, "The Indians have their dances and songs, with some flutes which have holes on which to put the fingers. They make much noise. They sing in unison with those who play, and those who sing clap their hands in our fashion." At least "five or six play together," he writes, "and some of the flutes are better than others."

Music for more than courting or ceremony was played to enjoy, to celebrate, to mourn, to instruct -- to be music for the same reasons music is played today. Colonel James Smith, in writing about his captivity, mentions that "some were beating their kind of drum and singing. Others were employed in playing a sort of flute, made of hollow cane, and others playing on the jews harp. Some part of this time was also taken up in attending the council house where the chiefs and as many others as chose attended. And at night, they were frequently employed in singing and dancing."

Pedro Fages, writing about a trip across California in 1769, describes a dance, writing that "the women go to them well painted and dressed as has been described, carrying in both hands bundles of feathers of various colors. The men go entirely naked, but very much painted. Only two pairs from each sex are chosen to perform the dance, and two musicians, who play their flutes."

In 1832, artist George Catlin's account foreshadowed what would become the common story concerning the flute and its use. Writing about the Plains flute while in Upper Missouri, Catlin writes, "In the vicinity of the Upper Mississippi, I often and familiarly heard this instrument, called the Winnebago courting flute, and was credibly informed by traders and others in those regions that the young men of that tribe meet with signal success, oftentimes, in wooing their sweethearts with its simple notes, which they blow for hours together, and from day to day, from the bank of some stream -- some favorite rock or log on which they are seated, near to the wigwam which contains the object of their tender passion until her soul is touched, and she responds by some welcome signal, that she is ready to repay the young Orpheus for his pains with the gift of her hand and her heart."

Although certain historic accounts indicate the flute played a part in courting, they rarely, if ever, mention that marriage and courtship rites varied from culture to culture, that the courtship period itself could last more than six years, that the girl had the power of choice, that the genealogical line was through the mother's family, that women were held as equal individuals within the culture. Perhaps gender equality was such a foreign idea to Western culture that early explorers demonized Native Americans as savage and imposed a more patriarchal twist to their writings and eventually to the Native American way of life over the years simply to make them more civilized, destroying that which had set them on a higher plane.

Writings increasingly concentrated on the courting aspect of the flute, and, in time, that aspect was accepted as the flute's primary or only use until its use and prominence began to grow in the late 1960s. It has grown so popular today that some now claim it will prove to be the instrument that leads the world into salvation. For those who prefer to leave mysticism to the mystics and simply enjoy an instrument solely for its music, the native flute has become a welcomed addition to the world music genre, finding itself in the capable hands of both male and female artists. Rather than claiming the flute is this or that, perhaps we can accept the instrument for what it is, an instrument that adds dimension to music.  It is no more masculine or feminine than life or death. Perhaps it's time to explore, craft, play, celebrate, and discard the stereotypes.

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