The Value of Music and Dance

Image Source:  http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/circleofdance/tlingit.html

In mainstream U.S. society, both recording artists and record companies earn money according to contract and based on the sale of the recordings of their songs as a form of capitalistic economic gain.  These earnings are referred to as royalties.  I do not know of any such valuation given to dance in mainstream U.S society though.  Yet, there are some American people who have traditionally valued song and dance in much the same way because they consider both to be valuable property, yet the value is not determined in quite the same way.

For example, in Tlingit society, music and dance have always been highly esteemed and they were both treated as valuable property. The Tlingit Peoples traditionally inhabited the regions of sub-Arctic North America that are now known as southeastern Alaska, northern British Columbia and the southwestern part of Canada’s Yukon Territories.  Before the early twentieth century, a Tlingit clan and/or house group strictly owned certain songs and dances.  Performing such a clan song or dance without its owners’ permission was a punishable offense.  However, a Tlingit clan might have granted permission to other groups to perform one of its songs or dances, or it might instead have gifted a song or dance to another group.

An important genre of Tlingit song and dance is known as the Entrance Song.  Entrance Songs were traditionally featured at the beginning of social events.  They acted as a way to introduce the clan or house group by means of showing off the group’s crest, adorned on the back of their dance regalia.  The dancers entered the stage and made dramatic announcements to the audience such as, “Haandéi i waak’, that is in the English language, “Give me your eyes!”  As each Entrance Song dancer appeared, he or she turned away from the audience in order to show their group’s crest.  This routine announced to the audience who the dancer was in the context of the Tlingit social system of clans and house groups.  In this way, song and dance was used as a means to communicate important social relationships and social standing, thus the value of song and dance in Tlingit society.

The information about Tlingit Peoples and their culture, including Entrance Songs and Dances, have been paraphrased, and it was taken from an essay, circle of dance: Tlingit Ku.éex' Entrance Dance, by Maria Shaa Tláa Williams, a Tlingit ethnomusicologist who teaches at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.  This essay was featured on the National Museum of American Indians of the Smithsonian Institution website at http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/circleofdance/tlingit.html.