Judy Warner Illinois Geographic Alliance Alaskan Cruise 2001

In the Native peoples’ lives, music and dance served many purposes such as: religious and healing ceremonies, work and game songs, songs to bring success in hunting, agriculture and war, courting songs, storytelling and social songs. Hunting and fishing were the main occupations for these people. This dance illustrates one of the hunting rituals.

Paddles were used by Native people to propel their canoes through the water. Canoes were nearly the only efficient way to get from place to place when longer distances were involved. The Aleuts were accomplished seal hunters from kayaks. Paddlers sometimes had two paddles, one regular paddle for paddling and one narrow pointed one for fighting. This paddle was used like a spear. Paddles from different nations had characteristic shapes from that area. Paddles were made of cedar and carved with knives, sanded with shark skin and finished with paint and oil. Small paddles were carved for children and used during dances to represent traveling by canoe. Even smaller paddles decorate the regalia of some Native people.

This activity may be used in the music and social studies curriculum. Other areas of study may include art and physical education.

Essential Element: Places and Regions

Standard #6: How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.

Knowledge Statement #2: Ways in which different people perceive places and regions.

Skill Set #5: Answering geographic questions.

Skill #1: Present geographic information in the form of both oral and written reports...

Theme: Place and Regions

Essential Element: Human Systems

Standard #10: The characteristics, distribution and complexity of Earth’s cultural mosaics.

Knowledge Statement #1: How the characteristics of culture affect the ways in which people live.

Skill Set #5: Answering geographic questions.

Skill #1: Present geographic information in the form of both oral and written reports.

Theme: Region and movement.

Essential Element: Human Systems

Standard #10: The characteristics, distribution and complexity of Earth’s cultural mosaics.

Knowledge Statement #1: How the characteristics of culture affect the ways in which people live.

Skill Set #5: Answering geographic questions.

Skill #1: Present geographic information in the form of both oral and written reports.

Theme: Region and movement.

Tape of Seal Hunt Dance by Ben Snowball FolkStyle Productions, written description of dance, music transcription for dance, tape player, Map, tagboard, pencils and markers.

Opening the Lesson

1. Use any of the background information that is appropriate for your grade level.
2. Show on the map where the Inuit people live. (In northern Alaska near the Arctic Circle)
3. Explain that seals are needed for food and clothing much like the way we use cows. Discuss the importance of animals in the lives of native peoples. Eg. Some Native Americans thank the animal before killing it for keeping their people alive.
4. Play the music. Does it sound like other music you’ve heard? Perhaps other Native music?

Developing the Lesson

1. Lead the hand motions while children are sitting, preferably on the floor. Demonstrate the motions without music and let them imitate. Add the music.
2. When students are comfortable with the hand motions, they are ready to stand while doing the dance. Girls bob to the beat and boys stamp their feet (see styling description on the information sheet)

Concluding the Lesson

1. Have you ever seen a paddle? What did it look like? What other kinds of paddles are there? (paddles for ping pong, video games, paddles with electric current for heart patients)
Give background information about paddles (in the preview section)
2. Give the students a paddle pattern to color.
3. Cut it out.
4. Play the Seal Hunt Dance again. This time allow the students to use the paddle they made.

Extending the Lesson

1. Read the book, Mamma, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Jossee to learn more about the Eskimo way of life.
2. Perform the dance for another classroom or parents.
3. Make a book to illustrate the seal hunt.

Assessing Student Learning

1. Teacher observation to note progress of learning the dance.
2. Subjective evaluation of paddle artwork.
3. Class discussion to asses knowledge gained through lesson.

Native people consider all things to be gifts from the Creator. Dance and music are a part of the universe including all layers of life. The sacred is not put aside for a special time or place--it is in every moment. Music and dance join the natural to the supernatural, the individual to the Creator. Songs serve many purposes such as: religious and healing ceremonies, work and game songs, songs to bring success in hunting, agriculture and war, courting songs, storytelling and social songs.

Eskimo music is mostly in the form of dance songs. It contains melody and rhythm as outstanding features. Men have the leading role in singing, composing and teaching of the ritual songs. Complex rhythms occur in Eskimo music, especially in the drumming. Harmony does not exist except in a few drone-like accompaniments. The form is quite simple and short.

Most Eskimo music involves the performance of three lines at once--a line of vocal chant or melody, a line of body movement or dance and a line of percussion, usually drumming on a frame drum. Traditionally every Eskimo could dance, sing, drum and compose songs. Composers were as valuable to a village as were the hunters. The dance-songs served as a newspaper in spreading the news of the hunt. Although some dance-songs are centuries old and basically changeless, making up a new dance-song is as common as brewing a new pot of coffee. Some dance-songs exist solely for the purpose of song and dance rather than message and meaning.

In Eskimo dancing, the dancers may, or may not, sing. The women keep their eyes downcast and use arms, hands and torso to create dance movement. Their feet are kept close together and seldom move. They lightly bob up and down bending their knees slightly. Sometimes their bobbing is exactly with the drum beats. Men’s dance motions are angular and their feet are apart. Men may stomp one foot and move around the floor. They use this stomping to accent the rhythm of the music. The men’s dancing is more dramatic than the women’s. Men dance sometimes alone, but more often as a partner with another man or with two or more women.

Repeat Section A two more times.