Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion

by Michael D. McNally

Overview

In the early nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries promoted the translation of evangelical hymns into the Ojibwe language, regarding this music not only as a shared form of worship but also as a tool for rooting out native cultural identity. But for many Minnesota Ojibwe today, the hymns emerged from this history of material and cultural dispossession to become emblematic of their identity as a distinct native people.

Author Michael McNally uses hymn singing as a lens to view culture in motion—to consider the broader cultural processes through which Native American peoples have creatively drawn on the resources of ritual to make room for survival, integrity, and a cultural identity within the confines of colonialism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780873516419
Publisher:	Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date:	02/01/2009
Edition description:	1
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	1,055,914
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Eastern Michigan University

Editorial Reviews

"[A] deeply researched, intelligent, and clear-eyed explication of an important facet of Indian history and contemporary life."—The Journal of American History

Ojibwe Singers is a fine book, both empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated. It has considerable promise for guiding scholars as they look increasingly at the varieties of native Christianity in North America."—Church History

"Contains both scholarly rigor and passionate empathy. McNally's analysis of native texts and his unique fieldwork afford solid contributions that will extend the edges of developing scholarship."—Anglican and Episcopal History

From the Publisher