Bolivian Mystery: Pukaj Wayra and "Inti Laya - Chanmun"

A band of native musicians from Bolivia called Pukaj Wayra bring the random tune for today. Pukaj Wayra sing and play traditional instruments such as the zampona and toyo (pan flutes), quena and tarka (Indian flutes), and wankara (big drum) along with guitar and charango. Their music often addresses passion, joy, despair and oppression based on their experience as native Indians in Bolivia. You can find this song, Inti Laya - Chanmun, on the 1969 album Music from Bolivia: Don't You Steal, Don't Be Lazy, Don't Tell Lies..

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://www.worldmusicstore.com/products/pukaj-wayra-music-from-bolivia-cd

Eagle Feather: Samian and "La Plume d'Aigle"

Canadian rapper Samian brings us the random tune for today, called La Plume d'Aigle. Performing in both French and Algonquian, Samian is a member of the Abitibiwinni First Nation who was first noticed in 2004 after participating in a film project and performing onstage with the Quebecois hip hop group Loco Locass. He has won awards for his music, has acted in two films and has released three albums. La Plume d'Aigle can be found on his 2013 album Face à la Musique.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Quechua if You Can: Pukaj Wayra and "Chrisimanta"

Pukaj Wayra brings us our random tune for today, called Chrisimanta. Pukaj Wayra is a band of native musicians from Bolivia that sing and play traditional instruments such as the zampona and toyo (pan flutes), quena and tarka (Indian flutes), wankara (big drum) along with guitar and charango. Their music often addresses passion, joy, despair and oppression based on their experience as native Indians in Bolivia. You can find Chrisimanta on the 1993 album Music from Bolivia.

Native Flute: Robert Mirabal and "Running (Reprise)"

Sorry folks...I thought I posted this yesterday but apparently shut down my computer before posting it. It's backdated for 12/16!, but you and I know the secret.

Today's global music random song is by Robert Mirabal, a New Mexican Native American musician. A flute player and maker from Taos Pueblo, he is a leading proponent of world music. He performs around the world with a mix of flute playing, tribal rock, dance and storytelling. He has been twice named Native American Artist of the Year, and was featured in a Grammy Award winning album, Sacred Ground: A Tribute to Mother Earth in 2006. This song, Running (Reprise) is featured on his Warrior-Magician CD from 1996.

Poetic Justice: Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice with "For Anna Mae Pictou Aquash"

I grew up in a small town in Northern California and in that town, about as far away from Native American culture as could be. There is an embarrassing photo of me, about 8 or 9 years old, dressed up in a handmade Indian headdress carrying a spear and whooping. The only thing I knew about Indians was conveyed by television - either that they were the bad guys in all Westerns or that they saved the Brady Bunch kids in the Grand Canyon.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Megan and I began to branch out in our experiences. Being Catholic, and living in Milwaukee at the time, we heard about a Native American Catholic Church and went to attend one day. We liked it so much we adopted it as our unofficial parish. At the time they met in an old firehouse, with a Polish priest named Ed who served them as pastor and who had been adopted into the tribe. Megan and I ended up being married by this priest and incorporating a small element of the ceremony we watched performed each week, the prayer to the four directions, into our own ceremony.

Through this church, we were introduced to the vibrancy of Native culture and spirituality. Fr. Ed brought the readings alive to us, because he would explain the readings to the congregation in the context of the tribal life that the parishioners experienced, relating it to the tribal life of the early Jews. We only scratched the surface, but we became aware of both the wonderful things about Indian culture, and the challenges they faced on a daily basis brought about by their shared history with that of the United States. It was a wonderful experience.

This song, For Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, is part of the hard history of Native Americans. Even as organizations rose in the 1970s to fight for Native rights, human failings so present in all of us also were also at work, and the murder of Anna Mae Aquash was not one of the shining moments of Native American activism. But who better to bring poetic justice to the death of Anna Mae Aquash than Joy Harjo, Native American poet and author? Harjo is a Muscogee Indian from Oklahoma. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, and also played alto saxophone with her band Poetic Justice. She is credited with being a leader and force in what has been termed the Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. The song is an homage to a member of the American Indian Movement who died under mysterious circumstances on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1976. You can find For Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on the Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice album Letter from the End of the 20th Century, released in 1997.