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SNEAP Year 6 Presentation: Joseph Firecrow Jr. and Jaime Arsenault, Native American Flute

PerformerPerformed by Joseph Firecrow Jr. Northern Cheyenne, 1959 - 2017

PerformerPerformed by Jaime Arsenault Mi'kmaq

Date2004 June 13

Mediumreformatted digital file from VHS tape

DimensionsDuration: 48 Minutes, 3 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionVHS tape of a required public presentation of the Year 6 Southern New England Apprenticeship Program team in Native American flute making and playing with teaching artist Joseph Firecrow Jr. and apprentice Jaime Arsenault. The concert took place at the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, Connecticut on June 13, 2004. Jaime Arsenault plays the flute she made during the Apprenticeship. Joseph Firecrow plays the drum and flute.

Object number2015.196.785a-b

CopyrightIn Copyright

NotesSubject Note: During the Year 6 (2003-2004) apprenticeship Joseph Firecrow worked with Jaime Arsenault, a young MicMac woman, to teach her the construction of a flute from choosing the wood, shaping it, carving its sound chamber, gluing and binding with sap and sinew, and adding the elk fetish hole cover and other decorative elements - all with hand tools. Jaime also learned some of the “Wolf Songs” appropriate to northern Plains flutes. They performed a song together at the Bridgeport Zoo’s “Zoo Folk” music series in June 2004.

Biographical Note: Originally from the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana, Joseph Firecrow Jr. (1959-2017) lived in Connecticut for many years with his wife JoAnn. Joseph’s traditional music and cultural learning came from family members as well as the community within his reservation. He believed that “This art form is a living, breathing thing, surrounded by ritual, song and prayer. The way of the wooden flute is a lifetime endeavor.” He learned to make flutes from John Rainer, a Kiowa/San Juan Pueblo flute maker while living as a young man in Utah, then from his uncle Douglas Glenmore in Lame Deer MT, who also taught the songs and stories associated with the flute. Joseph became a respected flute maker and player in his community, also traveling nationally and internationally to perform and record traditional and contemporary music. An important source and mentor was Joseph’s grandfather, John Stands in Timber, a revered and knowledgeable elder whose stories have been documented in two books. Despite time away from home, Joseph kept Northern Cheyenne values and traditions close to his heart, exemplifying his heritage in his music practice and repertoire. He took part in many powwows, gatherings, and activities with the tribes indigenous to Connecticut and New England. Joseph won a Grammy Award, a Native American Music Award seven times, and a NAMA Lifetime Achievement Award. He created many recordings both as a solo artist and with other musicians.

Joseph was selected for the performing arts rosters of the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism and the New England Foundation for the Arts. He served as a teaching artist in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program three times, with very different apprentices. First he taught a young MicMac flute player to make the instrument. Next, Joseph worked with a young man of native heritage who had a learning disability, but with patience and a careful teaching plan, this student successfully made and played his first flute. Joseph next taught a Nipmuc artist flute making techniques. In each case, Joseph passed on the values associated with the craft such as patience, respect for the flute tradition and the materials used, and community service through performance. Joseph’s dedication and kindness came directly from the difficulties experienced as he tried to find his way in the flute tradition. Throughout his life he gained an extensive repertoire of traditional songs, and crafted exquisitely-made flutes from a variety of woods and with different structures appropriate to the type of music that each flute would play.

“The art form is formed of wood. Cedar wood is taken, the branches cut off, the bark stripped, then the meat of the wood is stripped to the “heart wood”. The length of the flute is determined by the measure in length from the elbow to the fingertips. The heartwood is then split into two pieces, like a canoe, the two pieces are carved out. A wall will be formed near the mouthpiece end of the flute. The distance from the mouthpiece to the wall is called a chamber. This chamber is measured from the width of the hand and the end of the outstretched thumb. When the wall and chamber are formed, the pieces will be glued together with tree sap and bound with elk hide sinew. When dried, the holes may be drilled. The distance to the first hole from the chamber wall is the distance across one hand. Each hole is then spaced by measuring the distance of two fingers held together. Each hole is hand drilled or burned through. The flute’s top piece will depict the elk fetish. The thickness of the flute itself will be determined by the maker’s sense of feel with the index finger and thumb. The tools used to craft the flute will be a small hand axe, knife, wood chisel, hide glue, elk hide, sinew, hand drill and sharpening stone.”

Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this artist.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.