The Indigenous members of the CMC’s Accountability for Change Council have been teaching our Council members about Indigenous music, materials, and content. Historically, Indigenous songs, texts, and other forms of cultural wealth have been used by settler and arrivant composers as inspiration for their works. We must understand these uses and misuses as part of a long and problematic history of appropriation in Canadian art music, and we must approach them with cultural sensitivity, mindful that Indigenous song often serves sacred purposes and contains the spirits of ancestors.
Additionally, in many cases, Indigenous songs have different ontological and cultural purposes than those we often associate with Western forms of creation. They serve as medicine, legal orders, and primary documentation of history (as do books in a Western context). Songs are sometimes connected to a particular clan, or even to a particular person, and can be performed or sung only by that clan or person. They may have sacred resonance, and could be associated with seasonal and traditional ceremonies that are meaningful specifically for a particular community or group. The misuse of this music by settler composers may not only cause harm for Indigenous peoples, but may constitute severe violations of cultural, hereditary, and spiritual rights that require financial remuneration. In short, each and every borrowing or use of an Indigenous song, text, or story must be understood as a cultural exchange that has to benefit the community from which it originates, and must be engaged in on a case-by-case basis. Permission from the appropriate holder of hereditary rights to a particular Indigenous song must be provided for your work to be considered for inclusion in the Canadian Music Centre’s catalogue of works.
The CMC is currently forming an Indigenous Advisory Council to deal with the existing appropriated music in the CMC catalogue. The Council will be assessing works in the collection that engage in: appropriation/theft, breaches in protocol, racist depictions of Indigenous peoples and culture, stereotypical representation, and inappropriate use of people and place names. The Council will also be undertaking processes of redress and reparation that are specific to the communities affected by these appropriations and misrepresentations.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (ratified by Canada in 2016) contains two articles pertaining to the right of Indigenous people to protect their culture and arts:
Article 11 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.
- States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.
Article 31 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.
- In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights.
At the CMC, we are listening to the requests of Indigenous people, musicians, and composers who are asking us to teach our composers how to be respectful of Indigenous culture and music, which includes desisting from using it if of settler heritage. This has been a learning journey for all of us, and we are sharing this information with you in the hopes that you will likewise tell your friends and colleagues.
