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Table of Contents
Havasupai Medicine Song - Dan Hanna & Leanne Hinton
Original pgs 68-75. Alcheringa 1-3
dan_hanna_leanne_hinton-_havasupai_medicine_song_pages_from_alcheringa_1-3_winter-1971.pdf
Overview
This Havasupai medicine song was passed down to and sung by Dan Hanna. This Alcheringa entry was collected and translated by Leanne Hinton. She was helped with the translation by the singer Dan Hanna. The setting that the song describes in detail is the Grand Canyon, which is the region where the Havasupai have lived for generations.
This poem/song is a Havasupai medicine song. This particular medicine song was used in the informal sweathouse healing ceremony of the tribe.
Context
The Havasupai tribe inhabited the Grand Canyon in an area called Havasu Canyon for around 800 years. The tribe name, Havasupai, means “blue-green water people” (“havasu-” = blue/green water, “-pai” = people), referring to the waters flowing through The Grand Canyon. They have now lost most of their land to the U.S. Grand Canyon National Park and now inhabit the Havasupai Indian Reservation.
Many Havasupai songs, including this one, appear as long, descriptive poems and the singing of the song can last for up to an hour due to some improvisation within the song, depending on the singer's mood.
Havasupai medicine songs are not composed with the intention of sharing them with others, but are the singer's personal song for their own healing. However, this particular song by Dan Hanna was heard by many and well-known because it was used in the sweathouse curing ceremony, a highly social affair.
