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The beat of drums echoed throughout the Native American Center Wednesday afternoon. In a circle, facing one another all beating one large drum in the center, the Rose Creek Singers passed on their culture.
The group sets themselves apart by being one of the only all-women drumming groups in the country.
The drumming followed Jennifer Gratzke’s anthropology thesis defense, which was based on the group.
Gratzke first followed the singers around in 2003, filming and recording them and said that the group is very unusual.
“Across the country, (drumming) is viewed as a men’s activity,” Gratzke said.
The group formed in 1999 and consists of young women interested in embracing more of
their culture.
Rodney Frey, professor of American Indian studies and anthropology, said that the background that makes an all-female group is so unique is significant.
“In the past only men drummed,” Frey said. “This is historical in so many ways.”
He said American Indian men and women traditionally had distinct roles.
The drum was an extension of warriorhood and women were wary to intrude on that.
A blending of roles and responsibility began in the 1970s.
Gratzke said before then, women participated around the drum by singing, but it was not until later when they starting sitting at the drum.
The drumming is a mixture of spirituality and community, said Rose Creek singer Christa Howard.
“It’s drumming for your people,” Howard said.
Most of the music the group plays is tribal, and the drumming focuses on family, ancestors and continuing traditions.
“They are songs you want your family to carry on, songs that were your ancestors’,” Howard said.
Jessie Lewis has been playing with the Rose Creek Singers since they started drumming.
“I started drumming when I was 11, and my younger sister started when she was only nine,” Lewis said.
Lewis said her grandfather taught her first with a song she calls the “number song,” the song is counting numbers in her native language.
Since then, Lewis has learned dozens of new songs with different rhythms and words.
Lewis said that initially she started drumming in the group because she wanted to go to powwows.
Lewis is a living example of how family-integrated drumming is, with two other sisters in the group and a baby girl who sat on her knee through the performance.
The Rose Creek Singers are from the Coeur d’Alene Indian tribe.This was not their first visit to the University of Idaho.
The group has come before for other Native American Center events.
“Everybody just gets together,” Howard said, “It’s fun.”
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