Singing for Power: The Song Magic of the Papago Indians of Southern Arizona

by Ruth M. Underhill

Ruth Underhill published the songs she heard sung by Tohono O'odham [Papago] elders more than half a century ago, and Singing for Power has since become a classic of Native American literature.

Genres: Reference, Native American

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Ruth Murray Underhill was an American anthropologist. She was born in Ossining-on-the-Hudson, New York, and attended Vassar College, graduating in 1905 with a degree in Language and Literature. In 1907, she graduated from the London School of Economics and began travelling throughout Europe. During World War I, she worked for an Italian Orphanage run by the Red Cross. After the war, she married Charles C. Crawford and published her first book The White Moth. Her marriage ended in 1929 and by 1930 she decided to go back to school to learn more about human behavior. After speaking with Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University, she decided to pursue the field, graduating in 1937. She wrote numerous books on Native Americans and helped to dispel many myths about their culture.

Reviews

[PatC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. A favorite passage from early on:

"The honored men are singers. The man who has fought for his people gets no honor from that fact, but only from the attendant fact that he was able to 'receive'--or compose, shall we say--a song. We who take the structure of our own society as a sample of 'human nature' might pause over this idea. What of a society which puts no premium whatever on aggressiveness and where the practical man is valued only if he is also a poet?"

[Bill Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful book, many new insights and unknown tales. Underhill does a wonderful job of telling the oral storytelling traditions of the Tohono O'odham.