Inuit Concertina

[Peter]

I've seen several mentions of the concertina being present in Inuit society but I've found few details.

So far I have this paper (primarily focused on accordions though): http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/34.1-2/BV34.1&2art7.pdf and this image from Dan Worrall's site http://angloconcertina.org/womanwithconc1956.jpg

 

I was just wondering if there were any other sources of information on this interesting use of our favorite instrument?

Edited June 2, 2009 by Peter

[Robin Harrison]

Interesting question........I asked Dan the self-same question with same photo appended.

He didn't know but suggested, canny man, that I do the research because I was closer !

Alas..........................

Please post anything you find.

Regards

Robin

[Paul Read]

cool!!!!

[Dan Worrall]

Interesting question........I asked Dan the self-same question with same photo appended.

He didn't know but suggested, canny man, that I do the research because I was closer !

Alas..........................

Please post anything you find.

Regards

Robin

 

Peter, Robin,

 

So Robin...how are you getting on with the research?

 

Just kidding. I fear the only way to do this properly is to fly up to Nunavut and take a vacation there, interviewing old folks. I had some correspondence with Jim Hiscott, who wrote the article that Peter attached....but he was unaware that there ever had been concertina playing up there, and was amazed when I sent him one of the photos of the Inuit woman. I am convinced (as is Jim) that there is little or (more probably) no concertina playing there now...it is all accordion. The old accounts show concertinas, however...they were introduced by the whalers, for certain sure; there are many such accounts (Peter...your link to my site is only of the photo--did you miss the article? If you go to the 'Concertinas at Sea' article on that site, you will find a section on the interaction between whalers and Inuit (Eskimos) in the late 19th/early 20th centuries).

 

The story is the same in Alaksa/Northern Canada/northern Greenland as it is is many (but thankfully not all) other parts of the globe. The concertina was superceded by the accordion in the last two decades of the 19th Century. The German concertina hung on as a lesser-used free reed in most of these areas until the early 20th century. When this sort of music went into a bit of a decline (the more remote the place, the less the decline), the accordion usually took over completely in the 20th C. In many places like northern Canada (and, by the way, parts of Texas) where lay people sometimes call button accordions 'concertinas', it is usually a sure sign that the concertina was once there, and when the accordions improved and gradually took over from the concertinas, the term 'concertina' became a generic word for a bellows-driven free reed instrument. In the 19th century texts, writers seem to have been more careful; I often find both instruments mentioned (correctly) in the same article.

 

A trip to NW Canada might produce some stories....old memories from Inuit octagenerians that their parents or grandparents played one...but not likely much more than that. It was an oddity already in the 1950s when that Inuit lady was playing it for the photographer and her dancing children. I did send a note/request to some of the tribal leaders a year or two ago, but their websites were not working!

 

Cheers,

Dan

[Daniel Hersh]

Here's an embedded link (I think that's the right term) to the photo for those who don't feel like clicking:

 

 

I've seen several mentions of the concertina being present in Inuit society but I've found few details.

So far I have this paper (primarily focused on accordions though): http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/34.1-2/BV34.1&2art7.pdf and this image from Dan Worrall's site http://angloconcertina.org/womanwithconc1956.jpg

 

I was just wondering if there were any other sources of information on this interesting use of our favorite instrument?

[Donald Galloway]

I've seen several mentions of the concertina being present in Inuit society but I've found few details.

So far I have this paper (primarily focused on accordions though): http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/34.1-2/BV34.1&2art7.pdf and this image from Dan Worrall's site http://angloconcertina.org/womanwithconc1956.jpg

 

I was just wondering if there were any other sources of information on this interesting use of our favorite instrument?

 

I spent some time in Iqaluit a few years ago. My guess is that Mick Mallon, an Irish born northerner with a good story for every occasion might be able to help. His partner Alexina Kublu who I believe is now the language commissioner in Nunavut may also be able to help. A quick Google should get them.

[Peter]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

[Dave Lawton]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

[Patrick King]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

 

I think I might as well seeing that we're on the topic. I've read plenty of missionary books(yes, I'm Catholic ) but I've never heard a concertina mentioned. The woman playing the concertina in the picture above; her fingers must've been freezing; unless she warmed them up boiling water. That's what I do after going for a 18 KM bike-ride some mornings. My fingers are so cold; and I have heaps of trouble trying to play a simple melody. After dipping them in boiled water, they're alright; except that they don't stay warm for long. I wonder how you feel, Dave, playing somewhere in the cold state of Victoria; or don't you have cold fingers?

 

Cheers,

Patrick

Edited June 5, 2009 by Patrick King

[Stephen Chambers]

I've read plenty of missionary books(yes, I'm Catholic ) but I've never heard a concertina mentioned.

Patrick,

 

Though Irish Catholics may be the only ones to have to had suffer the ("Hell-Fire and Damnation" Redemptorist) Missions/Missioners , Catholics don't have a monopoly on missionaries - and there are plenty of photos of them with concertinas or melodeons.

 

edited to briefly attempt to explain "The Missions"

Edited June 5, 2009 by Stephen Chambers

[Patrick King]

I've read plenty of missionary books(yes, I'm Catholic ) but I've never heard a concertina mentioned.

Patrick,

 

Though Catholics may be the only ones to have to suffer "The Missions" , they don't have a monopoly on missionaries - and there are plenty of photos of them with concertinas or melodeons.

I haven't seen any... YET. Feel free anyone to point out a few books which may have a few pictures in them.

 

Cheers,

Patrick

[Dave Lawton]

I've read plenty of missionary books(yes, I'm Catholic ) but I've never heard a concertina mentioned.

Patrick,

 

Though Catholics may be the only ones to have to suffer "The Missions" , they don't have a monopoly on missionaries - and there are plenty of photos of them with concertinas or melodeons.

I haven't seen any... YET. Feel free anyone to point out a few books which may have a few pictures in them.

 

Cheers,

Patrick

 

I've seen a bunch of photos of missionaries & their concertinas with the protestant mission movement. There are many many such groups that sprung up after the late 1700's. And being in the time of the late 1800's and early 1900's we see the concertina was a popular instrument of choice. the Salvation Army (Urban missionaries late 1800's - onwards) Seemed to prefer the concertina above the brass bands in their beginnings. Check out this collection of photo's I have been gathering. I have a few more hard copies of other missionaries with concertinas also.

Dave

Edited June 5, 2009 by lawton_dave

[Dan Worrall]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

 

Well, check away....but it was the whalers and sailors that brought it. There are plenty of period accounts of this....I put several in my article (Concertinas at Sea), and there are more to be had. The sailors/whalers were often ashore--sometimes frozen in for weeks--and the Inuit women and girls flocked to the dances that the sailors would put on. The Inuit men would come too. Dances then were quite vigorous, lots of quick paces and such, and all seem to have had a good time. It was at this time that the Inuit began to play these dance tunes themselves, after the sailors left for home, and the Inuit acquired the European dance steps as well. There are ethnological studies from the 1920s and 1930s that remark on how they soaked up these dances and tunes...and then began to write their own in that style. As Hiscock's article makes clear, there is still an active 19th century style dance scene there today, using accordions and fiddles...when it is tough to get any Americans or British to dance these dances anywhere outside of some sort of revival dance environment (ok, so there are pockets of old style dancing left in places like New England, west of Ireland etc....but when have you seen sailors today doing a schottische or a reel when in port?).

 

To finish the point, it wasn't the missionaries that brought the popular dances to the Inuit, and ditto the concertina and accordion. There was a lot of carrying on done during and after those dances, of which any missionary would not approve. That too is clear from historical accounts.

 

Cheers,

Dan

[Dave Lawton]

Here's an embedded link (I think that's the right term) to the photo for those who don't feel like clicking:

 

 

I LOVE this photo... it represents a lot of life and fun and innocence.

 

Bit of a far cry from the Inuit throat singing though. That (

) is also amazing

 

Dave

[Dave Lawton]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

 

Well, check away....but it was the whalers and sailors that brought it. There are plenty of period accounts of this....I put several in my article (Concertinas at Sea), and there are more to be had. The sailors/whalers were often ashore--sometimes frozen in for weeks--and the Inuit women and girls flocked to the dances that the sailors would put on. The Inuit men would come too. Dances then were quite vigorous, lots of quick paces and such, and all seem to have had a good time. It was at this time that the Inuit began to play these dance tunes themselves, after the sailors left for home, and the Inuit acquired the European dance steps as well. There are ethnological studies from the 1920s and 1930s that remark on how they soaked up these dances and tunes...and then began to write their own in that style. As Hiscock's article makes clear, there is still an active 19th century style dance scene there today, using accordions and fiddles...when it is tough to get any Americans or British to dance these dances anywhere outside of some sort of revival dance environment (ok, so there are pockets of old style dancing left in places like New England, west of Ireland etc....but when have you seen sailors today doing a schottische or a reel when in port?).

 

To finish the point, it wasn't the missionaries that brought the popular dances to the Inuit, and ditto the concertina and accordion. There was a lot of carrying on done during and after those dances, of which any missionary would not approve. That too is clear from historical accounts.

 

Cheers,

Dan

 

Very interesting Dan ... (Though a bit of a negative slant on the 'dances' not being approved by any missionary. Not sure I agree there... That is not 'clear from historical accounts' as you have said. being a mission historian - which I teach in various courses - I find many examples that don't fit into the popularised images presented in the movies like the mission and so on .... Though not the right forum to debate that here! )

 

It would be very interesting to see how the spread of the concertina took place in the era of the colonial domination of the world. How many indigenous cultures picked it up and incorporated it into their own culture....

 

Dave

Edited June 5, 2009 by lawton_dave

[Dave Lawton]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

 

I think I might as well seeing that we're on the topic. I've read plenty of missionary books(yes, I'm Catholic ) but I've never heard a concertina mentioned. The woman playing the concertina in the picture above; her fingers must've been freezing; unless she warmed them up boiling water. That's what I do after going for a 18 KM bike-ride some mornings. My fingers are so cold; and I have heaps of trouble trying to play a simple melody. After dipping them in boiled water, they're alright; except that they don't stay warm for long. I wonder how you feel, Dave, playing somewhere in the cold state of Victoria; or don't you have cold fingers?

 

Cheers,

Patrick

 

Hey Patrick.... Putting cold fingers in boiling water sounds dangerous to me! But yep, cold fingers and cold concertinas make for hard playing.... Maybe i should move north? Dave

[Patrick King]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

 

I think I might as well seeing that we're on the topic. I've read plenty of missionary books(yes, I'm Catholic ) but I've never heard a concertina mentioned. The woman playing the concertina in the picture above; her fingers must've been freezing; unless she warmed them up boiling water. That's what I do after going for a 18 KM bike-ride some mornings. My fingers are so cold; and I have heaps of trouble trying to play a simple melody. After dipping them in boiled water, they're alright; except that they don't stay warm for long. I wonder how you feel, Dave, playing somewhere in the cold state of Victoria; or don't you have cold fingers?

 

Cheers,

Patrick

 

Hey Patrick.... Putting cold fingers in boiling water sounds dangerous to me! But yep, cold fingers and cold concertinas make for hard playing.... Maybe i should move north? Dave

 

It's not too dangerous. If you have tea, have a cup of tea and before you drink it, put your hands around it; there's another tip. I like very hot water out of the tap. I think that up here North a bit is more warmer than down there in Victoria. If you ever moved up here to Northern N.S.W., we'd be delighted to meet you and your family. You just are about the same age as my father and sounds like you would have a lot in common to talk about.

 

Cheers,

Patrick

[Dan Worrall]

Thanks for the leads everyone. Looks like I have to find some time for some research!

 

I'd be checking out some mission history as well. A lot of missionaries took the concertina with them as it was the next best thing to a portable organ. Great for hymns. Even though the Inuit were first in contact with Moravian (german puritans) missionaries in the late 1700's, those that came in the late 1800's would have probably bought the concertina with them. The Salvo's are a good example. But they were not alone...

Dave

 

Well, check away....but it was the whalers and sailors that brought it. There are plenty of period accounts of this....I put several in my article (Concertinas at Sea), and there are more to be had. The sailors/whalers were often ashore--sometimes frozen in for weeks--and the Inuit women and girls flocked to the dances that the sailors would put on. The Inuit men would come too. Dances then were quite vigorous, lots of quick paces and such, and all seem to have had a good time. It was at this time that the Inuit began to play these dance tunes themselves, after the sailors left for home, and the Inuit acquired the European dance steps as well. There are ethnological studies from the 1920s and 1930s that remark on how they soaked up these dances and tunes...and then began to write their own in that style. As Hiscock's article makes clear, there is still an active 19th century style dance scene there today, using accordions and fiddles...when it is tough to get any Americans or British to dance these dances anywhere outside of some sort of revival dance environment (ok, so there are pockets of old style dancing left in places like New England, west of Ireland etc....but when have you seen sailors today doing a schottische or a reel when in port?).

 

To finish the point, it wasn't the missionaries that brought the popular dances to the Inuit, and ditto the concertina and accordion. There was a lot of carrying on done during and after those dances, of which any missionary would not approve. That too is clear from historical accounts.

 

Cheers,

Dan

 

Very interesting Dan ... (Though a bit of a negative slant on the 'dances' not being approved by any missionary. Not sure I agree there... That is not 'clear from historical accounts' as you have said. being a mission historian - which I teach in various courses - I find many examples that don't fit into the popularised images presented in the movies like the mission and so on .... Though not the right forum to debate that here! )

 

It would be very interesting to see how the spread of the concertina took place in the era of the colonial domination of the world. How many indigenous cultures picked it up and incorporated it into their own culture....

 

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

 

Good to see your interest. Not trying to be negative on the missions. I searched...quite a bit...for any references to concertina use amongst Inuit and Aleut peoples. What I found was nearly all about the whalers and sailors and their dances....and the way it was enthusiastically taken up by the Inuit. There was nothing that I found about missions bringing the concertina or the dances to the Inuit. If you can find something, that would be a nice addition to what we know. Until then, I must go on documented history, not a feeling that something should or should not have happened. For what its worth, I've found a fair amount of references in various parts of Africa that the concertina was brought (initially) into remote areas by missionaries.

 

By the way, there is a very nice account of Nunavut culture and history on this site http://www.pulaarvik.ca/community/Inuit.html that mentions the strong role of both missions and whaters in their history. They state there that it was the whalers that brought the concertina, the accordion and the dances. So you can read it there in the Inuit's own words.

 

As far as the disapproval goes, there is a perhaps sensitive issue about the dances in Inuit society that you should be aware of. Because of Inuit social mores and codes at that time--which were clearly not set up with eventual European contact in mind--there was a lot of drinking and a lot of fooling around going on between European men and Inuit women in those early days, as I mentioned. Explorers like Peary and Henson took advantage of this situation during their long stays in the Arctic, as did of course other explorers, the sailors and the whalers. Henson, for example, left a child behind as did many others (as I recall, both Peary and Henson were married back home when all this was going on). From what reading I have done, later observers have seen this as European exploitation of a native culture, which of course it was. Some married Inuit women, many more did not. At any rate, I strongly doubt that any missionary would have completely approved of those nineteenth-early twentieth century sailor/whaler dances because of what was happening alongside of them. I don't KNOW this, just suspect it. Perhaps by the mid 20th century the church would have tamed those dances and become a sponsor....again, I don't know this. You could no doubt find out.

 

The Aleuts in western coastal Alaska were for the most part Russian Orthodox at that time (see my comments on them in the 'At Sea' article)...this was because of Alaska's Russian past of course. You might find some church-sponsored dances there if you search.

 

Finally, on your suggestion about a study on the spread of concertina worldwide, I've been doing just such work now--a history of the Anglo-German concertina-- for nearly five years; the "At Sea", Ireland, and US articles on my website were the early parts of that work, and are now being updated and revised. Having looked extensively by now at(and written chapters on) England, Germany, Africa (Boers, English, Zulu, Khoi, Xhosa, Cape Coloured, groups in Madagascar, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, and several other cultures in central and eastern Africa), and New Zealand (European and Maori) and parts of Polynesia, I'm still working on Australia and Canada. A lot of it is in edit stage with a number of kind and generous reviewers around the world, and I hope to have it all out in the fall, as a rather lengthy book. I have quite a bit in there about the Sally Army (they were everywhere in the late nineteenth century) and missionary use. If you find some material on mission use, please let me know...I can always use it! For that matter, I'm always appreciative of anything thrown my way on this from Forum folks; I received quite a lot of help from the Forum last year for the English research.

 

Cheers,

Dan