Mission

of the Spring Creek Singers

There are several areas to the Spring Creek Singer's mission. These areas are equally important, and the Spring Creek Singers strive to develop and enrich these areas in the best way it can. Learn about what Spring Creek Singers is doing!

Awareness Goals

What some people learned in school about American Indians is outright inaccurate and still some others have learned very little, if anything, about American Indian people.

The Spring Creek Singers strives to teach and educate everyone, including American Indian youth, about the culture through demonstration and experience. "We don't preserve our culture, we live it," says Dave White Buffalo simply of the mission. Dave White Buffalo heads up the Spring Creek Singers. Adults and children learn by example and through experiencing something first hand. "It's also our culture to pass things down to our children by oral tradition," says Jeff Brings Plenty who is the second lead singer for Spring Creek Singers. When people see first hand how American Indians behave in the dance circle, around the drum, and in interacting with the public the stereotypes quickly fall apart. "Shock is usually the reaction people feel when they attend a powwow for the first time," says John Wigle a singer with Spring Creek and a member of the Tuscarora Nation of Indians. "They just cannot believe how little they knew about American Indians, and the begin to realize that what they learned growing up is all backwards." Spring Creek Singers encourages people to attend powwows and gatherings of American Indians and to learn first hand through the power of observation the culture and values of American Indian people.

An Evolving Culture

Many things about the culture have changed, and yet somethings have remained.

Some in English society hold the belief that American Indians are not "Indian" unless they dress, act, and behave as they believe their ancestors did. The reality is the American Indian cultures are a developing and ever changing culture. The Spring Creek Singers are involved in developing culture, and write new songs in the traditional style to reflect the current times and values of the people. Other projects include writing powwow songs for Indian communities that have either lost their songs, or never had "powwow" songs before.

The Living Classroom

Like a living classroom, Spring Creek Singers encourages American Indian youth to get involved in their culture, to dance and learn the traditions. Spring Creek often teaches to youth the songs by giving them recordings of music, asking them to sit around the drum with the men, and to dance at powwows. It gives the children the opportunity to learn the customs and traditions of their people, and to learn the values of the culture before they become too tempted to follow the dominate society.

Cultural Preservation

Spring Creek Singers are making a concerted effort to record and pass on, as appropriate, traditional songs for the future generations. Armed with a TASCAM DA-P1 Digital Audio Tape recorder they record many of the powwows they sing at. The songs are then preserved for the future generations. The songs are currently distributed through record labels, such as Sunshine Records. We also hand make and distribute CDs to children as we can when they express an interest. Also the Spring Creek Singers are engaged in American Indian communities struggling to preserve their language. New powwow songs are being composed in these languages to encourage the survival and support the use of the tribal langauges.