PhilPaine.com

The Jin­gle Dress dance is a wom­en’s round dance which the Anish­naabe (Ojib­way) of north-west­ern Ontario take spe­cial pride in. “Jin­gle Dress” is the com­mon term on the pow-wow cir­cuit, but folks in the Keno­ra-Rainy Riv­er region of Ontario usu­al­ly call it “med­i­cine dress”. Gabe Desrosiers has com­posed numer­ous songs in hon­our of the Jin­gle Dress and the women who wear it. The songs are deeply root­ed in north­west Ontario and Min­neso­ta tra­di­tion, but these are mod­ern songs. Desrosiers is accom­pa­nied by a sol­id team of drum­mers and singers from the White­fish Bay and North West Angle #33 reserves, known as the North­ern Wind. The Anish­naabe drum­ming style is char­ac­ter­ized by sud­den vol­ume changes and caesura. Expect impromp­tu shouts, hoots and excla­ma­tions to be thrown in at psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly apt moments, giv­ing these dances sort of hot jazz sen­si­bil­i­ty. I don’t have the group’s award win­ning album Whis­per­ing Winds, but I can rec­om­mend my new­ly acquired Med­i­cine Dress, which can be got­ten from Arbor Records in Winnipeg.
“You see this cir­cu­lar object we are hit­ting, it is a drum. This is why your peo­ple are hun­gry, because you do not have a drum in your lives. Once you have a drum, it will bring life to the Anishi­naabe. The drum will show you how to make feasts to hon­or the food that is giv­en to you by the Cre­ator. The drum will make your peo­ple dance and be hap­py. The Cre­ator loves to see his peo­ple being hap­py. The Cre­ator will be there danc­ing with the peo­ple wher­ev­er and when­ev­er the drum is heard. We will give you food to bring back to your peo­ple. Once you make the drum, every­thing will return as it was. The Anishi­naabeg will nev­er be hun­gry again.”

— Allan Crow, The Drum Comes to the Anishi­naabe.