The Standing Quiver dance is always the first dance whenever Earth Songs are sung. It is distinct from many other Earth Songs because it features a call-and-response (or antiphonal) texture throughout. The song originated from the way Seneca men would recruit parties to go out hunting or traveling: the leader would take his arrow and drive it into the ground, and as he went around the village enlisting other men, they would drive their arrows in next to the leader’s, resulting in a standing quiver(figure 1). In the same way then, this dance calls everyone in the community to gather together and join in the dancing.

The music imitates the actions: the leader calls out and the other singers respond. Sometimes their melody is the same as the leader’s but more often there are two separate phrases, like a question and an answer. The first song features short call-and-response pairs, each repeated multiple times. The same pattern continues in the other songs but the phrases tend to get longer as the song continues. The singers and dancers maintain a steady, walking beat, which distinguishes this dance as a kind of stomp dance.

Story

Bill Crouse tells the story of how this dance came from the practice of a leader calling his community to form a traveling party (video 2).

Bill Crouse’s teacher Ed Curry told the same story to William Fenton in 1951: in earlier times, the people danced Standing Quiver when assembling for travel (audio 1).

William Fenton: Ga’da:šo:t comes from an old Indian word meaning quiver. Tell us about that, Mr. Curry.

Ed Curry: Ga’da:šo:t is the quiver used in the olden days. When they used to gather, they always carried the quiver, you know. And, they’d gather ’em and bunch ’em up, in whole, one big stack. Then they’d start this Ga’da:šo:t and they’d dance around this quiver, ga’dä:shä’.

Fenton: Ga’dä:shä’ is the quiver where the arrows go.

Curry: Yeah, they’d dance around that. That’s the reason they give it the name Ga’da:šo:t.

Fenton: What about this song that’s They come making a big noise and they come rowing a boat?

Curry: Well, that is probably meant on their way coming on their journey, you know. Sometimes they come in loud—

Fenton: Is this a war party coming?

Curry: Yes, yes. And they have times to rejoice from day to day and they take their quivers and stack them up and they start the Ga’da:šo:t and dance around it.

(Note that it is Fenton who supplies the detail of a war party, which was only one of several possible reasons to gather.) Curry emphasizes that the dance was for rejoicing.

Jesse Cornplanter (video 7) gave a slightly different explanation to William Fenton in 1954, situating the dance in the war party’s campsite during a break while traveling: In the old days when the Indians used to go on the warpath and they rest on their march, they stand up their quivers where they rest their arrows, just like the soldiers stack their arms on their marks when they rest. And as they stand up the quivers in a row, then the leader leads this stomp dance or the Standing Quiver Dance. There are descriptions of this dance from Euro-American observers as early as 1744 (Fenton 1998, 426).

According to oral tradition, originally each singer had his own song in this dance, reflecting his own style and personality. Hearing the Standing Quiver Dance now we can imagine a portrait of a whole team of hunters or warriors setting out, proud of themselves and enthusiastic to start their adventure together.

The story about Standing Quiver mirrors the way that Bill was taught to learn long sets of songs. His teachers told him to picture a line of people coming before him, each to sing a different song. So when he thought of each new song in his mind, he pictures the next person coming forward. In this way the song links memory and relationship, tradition and community.

As Bill explained to music-history students at the University of Rochester (video 3), this dance embodies the pride that Seneca men felt in their own strength, pride which continues to be reinforced through this dance as it has been passed down despite the trauma of colonization:

So think about those guys paddling along, wearing their good clothes... maybe they’re going to trade somewhere, or going somewhere; maybe they’re dressed for war—maybe that’s what they call it—but as they’re going along, they’re singing this. How cool is it to have history like that?

I think about music and ceremony and social dance that it’s a miracle that we have anything, because I know a lot of tribes don’t have that. [...] So to me it seems that all the stuff that happened in our past, no matter what happened, they kept singing. [...] There was times when they didn’t feel like singing and dancing, you know, but they kept going, and they kept it going. They kept that ceremonial circle going.

So to us, we look at it not as a job but as a responsibility, I guess, to pass it on, ’cause they didn’t let it go, so there’s a reason that they did that. And now, when I do that and sing that and everybody dances that, it’s like, it’s strong: we’re still here, and we celebrate that. So that’s what music is about for us.

Songs

Musical Structure

As with all Seneca social dances, the participants dance while singers sing a set of songs specific to that dance, accompanied with instruments. The lead singer selects which songs to include based on the time available and personal preference. In general for Seneca social dances, most songs last between one and two minutes, and it is common to select between ten and fifteen songs, making a full dance of fifteen minutes or more. In the version of Standing Quiver recorded by the Allegany Singers in 2002, Kyle Dowdy selected ten songs (video 4). The transcription is how Andrew hears this—which is to say, this is one interpretation, the result of a set of choices about what is important to record and show. -->

Ga’da:šo:t always begins with the first song in that recording. The leader and singers sing short phrases in a call-and-response (or antiphonal) pattern: ah/hwih, eyo’/hwe, ahe’/ahe’, wiha’/wiha’, ë-ë’/ë-ë’, hayo’/hayo’. The whole set begins on a single pitch sung in a two-beat phrase (one beat for the call, one for the response). The first three phrases are sung on one pitch, approximately A₄ in this recording. (The precise pitch level is not significant for Seneca singers and can vary across performances and even within a single song.) The next phrase dips down to a pitch just below the center and the following starts a half-step above it.

Rhythmically, the song moves at a slow walking pace, without any drum accompaniment, just the sound of stomping feet. (Bill used to like to wear cowboy boots to a singing session to make a stronger sound.) The stomping begins with slow beats that line up with the call and response, then begins playing one subdivision below the main beat. In other words, if we would notate the singers’ phrases in quarter notes, the drum would be playing eighth notes. With a tonal center on A, most of the songs emphasize the pitches A, B, C♯, D, and E (in solfége, do re mi fa sol; or in pitch-class set notation, /0 2 4 5 7/), but some include fewer pitches and others more (table 1).

Table 1. Pitches included in Ga’da:šo:t songs, Kyle Dowdy’s version

	Pitch	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
		A	B♭	B♮	C	C♯	D	D♯	E	F	F♯	G	G♯
Song	1	■	■
	2	■		■	■	■			■
	3	■		■			■		■
	4	■		■		■			■
	5	■		■		■			■		■
	6	■		■		■	■		■		■
	7	■			■		■		■		■
	8	■		■		■	■		■		■
	9	■		■		■			■
	10	■		■		■			■		■

After this introductory song, the remaining songs follow the pattern of song 2. The call-and-response pattern continues, now with longer phrases. The singers do not repeat the leader’s phrase but sing a separate response. The melody has two phrases, which Andrew labels A and B: A is the first antiphonal phrase (or two), repeated several times; and B is the one or two contrasting phrases that follow, usually with a higher pitch center. The song closes with another repeat of A, so the pattern is ABA. Many singers, however, repeat the AB to create a total form of ABABA.

Most of the Standing Quiver songs follow a pattern we can hear in Song 5 (music example 1). The A phrase is a three-beat call (hogea:ne’) followed by a two-beat response (hodiganeye’); this is repeated four times. The B phrase consists of two call/response pairs also in a 3 + 2 beat pattern. The A phrase emphasizes ̂1 and the notes below it, then the B phrase contrasts by going higher, to the notes above the tonic. All of this is then repeated, and then at the end the A is repeated again. Bill says he does not count repetitions and there is no rule about them, but Andrew notes a consistent pattern in these recordings where each time the singer sings the A section again he repeats it fewer times: for example, in song 5 of this recording, Kyle sings A four times, then three, then two.

The other songs in this recording follow a similar pattern, but in songs 4, 7, and 8 only, the A phrase has two subphrases. Among these songs 7 and 8 compensate by having only one subphrase in the B phrase (table 2).

Table 2. Length of Call-and-Response Groups in Ga’da:šo:t, Kyle Dowdy’s version

Song	Phrase A	Phrase B
2	2 + 2	2 + 2, 2 + 2
3	3 + 3	3 + 3, 3 + 3
4	3 + 2, 3 + 2	3 + 2, 3 + 2
5	3 + 2	3 + 2, 3 + 2
6	2 + 1	2 + 1, 2 + 1
7	3 + 3, 3 + 3	6 + 3
8	4 + 3, 4 + 3	4 + 3
9	5 + 3	3 + 3, 5 + 3
10	3 + 2	3 + 2, 3 + 2

Because Andrew was trained in Western music to look for patterns across large compositions, he hears a pattern in this recording where the songs get longer over the course of the set, from 35 beats for song 1 up to 100 beats for song 9. Similary song 1 starts on a single pitch and the subsequent songs include more pitches (table 1). This is just coincidence, counters Bill: each singer chooses the songs and arranges them according to personal preference, so it does not make sense to analyze the set like a single composition.

Other Versions

Bill Crouse, 2022

In September 2022 the Allegany Singers recorded two different versions of the songs: the first was the version led by Bill Crouse, based on continuous oral tradition. The second was an alternate version led by Jake George, who though much younger than Bill, has studied earlier recordings by some of his relatives, and based this new/old version on the way they sang it.

Bill’s version follows the same basic pattern as Kyle Dowdy’s: an opening call-and-response section followed by songs in ABABA form. With a shorter video length in mind, Bill selected a smaller group of four songs: Those are ones I just picked out that seemed to flow good. In other circumstances he might choose more or order them differently, and each singer makes these choices based on how he learned the songs, personal preference, and the needs of the occasion.

The character and rhythmic feel are consistent across versions, though Bill’s is a tad slower in tempo and higher in pitch. The opening section is partly the same and partly features different vocables and melodic gestures, notably an ascending fourth leap on weheya’ that breaks out of the limited pitch selection in Kyle Dowdy’s version. Bill says that the individual call/response pairs within the opening song are interchangeable much like way the other songs are in the set and selected by the lead singer on the occasion.

Bill’s song 2 has the same basic tune outline and words as Kyle’s song 4, though small details differ. Bill’s song 3 was not included in Kyle’s set, but the singers’ response (on yahodinë:’) matches the lead’s call in Kyle’s song 6. Both sets end with the same song (Crouse song 4 and Dowdy song 10).

Bill attributes minor differences in words and pronunciation between him and Kyle to the fact that Kyle was not equally familiar with all the songs on that recording. He and Kyle normally alternated lead on Standing Quiver, but Bill was not there for that recording, so Kyle was leading the songs that Bill usually led, including the one beginning Hodigawenöje.

Jake George, 2022

Jake’s version begins with yet another variation on the opening call/response section, and then his song 2 is closely related to Kyle Dowdy’s song 2, with different words and slightly different pitches in the lead part. Jake’s remaining songs are all unique, not included in the other versions. Song 3 is notable for its syncopated rhythms (music example 2).

Jake’s songs are all pentatonic (/0 2 4 7 9/), without the contrasts of pitch collections notable in the Dowdy version. Jake’s singing is a bit clearer and sweeter in tone than Kyle and Bill, partly because he is more of a tenor voice type than their baritone. Bill Crouse and fellow Allegany Singers member John Block hear the influence of Western pop music in Jake’s singing. Bill says his own style is smoother than that of some of his teachers, while Jake’s is smoother yet.

Jesse Cornplanter, 1954

Jesse Cornplanter (1889–1957) sings according to his distinct Tonawanda Seneca traditions, in 1954 recordings by William N. Fenton (video 7). In the first recording he has to sing both call and response parts, with some awkward pauses between. A second singer, possibly Charles E. Bartlett (1904–1976), joins on the second recording. They sing five songs: the first is almost identical to Kyle Dowdy’s opening song and fits the pattern of the opening in all versions; the third song is the same as Dowdy’s second song; and the others are unique to this recording.

Ed Curry and Avery Jimerson, 1951

Ed Curry and Avery Jimerson were Bill’s teachers, and Avery was his uncle. With Ed taking lead they sang a full set of songs for William Fenton to record in 1951 (audio 2). The recording was made at Quaker Bridge, a place on the Allegany Territory that was since flooded by the Kinzua dam, in violation of the United States’ treaty agreements with the Seneca Nation. Ed was a generation older than Avery, and Bill notes that some of the songs in this set are so old that Bill had never heard them before.

A Full Quiver of Ga’da:šo:t Songs

Except for their openings, these are not really variant versions—that is, alternate ways of singing the same songs—as much as different selections of songs from out of the vast storehouse of songs preserved in oral tradition. Where there is true variation, the basic outline of the melody is preserved and the main vocables, and most of the variation happens in the shorter note values often at the beginnings of phrases. The overall structure of the song set has to follow a predictable pattern in order for the dance to work, but the selection of songs, number of repeats, minor melodic variations or embellishments, and pitch level can be set by the lead singer without disrupting the community’s expectations. Keeping in mind both the story of this dance as a way of summoning the community, and Bill’s memory practice of recalling the faces of individual singers, each of these song selections may call to mind the voice and character of singers in ages past, from Kyle Dowdy, Bill’s cousin and one of his teachers, back to hunters and warriors of ancient times.

Movements

The dance follows the story of a men recruiting a band to go out traveling from the village. The leader begins dancing with a shuffle step in a counterclockwise circle, and he is followed by pairs of men and women. As Bill explains, even though the women aren’t going, they’re supporting their men.

Each song has an AB structure with an initial call-and-response, then a section that often starts with a higher pitch and then returns to the tonic. When the higher-pitched B section begins, the dancers turn and face the middle. At the repeat of the A, they turn back to face in the direction of movement around the circle. The basic step for Standing Quiver is the same one used for several other dances of the stomp-dance type.