To the editors:
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I can best describe the play this way: Imagine six stereotypical, middle-class, middle-aged mothers and housewives. If we employ a little armchair psychology, we might suppose their individuality and personal goals have been subverted by the “American” Dream. Then they go to one of those three-week “find your inner child” seminars, and they discover they have a common Native American ancestry. The Power Pipes I saw was the resulting graduation project.
The play took a Native American drum chant, which I believe was commonly used as both a religious ceremony and a means to inform the community of impending danger, and used its rhythm to gossip about good-looking men and shopping. They actually used a bag of Fritos to symbolize the maize which was the common staple food of the North American Indian. A sequined half-moon “headdress” with cheap plastic feathers was supposed, I assume, to remind us of an eagle feather and ultimately the common image of “the hunter.” I was appalled at how cheaply the cast sold the symbols of their own heritage. I learned nothing about the Native American’s situation today, nor 500 years ago, nor about how the arrival of the Europeans affected the North American Indian.
*Having written this letter, I felt I should do some research. Encyclopaedia Britannica indicates the panpipe, also called the panflute, has been around since neolithic times, and used in various cultures, including that of South America. Not in North America, however, at least according to EB. Also, maize was indeed the primary crop of the midwestern American Indian from about 0 BC onward, various droughts notwithstanding. Indians of the American continents are in fact believed to have come from Mongolia prior to 10,000 BC; and the drum, also around since neolithic times, has been used universally by humankind, and almost exclusively for religious ceremonies and group communication. In North America, it was used particularly by the shaman, or medicine man.
