Sounding the North Americans: The European Record of Early Musical Contact

The diaries of David Zeisberger, Moravian missionary on the Pennsylvania and Ohio frontiers from1749 to 1808, reveal a great deal about the subtle and supple influence of music as an agent of intercultural mixing, and about the resilience of indigenous cultures when faced with radical cultural change. Using Zeisberger’s writings and Moravian hymns translated into the Delaware language for Indian converts, this presentation seeks to reconstruct the sounds and reconsider the meanings of singing as it was deployed in the Moravian mission communities on the Ohio frontier.  This effort raises significant questions about the limits on our ability to accurately reconstruct early song for use as historical evidence and about historians’ ability to interpret how those songs functioned as vehicles for intercultural communication.