A Descriptive Analysis Of Yakutat Tlingit Musical Style.

Dorothy Morrison
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:58:53 PDT

Ninety-nine songs from Yakutat, Alaska were analyzed in an effort to determine a musical style of the Gulf Coast Tlingit. Songs were grouped into seven categories from which general trends of style were deduced. Analysis, which was based on the transcriptions of David P. McAllester, included interval distribution, range, tone systems, weighted scales, melodic contour, tempo, duration and rest values, drumming patterns, formal structure, and song length. The transcriptions and data for drumming patterns, formal structure and song length were provided by McAllester in "Under Mount Saint Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit," by Frederica de Laguna, 1972, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Volume 7, Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution Press. Stylistic differences in the areas of interval distribution, range, tone systems, weighted scales, melodic contour, and tempo were discovered between the two largest categories, the traditional Sib Potlatch songs and the songs of more recent composition called Haida Mouth songs.