This is a short preview trailer. You can watch the entire film at no charge on the Folkstreams website. Folkstreams is a nonprofit whose mission is to find, preserve, contextualize, and stream documentary films on American folklife.
Watch the entire film at Folkstreams
Medicine Fiddle explores the music and dance heritage of the Fur Trade among Native and Métis families on both sides of the U.S. and Canadian border. Fiddling and step (clog) dancing was introduced to Native peoples by French fur traders in the late 1600s and a century later by Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish trappers, lumberjacks, and homesteaders. Over the past two centuries, in the confines of family gatherings on remote reservations, this music has survived and has permeated the cultural memory of mixed-blood descendants. Some of the music and dance has absorbed a Native musical influence, and a Native spiritual culture sustains it. The stories, music, and dance are performed in family settings.