Kenny [Link]

Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, v. 15, n. 3 (2015)

[Interview]

Balance Between the Worlds: A

Conversation with Dr. Richard Vedan
By Carolyn Kenny

Abstract
In this article, Dr. Richard Vedan, a Secwepmec, lodge keeper, and medical social
worker converses with Dr. Carolyn Kenny about critical elements of medical
ethnomusicology as seen and experienced through an Indigenous context.
Dilemmas of individualism versus collectivism and isolation versus connectivity
underlie the entire conversation. Relevant themes in the traditional use of music in
Indigenous healing are discussed.

Keywords: indigenous healing, social work, living between two worlds.

Dr. Richard W. Vedan, a member of the

Secwepemc First Nation in the interior of
British Columbia has a career in Social Work
and Social Work Education that spans five
decades. Professor Emeritus at the University
of British Columbias School of Social Work
and Past Director of the UBC First Nations
House of Learning; he is currently Elder
Scholar for Indigenous Education in Simon
Fraser Universitys Faculty of Education. Music
of various genres has been a life-long pursuit and for the past several years he has been
a chorister with the Vancouver Welsh Mens Choir.

Though academics and modern professionals continue to invent more and more
categories and subcategories to explain how music functions as a healing
influence with patients and clients, the tradition of using music for healing is an old
and honoured tradition that represents unique elements that are often dismissed
from academic and professional dialogues as primitive and unsophisticated. Yet,
there is a depth and integrity to ancient healing systems that surpasses most of

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these categories. (Kenny, 1982/2006).

In contemporary scholarly practice, the tendency to isolate elements of a

phenomenon in order to create observable and measurable change flies in the
face of the more spiritually oriented and holistic practice of healing in traditional
societies that focus on traditional protocols and process.

There is a class of health practitioners that walks between the worlds of ancient
and modern a class that is continuously challenged to maintain the integrity of
both traditional and Western ways of healing. Dr. Richard Vedan is one such
practitioner. As a musician, lodge keeper, and medical social worker, Dr. Vedan
faces this dilemma on a daily basis. I had an opportunity to have a conversation
with Dr. Vedan about this dilemma and also about the general theme of medical
ethnomusicology and how it is experienced in vivo. Dr. Vedan agreed to have our
conversation audiotaped for the purposes of sharing his knowledge with Voices
readers. What follows is the result of our time together on 4 May 2015.

Carolyn: We are both Native people and understand this notion of medical
ethnomusicology from an experiential context. But my hope is to help other people
who are not Native to understand this idea and how we use music in our
communities. So what does medical mean in our Native communities.

Richard: In my understanding it is a reference to holistic health, balance of self

holistically, with respect to our intellectual needs and capacities, our emotional
needs and capacities, our spiritual needs and capacities, and our physical needs
and capacities. So we pursue a balance within the context of these four within the
cardinal directions of the Medicine Wheel North, East, South, and West. Ill health
is a consequence of falling out of balance within our own complete environment
social, ecological, and so forth. Maintaining and regaining health involves
identifying what we need to do to restore balance. Having been trained as a
medical social worker in the Western allopathic medical system, its been a
journey. And its an ongoing journey. The biomedical system is one of the four
directions. In the best of situations health care addresses all of the directions. But
biomedical practitioners have on-going struggle to get there. They describe
themselves as scientists and remarkable things are being accomplished by
biomedical science and technology. However in Indigenous healing the elements
of spirituality or elements of affective/emotional self are not ignored or discounted
just because they are not amenable to quantitative measure. Currently many social
scientists attempt to attach numbers, for example, A Likert scale, to quantify such
elements. However, at some point there is a qualitative judgment. Traditional
health care providers such as herbalists appreciate the need for quantitative
measurement but not in a manner that discounts other elements of self. A balance
of qualitative and quantitative along a spectrum contributes to holistic health.

Carolyn: So its a bit of a journey to walk between these two worlds if you are a
health care professional.

Richard: Yes. And its an ongoing journey a cyclical journey. Not walking in
circles in a way, as if one is lost, but walking in a continuous journey of awareness,
reflection, and continuing the journey, perhaps in a series of tangents around the

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circumference of ever-evolving circles. Moving forward like the wheels of a bicycle

as you go round and are moving along. You are moving along in a direction across
the ground or through the universe.

Carolyn: People need to understand how Indian medicine is expressed in a

concrete way. We are going to focus on music. But I know that there are different
kinds of medicine in addition to this philosophical view of the balance in the four
directions. What is the list that non-Native people need to know about the types of
medicine?

Richard: Well, talking, healing with herbs, engaging in physical activity

(shamanism), though Im hesitant to go into shamanism or even use that word.
Individuals/healers if you ask them for help and put tobacco down, they say,
Well, you are going to come and live with me for three months. And that means
coming and living with me for three months, moving into my residence, working on
the farm and doing all the things of normal life. We are going to feed ourselves. We
are going to do things to maintain our shelter and grow food and socialize and
engage in ceremony. And that is the medicine. We are going to have
conversations. And perhaps you are going to go off and spend some time in
solitude as opposed to being alone and reflect on these things from time to time.
So its an experience in living. Its a living process not Ive got a sore knee so Ill
go to the doctor and who will look at it for 15 minutes and give me a prescription
and then Ill go away so that the medicine takes place in a very discreet time frame
in a specific place as opposed to 24 hours a day whether its a sore knee or an
affective challenge. The teachings and medicine come at a time when you may
not be aware until you take the time to reflect.

Carolyn: That brings up another question. As you know, I had surgery last year.
And one of my students, who is Navajo, said, Im going to have my grandfather,
who is a medicine man, collect herbs for you and do prayers and songs. She sent
me some twigs and vines. I had very strict instructions about how to boil them,
drink the tea three times a day, and do this for three weeks. Then at the end of the
three weeks, I was to bury these dried/boiled plants in the Earth. I took my
grandchildren to bury them and we did this together when this regime was
completed. But there are a lot of things for sale that are called Indian Medicine.
You go into stores and can buy them. This brings up the issue that you described
about very individualized healing and the combinations of things like herbs, songs,
conversations, living a certain way. So Im wondering what you think about songs
that are supposed to be healing songs that people buy on tapes and CDs in
stores.

Richard: This always takes me back to words attributed to Timothy Leary turn
on, tune in, drop out he had very positive experiences with LSD. So he was
encouraging others to also use LSD based on his experience with the expectation
that everyone would achieve a higher level of insight and functioning not taking
into account that at his level of maturity and intellectual development and what he
would experience would be dramatically different than someone who still has a
developing personality, at an earlier stage of development, or facing life challenges
and not prepared for what would be experienced.

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In earlier times when the care giver and the care seeker were living in a closed
circle or community one would not be encouraged to take herbal medicines in this
way to use a plant that could possibly bring harm or if they did not know if it
would harm you because the information would come back within the closed
circles of the community. We dont have that same security and protection within
our modern communities now. When you get something online, you might receive
substances that have positive ingredients. But you dont know if contaminants
might be present. And we know that people who had roles as health care providers
in pre-contact communities did not just wake up one morning and say, Im going to
be an herbalist. And Im going to dispense. It was a community-wide process.
They would train in an apprenticeship. There was a formal, but also informal
process of mentoring/teaching. So there was quality control. This is a struggle with
songs or herbal medicines or conducting sweat lodge ceremonies or any traditional
ceremonies in the Big House (ceremonial space). People need to be protected
through accountability. We have had episodes, for example, in the Southwest of
people coming to harm in ceremonies. People were paying large sums of money to
go into a sweat lodge with dozens of other people and some died. Whether the
person was qualified to do that I do not know. I do know that as a lodge keeper
myself, there are only so many people you can realistically take care of at one
time. If youve got a whole lot of folks in an auditorium its very difficult. Buying
music off the shelf is risky. Music is a medicine like LSD. It is powerful and
evocative. Before he passed to the other side, I was taught by Khasalas, my friend
Ernie Willie, a hereditary leader from Gwaii Village in Kingcome Inlet, that there is
a duality to all things. Its words we say, the music we hear; for example the fire
that keeps us warm, heats our home and cooks our food will also kill us if we let it
out of control. Water, which is the life blood of Mother Earth, needed to quench our
thirst can also drown us. Again, there is a duality to medicines. Just like the quality
of meditative chants like Lakota or Secwepmec or Gregorian chants or the raves
the music that takes place at raves (Ive never been to a rave), but when people
are taking non-prescription drugs and the music carries them to a point of being
out-of-balance and into an unhealthy state of being, it can be a dangerous realm.
So, its having an awareness of what can be taught, what can be achieved it can
carry you along, which can be very exhilarating. But are you jumping into the river,
going with the flow, the river might take you into the rapids or over the falls or going
into the river when you have some awareness of your surroundings and means of
control with a paddle, rudder or anchor to keep out of harms way. My earliest
memory of the power and beauty of music was when I was at a movie as a
preschooler watching Mario Lanza sing and hearing his beautiful voice and
thinking or rather feeling I want to do that.

Carolyn: Can you tell me specifically, how music functions as medicine in Indian
Country? Youve already touched on that a bit. But can you go a little deeper. And
where does it come from? Is it from the ancestors, part of our mythology, passed
down from generations?

Richard: The chants are there in all cultures. Some of our chants have words that
tell a story. There are some that use sounds for biorhythms and cardiovascular
movement. One of the Secwepmec songs that I have learned has gotten me
through a few marathons and 10K runs when I thought, Theres nothing left. And

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then with the song I could just carry on. Its similar to bagpipes or military
drummers that have the same visceral influence. In many traditions, the songs
were part of rites of passage whether it is called a Vision Quest or rites of passage.
You would have a spiritual experience and you would hear a song. Or a song
would come to you from a spirit creature. A lot of that was lost by the imposition of
the Potlatch laws, which made it against the law to sing the songs or tell the stories
or have a conversation of this nature. So we are still in a phase of recovering what
was lost and trying to do it in a good way, an authentic way, and keep in balance.
Anecdotally, when I sit in the lodge and Im singing, Im not as aware as much of
when it gets hot or dark. Its like an analgesic breathing is a powerful analgesic.
When my wife had our son, she did psychotropic breathing instead of the epidural
or other biomedical anaesthetics. So breathing is very powerful. Again, there is a
duality. Music can be calming. Its also energizing and invigorating. Whether its
Romping Ronny Hawkins and his Rock-a-Billy or the Pow Wow dancing or the
Sun Dance music and how it carries you. The difference is between singing in
solitude in ones own lodge or in a forest glade where you are sitting in isolation for
four days where you have a drum, a rattle, or a flute or other instrument and
whether you are being meditative by yourself or sitting around a Pow Wow drum or
hand drums in a circle. It can be powerful at the individual level and also at the
collective level ultimately layers upon layers. In the sweat lodge, it would be
interesting to be connected to the heart monitors and blood pressures monitors
and see what would happen in the lodge. Things change. Im sure music therapists
have done that. That feedback offers lots of evidence.

One of the challenges for me is keeping my two identities as a clinical social

worker and a lodge keeper separate. Ive tended to keep my professional social
worker identity and my lodge keeper identity separate for the most part. Ive never
said, We are going to sing a song now as part of this interview dealing with your
acute anomic depression. But if they wanted to sing a song, that would be good
and healing. But Ive never used this specifically as my clinical bag of tricks.
However, it is part of what I do, for example in a classroom when students are
struggling with a concept of a piece of history. And it works. It works very well.

Carolyn: So it sounds like you have to constantly negotiate the two worlds. Yes,
this is true for many of us many Native people who are trying to be in the modern
world as professionals yet we have these other identities as Native healers.

Richard: You are probably familiar with Ovid Mercredi and Mary-Ellen Tupel-
LaFonde s book In the Rapids about the struggles of Aboriginal/First Nations
identity. I borrow from their book on occasions when people say, It must be nice to
be in two worlds to have a foot in each of two cultures like a bridge. And I reply
that its not so much I feel like I have one foot in each culture. Its like I have my left
foot in one canoe and the other foot is in another canoe. And Im in the rapids and I
have to deconstruct the canoes from a Western paradigm to a traditional paradigm
and not drown in the process and sing songs along the way.

Carolyn: Thats probably what keeps you going the songs.

Richard: Yes!!

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Carolyn: Can you describe one or two examples of how you have used music as
medicine in your own healing work healing others or healing for yourself?

Richard: Last time I used music as medicine was for myself. I was getting a CT
scan and dealing with claustrophobia. In order to remain very still, I told the
technician, If you hear some noise, Im singing a song. I was there but I was in
another place. Ill draw a parallel. Perhaps the Eucharistic Mass follows the pattern
of the sweat lodge. There are certain songs you sing in a particular order just to
give continuity so people can anticipate the journey. There may be work that needs
to be done where you will bring in another song or part of a song to deal with
someones needs. That is a very organic process. We open the book. And we are
going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs and we get into the journey. We open the
book and say prayers to the Creator and to the four directions. Then we do the
work. Then you close the book. Everyone gets a chance to participate. If people
are facing challenges, whether emotional, spiritual, intellectual, or physical I invite
them, to talk about that within the safety and confidential form of the talking circle.
Sometimes that talking circle is done in the sweat lodge. And if they feel that a
song would be appropriate to help them get to where they want to be, we have a
drum in the lodge. And we allow them to do that. They might ask for something
special. And we do that. We have respect for tradition. We havent done the typical
scientific quantitative studies. But there are enough stories that you see how it
works.

Carolyn: So there is, then, a bridge between these two worlds. And part of the
bridge is constructed through the privacy so anything that happens in the lodge is
confidential. Thats an interesting bridge. You cant do a study like an Randomized
Clinical Trial (RCT) about what happens in the lodge or in a talking circle.

Richard: Again, how does one become a pipe carrier or, lodge keeper? In earlier
times within the closed circle of the community, the confidentiality, trust and safety
was assured by the close circle of the community. If youve got a charismatic
individual, who has a very compelling voice or appearance and is a predator, sadly,
in those situations in which the person has been a victim him/herself, then
medicines can be used and songs can be used for good and for evil purposes
one must get back to the teachings of the Big House, the Hamatsa, or the person
in the sweat lodge would be aware and be given an awareness of self and the
world around them. It was important that you could help your community or take
advantage with that knowledge. This is just like the interpretations of psychology.
Music is very much a part of marketing strategies. Is that being used for primordial,
visceral reactions to hook people?

Carolyn: We have examples like the Aryan Resistance who use their music to
attract the youth. They have many, many bands that try to advance their agenda.
Or we have seen how Hitler used music in so many ways.

Richard: While listening to Evensong in Salsbury Cathedral beautiful choir and

the heraldry I said to my cousin, Pete, if someone said to me, Run over that hill
and get your butt shot off for queen and country the way I feel motivated by the
music and our surroundings. With music, you never know what is going to come
out. Again, just taking a piece of music off the shelf and plug it into an iPod or CD

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player and expect only a whole lot of positive things to happen is nave and not
responsible. Well, one can get triggered. Its facile like thinking that Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is simply just waiving your hands and
asking the person to say whatever words come to mind in order to heal and the
world will be a better place.

I was remembering that the one occasion that my father Hector came into the
lodge, he had to have some surgery. And he was getting ready. He knew that we
had a lodge at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and he asked to come. Of
course we sang songs. It had been 60 years since he had previously been in the
lodge. I wrote about this in my dissertation. That was music for medicine. He was
aware of it even though he hadnt heard the message for 60 years. He had been
taught by my grandfather, Johnny Peters, that when you are facing biomedical
challenges and are having a surgery, being balanced emotionally, spiritually,
intellectually, and physically, in all four directions was important.

Carolyn: Well, I think this story about your father is a good place to end, Richard.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us right in the middle of balance in the
Four Directions and healing.

Reflections
In this conversation, the important themes of context, balance, metaphor, power
and accountability arise.

Within the context of Indigenous healing, music is one element in a set of healing
elements that serve those who are out of balance. Music is often used in
conjunction with taking herbs, talking, living with a healer, Vision quests, and other
traditional practices that help to bring the patient into balance with her/his
emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical self with an emphasis on the Four
Directions. The calling forth of the Four Directions connects us to the Earth and the
power of Mother Earth. A core principle of Indigenous knowledge and especially
Indigenous healing is that all things are connected. If we become out of balance
within ourselves and in relation to the Earth, we are sick.

Dr. Vedan emphasizes the power of music and that it can be used to improve or
diminish ones health. Therefore we cannot say that Music Heals in a blanket
statement. The ability of music to heal depends on the moral integrity of the healer
or health practitioner, their own balance, and their understanding of how their own
developmental issues of healing interact with the patient and the music.

In Indian country, metaphors often communicate much more than abstract

concepts because they offer an image and sensory understanding of some
phenomenon. Dr. Vedan makes use of this more comprehensive way of sharing
traditional knowledge when he describes his own process of identity formation as
both professional social worker and Native lodge keeper. He strives to stay
balanced with one foot in each canoe to navigate the shifting waters of change and
difference. The river is a constant metaphor that we see a great deal in Indigenous
scholarship and, in general, the written works of Native people (Kenny, 2015). And
finally, he offers the metaphor of the modern day bicycle, to connote both straight

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lines and ever increasing concentric circles on our journeys into healing.

Medical Ethnomusicology might be a fairly recent category on the spectrum of the

ever increasing circles of knowledge in academia. Yet, the practice of including
music as one of the primary elements in keeping us in balance is very old, indeed.

References
Kenny, C. (1982 & 2006). The mythic artery: The magic of music therapy .
Ridgeview Publishing Co.

Kenny, C. (2015). Leadership found. In Minthorn, R. S. & Chavez, A. (Eds.),

Indigenous leadership in higher education. New York & London: Routledge
Publishing.

Vedan R. W. (2002). How do we forgive our fathers: Angry/violent

Aboriginal/First Nations mens experience with social workers . Simon Fraser
University dissertation. UMI Dissertations Publishing, NQ81698.

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