Ulu-what?
Recently, I asked a friend from a First Nations tribe of Canada -- a smart techie guy -- if he knew how to ululate.
"Ulu-what?" he replied.
"You know, the sound that we indigenous people make when we are all fired up," I said, doing a lame demonstration of the half-shriek, half-song technique.
My mistake was that I also used my hands tapping rapidly over my mouth as I hooted and howled. This created that funny gesture often parodied in old cowboys-vs-indians movies and tv shows.
My friend laughed. "No, no, we don't do that anymore."
I didn't know if he was embarrassed or flustered by my question.
Wikipedia defines ululation as "a long, wavering, high-pitched sound resembling the howl of a dog or wolf." But it's better seen and heard, than defined.
Ululating is actually much more than a physical technique. It's a widespread cultural practice -- a ritual behavior still found among many ethnic groups across Africa, Asia, native America, even in half-forgotten corners of Europe -- which signifies utmost joy and thanks in some settings, extreme grief and anger in other settings.
Although ululation is practiced both by males and females, I find the female version to be more blood-curdling and hair-raising... indeed, a terrifying sight and sound especially when done en masse by a phalanx of angry but unarmed women face to face with their enemies.
Learning to ululate is not that easy, because it comes from a deep-seated emotion that you don't easily draw out, as if you were an actor inducing a tear to fall.
My own experience in teaching my kids to ululate on New Year's eve reminded me of Lakota Woman, the autobiographical book by Mary Crow Dog, a Sioux activist of the militant AIM.
A few months back, I got hold of a copy of her book from my favorite second-hand bookshop. Once I started reading it, I could hardly put it down until I had finished with the last chapter.
In her book, Mary Crow Dog recounted how she and other women sometimes used ululation as a moral weapon in their fight for Indian rights.
As introduction to her book's Chapter 1, the Lakota author also quoted a Cheyenne proverb, which goes this way:
A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.
Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons.
Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons.
I find this Cheyenne saying to be true, in my years of working in indigenous peoples' territories.
In my experience, indigenous women played a crucial role as the fiercest keepers and defenders of their lands and homes, their language and folklore, their music and dance, their food and medicine rituals... their most-valued tribal ways of life.
When our women give up the fight, when they forget the ways of our ancestors, when our women's hearts are on the ground, when they no longer know how to ululate, then no amount of heroism by thousands of tribal warriors can ever regain our dismal loss and prevent our final defeat.
Reading the Lakota Woman gave me a feeling somewhat like after I read Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, after I watched Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves, and after an encounter with a Native American girl with special abilities. Namely, I felt more convinced than ever, that in an earlier life I was a Native American woman.
This is perhaps one reason why I always feel drawn to befriend indigenous elder women, get their rich stories of folklore and heroism, and feel them become young and vibrant again as they replay the continuing history of their ancestors.
It was from these elder women friends, with pure white hair and counting dozens of grand-children, that I re-discovered these rituals and folklore -- half-forgotten stuff taught me by my grandmother as a young child -- that I'm trying to pass on to my kids, bit by bit.
Do you know how to ululate?
What traditional or indigenous ritual, practiced by your ancestors, do you still observe until now, or would like to revive and pass on to your children?
