This is a list of Native American musicians and singers. They are notable musicians and singers, who are from Peoples indigenous to the contemporary United States, including Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States ( Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, Alaska and territories of the United State ...
Alaskan village
This list of Alaska Native tribal entities names the federally recognized tribes in the state of Alaska.
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 explains how these Alaska Native villages came to be tracked this way. This version was upda ...
. Ethnologically, factors such as culture, history, language, religion, and familial kinships can influence Native American identity.
All individuals on this list should have Native American ancestry, not just personal claims/belief. Historical figures might predate tribal enrollment practices and would be included based on ethnological tribal membership, while any
contemporary
Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...
individuals should either be enrolled members of federally recognized tribes or have cited Native American ancestry and be recognized as being Native American by their respective tribes(s). Contemporary unenrolled individuals are listed as being of descent from a tribe.
For Indigenous musicians in and from Canada, see List of Indigenous musicians in Canada.
Classical
* Steven Alvarez (composer, percussionist, film & stage producer)(
Yaqui
The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are a Native American people of the southwest, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, and the area below the Gila River in Arizona, Southwestern United Sta ...
/
Mescalero Apache
Mescalero or Mescalero Apache ( apm, Naa'dahéńdé) is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan–speaking Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, located in south-c ...
Kichesipirini
The Kichesipirini ("People of the Great River", "Island Indians") are an Algonquin indigenous people of Canada. Their traditional homeland and primary village was located on Morrison Island (also called Morrison's Island) in the Ottawa River (wh ...
Algonquin
Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to:
Languages and peoples
*Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia
**Algonquin la ...
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
* Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
* Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
Quapaw
The Quapaw ( ; or Arkansas and Ugahxpa) people are a tribe of Native Americans that coalesced in what is known as the Midwest and Ohio Valley of the present-day United States. The Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribe historically migrated from the Oh ...
/
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
), "known as the father of Native American composition
*
Raven Chacon
Raven Chacon (born 1977) is a Diné-American composer, musician and artist. Born in Fort Defiance, Arizona within the Navajo Nation, Chacon became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his '' Voiceless Mass'' in 2022. ...
Atalie Unkalunt
Atalie Unkalunt (June 12, 1895 – November 6, 1954) was a Cherokee singer, interior designer, activist, and writer. Her English name Iva J. Rider appears on the final rolls of the Cherokee Nation. Born in Indian Territory, she attended gover ...
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Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
Oneida Indian Nation
The Oneida Indian Nation (OIN) or Oneida Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Oneida people in the United States. The tribe is headquartered in Verona, New York, where the tribe originated and held its historic territory long before European ...
, 1957–2021)
*
Buddy Red Bow
Warfield Richards Red Bow (June 26, 1948 – March 28, 1993) was a South Dakota Lakotan known for his music.
Life and career
Richards was adopted into the Red Bow family at a young age. He grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Red ...
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Lakota
Lakota may refer to:
* Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes
*Lakota language, the language of the Lakota peoples
Place names
In the United States:
* Lakota, Iowa
* Lakota, North Dakota, seat of Nelson County
* La ...
San Carlos Apache
The San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation ( Western Apache: Tsékʼáádn), in southeastern Arizona, United States, was established in 1872 as a reservation for the Chiricahua Apache tribe as well as surrounding Yavapai and Apache bands removed fr ...
Mildred Bailey
Mildred Bailey (born Mildred Rinker; February 27, 1907 – December 12, 1951) was a Native American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Queen of Swing", "The Rockin' Chair Lady" and "Mrs. Swing". She recorded the songs " For Sentimenta ...
Jim Pepper
Jim Gilbert Pepper II (June 18, 1941 – February 10, 1992) was a jazz saxophonist, composer and singer of Kaw and Muscogee Creek Native American heritage. He moved to New York City in 1964, where he came to prominence in the late 1960s as a mem ...
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Muscogee
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsKaw
Kaw or KAW may refer to:
Mythology
* Kaw (bull), a legendary bull in Meitei mythology
* Johnny Kaw, mythical settler of Kansas, US
* Kaw (character), in ''The Chronicles of Prydain''
People
* Kaw people, a Native American tribe
Places
* Kaw, Fr ...
)
*
Big Chief Russell Moore
"Big Chief" Russell Moore (August 13, 1912 – December 15, 1983) was an American jazz trombonist. Moore, a Pima tribe member, grew up on a Native American reservation before moving to Chicago and then Los Angeles where he learned to play vari ...
Robert Tree Cody
Robert Tree Cody (born April 20, 1951) is an American musician, dancer, and educator. He graduated from John Marshall High School in 1969. Robert is an adopted son of Hollywood actor Iron Eyes Cody.
Early life
Robert Tree Cody is the adopted son ...
(
Hunkpapa
The Hunkpapa (Lakota: ) are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota tribe. The name ' is a Lakota word, meaning "Head of the Circle" (at one time, the tribe's name was represented in European-American records as ...
/
Maricopa
Maricopa can refer to:
Places
* Maricopa, Arizona, United States, a city
** Maricopa Freeway, a piece of I-10 in Metropolitan Phoenix
** Maricopa station, an Amtrak station in Maricopa, Arizona
* Maricopa County, Arizona, United States
* Marico ...
)
*
Brent Michael Davids
Brent Michael Davids (born June 4, 1959) is an American composer and flautist.
Davids is a member of the Stockbridge Munsee Community, a Native American tribe. He has composed for Zeitgeist, the Kronos Quartet, Joffrey Ballet, the National Sy ...
Northern Cheyenne
The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation ( chy, Tsėhéstáno; formerly named the Tongue River) is the federally recognized Northern Cheyenne tribe. Located in southeastern Montana, the reservation is approximately ...
Eastern Band Cherokee
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᏱ ᏕᏣᏓᏂᎸᎩ, ''Tsalagiyi Detsadanilvgi'') is a federally recognized Indian Tribe based in Western North Carolina in the United States. They are descended from the smal ...
Kevin Locke Kevin Locke may refer to:
* Kevin Locke (musician) (born 1954 - passed October 1, 2022), Native American musician
*Kevin Locke (rugby league) (born 1989), New Zealand rugby league footballer
See also
* Kevin Lock (born 1953), English former footba ...
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Lakota
Lakota may refer to:
* Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes
*Lakota language, the language of the Lakota peoples
Place names
In the United States:
* Lakota, Iowa
* Lakota, North Dakota, seat of Nelson County
* La ...
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
Mahican
The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, w ...
)
*
Robert Mirabal
Robert Mirabal (born October 6, 1966) is a Pueblo musician and Native American flute player and maker from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.
His flutes are world-renowned and have been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Ind ...
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Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo (or Pueblo de Taos) is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos-speaking (Tiwa) Native American tribe of Puebloan people. It lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico. The pueblos are considered to be one of the oldest ...
Jay Red Eagle Jay Red Eagle is a Native American flautist and Native American artist whose businesses include lines of music clothing called Nashville Threads and M.T. Medicine Bottle. His clothing and shoe designs include country music and Native American cloth ...
Andrew Vasquez
Andrew Jacob Vasquez is a Native American flute player of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. He has released four albums to date, ''Vasquez'', the award-winning ''Wind River'', ''V3: An American Indian'', and ''Togo'', all released by Makoché Records. ...
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Kiowa Apache
The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan group who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are centered in Southwestern Oklahoma and Northern Texas a ...
Muscogee
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsNatchez Natchez may refer to:
Places
* Natchez, Alabama, United States
* Natchez, Indiana, United States
* Natchez, Louisiana, United States
* Natchez, Mississippi, a city in southwestern Mississippi, United States
* Grand Village of the Natchez, a site o ...
Aleut
The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the ...
/
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...
)
Native American protest singers
*
Floyd Red Crow Westerman
Floyd Westerman, also known as ''Kanghi Duta'' ("Red Crow" in Dakota) (August 17, 1936 – December 13, 2007), was a Dakota Sioux musician, political activist, and actor. After establishing a career as a country music singer, later in his life ...
(
Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation ( dak, Sisíthuŋwaŋ Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ oyáte), formerly Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe/Dakota Nation, is a federally recognized tribe comprising two bands and two subdivisions of the '' ...
)
*
John Trudell
John Trudell (February 15, 1946December 8, 2015) was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as ''Radi ...
(
Santee Dakota
The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided int ...
)
New age and world music
*
Brulé
The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands (sometimes called "sub-tribes") of the Teton (Titonwan) Lakota American Indian people. They are known as Sičhą́ǧu Oyáte (in Lakȟóta) —Sicangu Oyate—, ''Sicangu Lakota, o''r "Burnt ...
Oneida Indian Nation
The Oneida Indian Nation (OIN) or Oneida Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Oneida people in the United States. The tribe is headquartered in Verona, New York, where the tribe originated and held its historic territory long before European ...
, 1957–2021)
*
Verdell Primeaux
Verdell Primeaux is an Oglala, Yankton/Ponca singer and songwriter in the Native American Church tradition of peyote songs, accompanied by rattle and water drum. He and Johnny Mike ( Navajo) are known as the duo ''Primeaux and Mike''.
Primeaux ...
Pomo
The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small ...
)
*
Jimmy Carl Black
James Carl Inkanish, Jr. (February 1, 1938 – November 1, 2008), known professionally as Jimmy Carl Black, was a drummer and vocalist for The Mothers of Invention.
Background and early career: 1960s–1990s
Born in El Paso, Texas, Black was o ...
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Southern Cheyenne
The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes are a united, federally recognized tribe of Southern Arapaho and Southern Cheyenne people in western Oklahoma.
History
The Cheyennes and Arapahos are two distinct tribes with distinct histories. The Cheyenne (Ts ...
Jesse Ed Davis
Jesse Edwin Davis III (September 21, 1944 – June 22, 1988) was a Native American guitarist. He was well regarded as a session artist and solo performer, was a member of Taj Mahal's backing band and played with musicians such as Eric Clapton, J ...
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
/
Muscogee
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsSeminole
The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...
)
*
Willy DeVille
Willy DeVille (born William Paul Borsey Jr.; August 25, 1950 – August 6, 2009) was an American singer and songwriter. During his thirty-five-year career, first with his band Mink DeVille (1974–1986) and later on his own, DeVille created ori ...
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Pequot
The Pequot () are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut including the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, or t ...
)
*
Champion Jack Dupree
William Thomas "Champion Jack" Dupree (July 23, 1909 or July 4, 1910 – January 21, 1992) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer. His nickname was derived from his early career as a boxer.
Biography
Dupree was a New Orleans ...
Gary Duncan
Gary Duncan (born Eugene Duncan, Jr., adopted at birth and named Gary Ray Grubb, September 4, 1946 – June 29, 2019) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was guitarist with The Brogues, then most notably with Quicksilver M ...
of
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. The band achieved wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, ...
Nokie Edwards
Nole Floyd "Nokie" Edwards (May 9, 1935 – March 12, 2018) was an American musician and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was primarily a guitarist, best known for his work with The Ventures, and was known in Japan as the 'Ki ...
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Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
Indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
(
Nakota
Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona) is the endonym used by those ''Assiniboine'' Indigenous people in the US, and by the Stoney People, in Canada.
The Assiniboine branched off from the Great Sioux Nation (aka the ''Oceti Sakowin'') long ago and moved f ...
)
*
Debora Iyall
Debora Kay Iyall (; ; born 29 April 1954), is a Cowlitz Native American artist and was lead singer for the new wave band Romeo Void. Iyall got her surname from her family adopting their ancestor Iyallwahawa's "first" name written at the time as ...
of
Romeo Void
Romeo Void was an American new wave/ post punk band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. The band primarily consisted of saxophonist Benjamin Bossi, vocalist Debora Iyall, guitarist Peter Woods, and bassist Frank Zincavage. The ban ...
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Cowlitz Cowlitz may refer to:
People
* Cowlitz people, an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest
** Cowlitz language, member of the Tsamosan branch of the Coast Salish family of Salishan languages
* Cowlitz Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe of ...
Lumbee
The Lumbee are a Native American people primarily centered in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland and Scotland counties in North Carolina. They also live in surrounding states and Baltimore, Maryland.
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is a state-rec ...
)
*
Grant-Lee Phillips
Grant-Lee Phillips (born Bryan G. Phillips; September 1, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He led the group Grant Lee Buffalo in the 1990s, afterwards launching a solo career. He features as the town troubadour ...
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Muscogee (Creek)
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsRed Earth
* Redbone, members are mostly
Yaqui
The Yaqui, Hiaki, or Yoeme, are a Native American people of the southwest, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language. Their homelands include the Río Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico, and the area below the Gila River in Arizona, Southwestern United Sta ...
Keith Secola
Keith Secola (born 1957) is an Ojibwe- American musician who plays rock and roll, folk rock, folk, and reggae. A singer-songwriter, he also plays guitar and flute.
Secola was born in Cook, Minnesota . He is married and has 2 children. In 1982 h ...
John Trudell
John Trudell (February 15, 1946December 8, 2015) was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as ''Radi ...
(
Santee Dakota
The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided int ...
Isleta Pueblo
Pueblo of Isleta ( tix, Shiewhibak , kjq, Dîiw'a'ane ; nv, Naatoohó ) is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the . The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo ...
,
Diné
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
, and
Muscogee Creek
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsSpencer Battiest (
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...
Sky Ferreira
Sky Tonia Ferreira (born July 8, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter, model, and actress. As a teenager, Ferreira began uploading videos on Myspace of herself singing songs she had written, which led to her discovery by producers Bloods ...
(
Chippewa Cree
The Chippewa Cree Tribe (Officially in cr, italics=no, ᐅᒋᐻᐤ ᓀᐃᔭᐤ, translit=''ocipwêw nêiyaw'')Montana Department of Justice, Official Tribally issued license plate of Chippewa Cree TriLink/ref> is a federally recognized tribe ...
)
*
Samantha Crain
Samantha Crain (born August 15, 1986) is a Choctaw Nation songwriter, musician, producer, and singer from Shawnee, Oklahoma, signed with Ramseur Records (North America) and Real Kind Records (an imprint of Communion Records) and Full Time Hob ...
(
Choctaw Nation
The Choctaw Nation (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American territory covering about , occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United St ...
Swinomish
The Swinomish are an historically Lushootseed-speaking Native American people in western Washington state in the United States. The Tribe lives in the southeastern part of Fidalgo Island in northern Puget Sound, near the San Juan Islands, in ...
Muscogee
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsLil Mike and Funny Bone (both
Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language:
* Pawnee people
* Pawnee language
Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States:
* Pawnee, Illinois
* Pawnee, Kansas
* Pawnee, Missouri
* Pawnee City, Nebraska ...
Litefoot
Gary Paul Davis (born September 11, 1968), better known professionally as Litefoot, is an American business professional, actor, musician, and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. He is the Executive Director of the Native American Financial Servic ...
Chichimeca
Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajio region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that d ...
Piegan Blackfeet
The Piegan (Blackfoot: ''Piikáni'') are an Algonquian-speaking people from the North American Great Plains. They were the largest of three Blackfoot-speaking groups that made up the Blackfoot Confederacy; the Siksika and Kainai were the oth ...
)
*
Cozad Singers The Cozad Singers are a Kiowa drum group from Anadarko, Oklahoma. The group was founded by Leonard Cozad, Sr. in the 1930s, and consists of Leonard, his sons, grandsons, and other members of the family. Cozad, as they are commonly known, are sou ...
(
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
)
See also
*
Native American composers
Native may refer to:
People
* Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth
* Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory
** Native Americans (disambiguation)
In arts and enter ...
Musicians
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who w ...