Songs that Make the Road Dance - Linda O'Brien-Rothe

Songs that Make the Road Dance

Courtship and Fertility Music of the Tz'utujil Maya
Buch | Softcover
272 Seiten
2015
University of Texas Press (Verlag)
978-1-4773-0538-6 (ISBN)
27,40 inkl. MwSt
This major collection of courting and fertility songs documents a nearly lost element of highland Maya ritual life, revealing significant remnants of the ancient Maya belief system in songs that date back to the early colonial era.
An important and previously unexplored body of esoteric ritual songs of the Tz’utujil Maya of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, the “Songs of the Old Ones” are a central vehicle for the transmission of cultural norms of behavior and beliefs within this group of highland Maya. Ethnomusicologist Linda O’Brien-Rothe began collecting these songs in 1966, and she has amassed the largest, and perhaps the only significant, collection that documents this nearly lost element of highland Maya ritual life.

This book presents a representative selection of the more than ninety songs in O’Brien-Rothe’s collection, including musical transcriptions and over two thousand lines presented in Tz’utujil and English translation. (Audio files of the songs can be downloaded from the UT Press website.) Using the words of the “songmen” who perform them, O’Brien-Rothe explores how the songs are intended to move the “Old Ones”—the ancestors or Nawals—to favor the people and cause the earth to labor and bring forth corn. She discusses how the songs give new insights into the complex meaning of dance in Maya cosmology, as well as how they employ poetic devices and designs that place them within the tradition of K’iche’an literature, of which they are an oral form. O’Brien-Rothe identifies continuities between the songs and the K’iche’an origin myth, the Popol Vuh, while also tracing their composition to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by their similarities with the early chaconas that were played on the Spanish guitarra española, which survives in Santiago Atitlán as a five-string guitar.

Linda O’Brien-Rothe is an independent scholar who holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from UCLA. She documented the “Songs of the Old Ones” from 1966 to 1975, and she has devoted the years since then to study and analysis of her large collection of music and of the belief systems and related survivals of music and oral literature of the highland Maya.

Forewords

Allen J. Christenson
Sandra L. Orellana


Acknowledgements
Introduction

A Personal Note
Research in Santiago Atitlán


Chapter 1. The World of the Tz'utujil Maya

The World of Spirits

"Song of the Spirit-Lord of the World" ("B'ix rxin Rajau Mund")


Duality and Metaphor in the Santo Mundo
The Presence of the Nawals


Chapter 2. The Dance and Songs of the Nawals

Old Mam Creates the Recibos

"Song of APla's Sojuel" ("B'ix rxin APla's Sojuel")


Dance, Movement, and Songs: The Divine Currency of Sacrifice
Dancing the Bundle of San Martín

Midwife's Prayer and "Song of San Martín" ("B'ix rxin Martín")


Rocking the Cradle of the Marias

"Song of the Rocking Cradle"


Dancing the Wind-Men and the Rain-Men
Rousing San Martín and the Spirit-Lords of Rain with Song

"Song of Martín" ("B'ix rxin Martín")


Calling the Spirits of the Dead and the Drowned with Songs


Chapter 3. The "Songs of the Road": Texts and Contexts

The Road in the Tz'utujil Maya World


Old Mam, the Guardian of the Road, Creates Music and Dance

The "Songs of Mam" ("B'ix rxin Mam")


The First and Second "Songs of the Road"
The "Third Song of the Road": Songs of Courtship and Fertility

"Songs of the Young Man" ("B'ix rxin C'jol")
"Songs of the Young Girl" ("B'ix rxin K'poj")
"AtPal": A Song of Courting
"Songs of the Young Men and Young Girls, of Insults and Ridicule" ("B'ix rxin C'jola K'poja Xyo'k'a Xtz'u'ja")
"Songs of the Old Maid"


Witchcraft and Shapeshifters in the Songs

"Songs of the Young Girl" ("B'ix rxin K'poj")


The "Sad Songs" or "Tristes"

"They Fought" ("Xqueti' qui'")

"Sad Song of Our Fathers, Our Mothers" ("B'ix rxin Kadta, rxin Kate' Bis")


"Songs of the Flowers and the Fruit"("B'ix rxin Cotz'ej, Sk'ul")


Chapter 4. The Poetics of Tz'utujil Songs and Their Relationship to K'iche'an Literature

The Poetics of the Popol Vuh
The Poetics of Tz'utujil Song Texts

Parallelism
Meter
Onomatopoeia
Lists
Assonance and Alliteration


Composition of the Texts and the Influence of Musical Rhythm


Chapter 5. The Music of the "Songs of the Nawals"

Form and Style of the Songs
The "Recibos of Old Mam": The Vessel of Tz'utujil Culture

The "Songs of Mam"
"Sad Song of the Young Man"
"Song of the Young Girl Who Says Goodbye to Her Mother"
"Song of the Old Maid" or "Song of the Road"
"Song of the Fruit"


The Tz'utujil Guitar

Historical Origins of the Tz'utujil Guitar
Tuning
Playing Style and Technique
Repertoire


How the Songs Survived: The Process of Assimilation and Transmission


Final Words
Audio Files of Recorded Examples
Notes
Glossary
Works Cited
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag 1.8.2015
Reihe/Serie Recovering Languages and Literacies of the Americas
Verlagsort Austin, TX
Sprache englisch
Maße 178 x 254 mm
Gewicht 540 g
Themenwelt Kunst / Musik / Theater Musik
Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie Völkerkunde (Naturvölker)
Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie
ISBN-10 1-4773-0538-6 / 1477305386
ISBN-13 978-1-4773-0538-6 / 9781477305386
Zustand Neuware
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