Transcript The Garland Handbook of Latin American Music

The Garland Handbook
of Latin American Music
Part Three: Nations and Musical
Traditions, Middle Latin America,
Kuna
Overview
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Kuna (Cuna)
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Comprised of several slightly different cultural groups sharing
common language
Located along rivers in Northern Colombia, Eastern Panama and
Caribbean coast, and San Blas Islands
Waterways significant to Kuna
• Both in terms of livelihood and as a metaphorical concept
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Place emphasis on communication
• Music a primary means of communication
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This aspect also evident in other Amerindian musical traditions
(compare with the Tarahumara, and later chapters on lowland and
highland Amerindian traditions)
Vocal and instrumental music genres predominate
Developed notation for memorization of extended chant
• Unique among other Amerindian communities
Kuna Musical Thinking
 Beliefs
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and music
Music intimately linked to Kuna cosmology
• Instruments sacred and social
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Notions of musical/cultural change also reflect
Kuna beliefs
• Traditions continually adapting
• Intimate connection between past and present
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New ways emerge from ancestral voices
Kuna Musical Thinking
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Kuna concept of music
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No Kuna equivalent for Western concept of music
• Igar (igala; “way” or “path”)
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Refers to most vocal genres
Linked with communication
Specific musical and linguistic conventions associated
with each genre
• Learned through formal apprenticeship
• Non-igar vocal genres distinguished in terms of musical and
linguistic conventions
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Intimate connection between genres, formal music
structure, performance practice, style of dancing, and
context
Musical Instruments, Contexts, and
Genres
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Musical Instruments
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Represented by Aerophones and idiophones only
Aerophones primarily trumpets, flutes, and panpipes
• Two types of panpipes (bound and unbound)
• Panpipes organized and performed in complex ways
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i.e., Sets of two, three, or six organized either hierarchically, as complementary
male-female pairs, or as like members
Contexts and Genres
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Primarily vocal
• Including heightened speech (i.e., chant), and improvised singing
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Reflects connection between beliefs and music (i.e., music as communication)
Association between genre and instruments
Genres also reflect social identity (i.e., gender, age, etc.)
• i.e., chanting for healing, narrating history, and for puberty and funeral rites
purview of adult males, requires specialized knowledge
Music and Beliefs
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Music, communication, and acculturation
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Sandra Smith outlines the relationship between Kuna
beliefs and concepts about music, emphasizing the
significance of communication for the Kuna
Consider the following questions:
• How do Kuna conceptions of music and their use of music
reflect Kuna ideas about communication?
• How is the Kuna notion of cultural change linked to Kuna
beliefs and notions of communication?
• What implications do Kuna beliefs and notions of musical
change have for our understanding of identity, tradition, and
the relationship between past and present?