Songs and memory in historical narratives of the Suruí of Rondônia (Brazilian Amazonia)

Authors

  • Cédric Yvinec Centre national de la recherche scientifique. Mondes Americains

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31048/1852.4826.v11.n0.21461

Keywords:

indigenous Amazonia, Suruí of Rondônia (Indians), ritual song, historicity, narrative

Abstract

This article studies a specific genre of ritual songs among an indigenous people of Brazilian Amazonia, the Suruí of Rondônia. It analyses the influence of these songs on the construction of historical memory. Against theories that reduce the Lowland Indians to “cold societies” that would supposedly deny their own historicity and strive to forget their past, the article shows that these peoples have developed their own tools to select and pass down memories of some kinds of events. The rhetorical and aesthetical forms of these songs, their pragmatic uses, and the Suruí metalinguistic theories are analysed, so as to explain why this discursive genre can appear as the most perfect kind of speech, in the context of the initial composition of a song. Finally, the article examines the conversational uses of quotations of old songs in historical accounts and shows that the narrative structure, particularly the connections between the evoked events, are determined by the rhetorical and aesthetical properties of the quoted songs.

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References

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Published

2018-10-08

How to Cite

Yvinec, C. (2018). Songs and memory in historical narratives of the Suruí of Rondônia (Brazilian Amazonia). Revista Del Museo De Antropología, 11, 71–82. https://doi.org/10.31048/1852.4826.v11.n0.21461

Issue

Section

Dossier Etnografía del habla