Mono- versus poly-genesis of music cosmologies in Amazonia and New Guinea
Keywords:
Amazon, Monogenesis, Music cosmology, New Guinea, Voice modifierAbstract
For more than a century, anthropologists have marveled at the remarkable parallels between Amazonian and New Guinean cultures. How might one account for such similarities? I discovered astonishing parallels between the music cosmologies of Papua New Guinean Nekeni and Amazonian Enauene-Naue peoples, based on the transformation of human voices into spirit voices using musical instruments. Voice modifiers, relatively rare among the world’s instruments, take the form of long tubes for only a few cultures in the world, with both peoples discussed herein applying them in similar contexts. In this paper, I discuss the growing importance of comparison in ethnomusicology and then present observations of two geographically distant music cultures, which support a theory of either mono- or poly-genesis.
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References
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Dillehay, Tom. The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
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Sachs, Curt. Rhythm and Tempo: A Study in Music History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1953.
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Savage, Patrick E., and Steven Brown. “Mapping Music: Cluster Analysis of Song-Type Frequencies Within and Between Cultures.” Ethnomusicology 58(1) (2014): 133-155.
Schurr, Theodore G. "Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World." American Scientist 88 (2000): 246-53.
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Veiga, Manuel Vicente Ribeiro. "Toward a Brazilian Ethnomusicology: Amerindian Phases." Ph.D. Dissertation in Music. Los Angeles: University of California, 1981.
Wilmer, Valerie. As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. London: Quartet Books, 1977.
Barrow, John. The Artful Universe: The Cosmic Source of Human Creativity. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
Beaudet, Jean-Michel. "Wayãpi of Guyane - An Amazon Soundscape." Notes to compact disc Wayãpi de Guyane - Un Visage Sonore d'Amazonie, 22-36. Paris: Le Chant du Monde, 1998. CNR-2741102.
Bernstein, Leonard. The Unanswered Question. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976.
Bickerton, Derek. "Can Biomusicology Learn from Language Evolution Studies?" In The Origins of Music, edited by Nils Wallin, Björn Merker, and Steven Brown, 153-64. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.
Boyer, Pascal. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Brown, Steven, Björn Merker, and Nils Wallin. "An Introduction to Evolutionary Musicology." In The Origins of Music, edited by Nils Wallin, Björn Merker, and Steven Brown, 3-24. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.
Brown, S., Savage, P.E., Ko, A.M.-S., Stoneking, M., Ko, Y.-C., Loo, J.-H., and Trejaut, J.A. “Correlations in the population structure of music, genes, and language.” Proceedings of the Royal Society-Biological Sciences 281 (2014): 20132072. Accessed 2 December 2013. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2072>
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca. Genes, Peoples, and Languages. London: Penguin Books, 2001.
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza. The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution, translated from the Italian by Sarah Thorne. Reading, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 1995.
Cohen, Dalia. “Bircalls and the Rules of Palestrina Counterpoint: Towards the Discovery of Universal Qualities in Vocal Expression.” Israel Studies in Musicology V3 (1983): 96-123.
Collaer, Paul. Atlas historique de la musique. Paris: Elsevier, 1960.
Davis, Nancy Yaw. The Zuni Enigma. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.
Dillehay, Tom. The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Dixon, E. James. "Coastal Navigators: The First Americans May Have Come by Water." Scientific American Discovering Archaeology 2(1) (2000): 34-35.
Estival, Jean-Pierre. "BRAZIL: Asurini and Arara Indians." Notes to compact disc BRESIL: Asurini et Arara. Paris: Ocora. C-560084, 1995.. Pp. 14-22.
Fernandez, Luis (producer). Brésil: Enauené-Naué et Nhambiquara du Mato Grosso. 1995. Lausanne: Disques VDE-Gallo. VDE-875, 1995, compact disc with 36 pp. notes.
Grauer, Victor A. Sounding the Depths: Tradition and the Voices of History. Lexington, KY: CreateSpace, 2011.
Gregor, Thomas A., and Donald Tuzin, eds. Gender in Amazonia and Melanesia: An Exploration of the Comparative Method. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Harvey, Jonathan. In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Book with accompanying compact disc.
Hayles, N. Katherine, ed. Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Heron, Woodburn. "The Pathology of Boredom." In Readings from Scientific American: Altered States of Awareness, edited by Timothy Teyler. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1972 [1957].
Hewlett, Walter, and Eleanor Selfridge-Field, eds. Melodic Similarity: Concepts, Procedures, and Applications. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998.
Hill, Jonathan D., and Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, eds. Burst of Breath: Indigenous Ritual Wind Instruments in Lowland South America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.
Jackson, John Wilfrid. "Shell-trumpets and Their Distribution in the Old and New World." Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 60(8) (1916): 1-22.
Johnson, Ragnar, and Jessica Mayer (producers). Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea: Madang. London: !Quartz. LP-001, 1977. Reisssued Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rounder Records Corp., CD-5154, 1999, compact disc.
Jones, A. M. Africa and Indonesia: The Evidence of the Xylophone. Leiden: Brill, 1964.
Klein, Julie Thompson. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, & Practice. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
Knauft, Bruce. From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.
Kolinski, Mieczyslaw. "The General Direction of Melodic Movement." Ethnomusicology 9 (1965): 240-65.
Kunst, Jaap. Music in New Guinea: Three Studies. 'S-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967.
Leonard, Neil. Jazz: Myth and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Messner, Gerald Florian. "Jaap Kunst Revisited. Multipart Singing in Three East Florinese Villages Fifty Years Later: A Preliminary Investigation." The World of Music 31(2) (1989): 3-49.
Morley, Iain. The Prehistory of Music: Human Evolution, Archaeology, and the Origins of Musicality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Narmour, Eugene. The Analysis and Cognition of Melodic Complexity: The Implication-Realization Model. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Nemecek, Sasha. "Who Were the First Americans?" Scientific American 282(3) (2000): 80-87.
Nettl, Bruno. "An Ethnomusicologist Contemplates Universals in Musical Sound and Musical Culture." In The Origins of Music, edited by Nils Wallin, Björn Merker, and Steven Brown, 463-72. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2000.
Nettl, Bruno. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-nine Issues and Concepts. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1983.
Nettl, Bruno. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts, 2nd ed. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Niles, Don. "Altérateurs de Voix de Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée: ou Comment la Confusion des Données Appauvrit l'Organologie." Cahiers de Musiques Traditionnelles 2 (1989): 75-99.
Norborg, Ã…ke. A Handbook of Musical and Other Sound-Producing Instruments from Namibia and Botswana. Stockholm: Musikmuseets, 1987.
Osmond, Meredith, and Malcolm Ross. "Household Artefacts." In The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The Culture and Environment of Ancestral Oceanic Society. 1 Material Culture, edited by Malcolm Ross, Andrew Pawley, and Meredith Osmond, 67-114. Pacific Linguistics C152. Canberra: The Australian National University, 1998.
Owsley, Douglas W., and Richard L. Jantz. "Biography in the Bones: Skeletons Tell the Story of Ancient Lives and Peoples." Scientific American Discovering Archaeology 29(1) (2000.): 56-58.
Philsooph, Hushang. "Open Structures: Aspects of Cross-Cultural Influence in the Sepik in Relation to Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East." In Sepik Heritage: Tradition and Change in Papua New Guinea, edited by Nancy Lutkehaus, et al., 87-115. Bathurst, Australia: Crawford House Press, 1990.
Picken, Laurence. "Sacred Flute Music." Records & Recording (1980, February): 16-18.
Reigle, Robert, and Don Niles. “Voice Modifier.” In The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, Second Edition, ed. Laurence Libin. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Accessed February 20, 2012. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/L2215084.
Reimer, Bennett, and Jeffrey Wright, eds. On the Nature of Musical Experience. Niwot, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1992.
Sachs, Curt. The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1940.
Sachs, Curt. Rhythm and Tempo: A Study in Music History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1953.
Sachs, Curt. The Wellsprings of Music. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965 [1961].
Savage, Patrick E., and Steven Brown. “Mapping Music: Cluster Analysis of Song-Type Frequencies Within and Between Cultures.” Ethnomusicology 58(1) (2014): 133-155.
Schurr, Theodore G. "Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World." American Scientist 88 (2000): 246-53.
Spearritt, Gordon. "The Music of the Iatmul People of the Middle Sepik River (Papua New Guinea) with Special Reference to Instrumental music at Kandangai and Aibom." Ph.D. dissertation in Music, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 1979.
Spellman, A. B. Four Lives in the Bebop Business. New York: Pantheon, 1966.
Stock, Jonathan, ed. “Echoes of Our Forgotten Ancestors.” Topical issue of The World of Music 48(2). (2006A).
Stock, Jonathan. “Echoes of Our Forgotten Ancestors II.” Topcical issue of The World of Music 48(3). (2006B.)
Such, David. Avant-garde Jazz Musicians: Performing 'Out There.' Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993.
Sullivan, Lawrence. Icanchus Drum: An Orientation to Meaning in South American Religions. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988.
Szabolcsi, Bence. A History of Melody. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965.
Tracey, Hugh. "Bantu Music from British East Africa." Notes to LP The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Volume X: British East Africa. New York: Columbia, SL-213, N.d.
Tracey, Hugh. Catalogue. The Sound of Africa Series. Roodeport, South Africa: The International Library of African Music, 1973. Two volumes.
Veiga, Manuel Vicente Ribeiro. "Toward a Brazilian Ethnomusicology: Amerindian Phases." Ph.D. Dissertation in Music. Los Angeles: University of California, 1981.
Wilmer, Valerie. As Serious as Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. London: Quartet Books, 1977.
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2015-11-23
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Reigle, Robert F. 2015. “Mono- Versus Poly-Genesis of Music Cosmologies in Amazonia and New Guinea”. Música Em Contexto 9 (1):89-115. https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/Musica/article/view/19592.
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