Native Latin American Cultures through Their Discourse

by Ellen B. Basso (Editor)

Overview

"These essays, most of them in the tradition of anthropological study of folklore, expand the current boundaries of the discipline and provide additional case studies to a growing literature in discourse analysis of oral performance." —Dan Ben-Amos

Authors examine weeping, double-talk, community-building, music, myth, humor and play, and concepts of time and history in various native Latin American communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781879407008
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	03/22/1992
Series:	Special Publications of the Folklore Institute, Indiana University
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

ELLEN B. BASSO is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Her published work includes A Musical View of the University: Kalapalo Myth and Ritual Performances.

Table of Contents

Preface

Ellen B. Basso
Introduction: Discourse as an Integrating Concept in Anthropology and Folklore Research

Janet Wall Hendricks
Manipulating Time in an Amazonian Society: Genre and Event among the Shuar

Jane H. Hill
Weeping as a Meta-signal in a Mexicano Womans Narrative

Susan Paulson
Double-talk in the Andes: Ambiguous Discourse as a Means of Surviving Contact

John H. McDowell
The Community-building Mission of a Kamsa Ritual Language

Joel Sherzer
On Play, Joking, Humor, and Tricking in Kuna:
The Agouti Story

Jonathan D. Hill
Myth, Music, and History: Poetic Transformations of Narrative Discourse in an Amazonian Society

Ellen B. Basso
The Last Cannibal

Contributors