Ritual Dance Research Articles

Niketche: uma performance literária de libertação

Realizamos, neste artigo, a análise do romance Niketche: uma história de poligamia, da escritora moçambicana Paulina Chiziane, com o propósito de evidenciar a subversão do ritual da dança niketche como performance literária através da subjetivação da voz feminina em Moçambique. O traçado cultural, marcado pelas diferenças geográficas do país, modela as relações que as mulheres moçambicanas estabelecem com seus corpos. Por sua vez, a língua portuguesa, elemento de dominação, cria o pano de fundo no qual a narrativa se costura. Juntos, formam o cenário evocado por Chiziane para dar palco a uma narrativa feminina que versa sobre o ato de ser mulher em Moçambique. ---DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/abriluff2018n21a527.

Specificity and functions of a dance as a component of syncretic “mousikē” art of the Ancient world

Specificity and functions of a dance as a component of syncretic “mousikē” art of the Ancient world

Old wine, new bottle: Theatre design and transnational hybridity in Ọlóbà dance of Adó–Èkìtì, Nigeria

Using the Ọlóbà ritual dance of Adó–Èkìtì, in the Èkìtì–Yorùbá region of Nigeria as an example, this study examines the contextual shift in the visual realization of the African dance as evidence of transnationalism. The Ọlóbà tradition, as old as the Adó–Èkìtì town, is intended for cleansing the community to ward off evil. However, the visible matters that constitute the visual designs in the ritual process are gradually losing touch with the African tradition. Traditional props in the Ọlóbà performance are now being replaced by factory–made accessories, making it a hybrid of transnational cultures. Recent studies have focused on the aesthetics of the Ọlóbà dance, without paying adequate attention to the influence of transnationalism in the design elements. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the traditional African dance, today, is faced with complex contemporary realities that tend to redefine it. Based on Roland Barthes’s intertextuality and a combination of case study and survey research designs, data was collected through in–depth and key informant interviews. Using content analysis, the study concludes that the survival of traditional African dance compels it to use material constituents that characterize it as a hybrid of multiple transnational cultures.

HEGEMONY AND AGENCY IN STAGED MAH MERI INDIGENOUS MUSIC AND DANCE PERFORMANCES FOR TOURISTS IN MALAYSIA

The Mah Meri people are one of eighteen indigenous minority groups in Peninsular Malaysia. The unique Main Jo'oh, their music and dance ritual, is often featured in tourist events, many government-sponsored. While such staged performances support the perpetuation of ethnic identity, the Mah Meri are also subjected to changing levels of hegemony and indigenous agency. I suggest that there is a dynamic interaction between hegemony and agency in Mah Meri staged authentic performances – the hegemony of tourist agents’ touristic concepts, the twenty-first century tourist gaze and the emergence of indigenous agency in sustaining the values and customs in their presentations. Through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and observations, this article shows examples in which Mah Meri mediated cultural performances, perceived as ‘authentic’ by tourists, were actually shaped by the dialectics of compliance, negotiation and resistance between the Mah Meri, tourist agents and outsiders. This paper promotes a better understanding of the changing meanings of traditional performances recontextualised for stage performances. Keywords: agency, hegemony, indigenous music, Mah Meri, tourism

The Legitimacy of Classical Dance Gagrag Ngayogyakarta

ABSTRACT This article of research findings is to reveal the existence of classical dance style of Yogyakarta, since the government of Sultan Hamengku Buwono I, which began in 1756 lasted up until now on era government of Sultan Hamengku Buwono X. The legitimation of classical dance is considered as "gagrag Ngayogyakarta", furthermore not only preserved in the palace, but living and growing, and may be examined by general public. The dance was first considered as a source of classical dance “gagrag Ngayogyakarta”, created by Sultan Hamengku Buwono I, ie Beksan Lawung Gagah, or Beksan Trunajaya, Wayang Wong or dance drama, and Bedaya dance. Three dances until now can be categorized as a sacred dance, to review performances that are related to traditional ceremonies, or rituals. Three types of dance later developed other types of classical dance “gagrag Ngayogyakarta”, which is categorized as a kind of secular dance for entertainment performance.Keyword: Sultan Hamengku Buwono, classical dance “gagrag” or style of Yogyakarta, legitimacy, sacred or ritual dance, secular dance

Muzyka w Kojiki

Artykuł jest poświęcony opisom muzyki w najstarszym zachowanym do dziś dziele historiograficznym Japonii – kronice Kojiki (Księga dawnych wydarzeń, 712). Autorka omawia kolejno: okoliczności powstania Kojiki (działalność kompilatora Hiedy no Are oraz Urzędu Muzyki Dworskiej – Gagakuryō), charakterystykę wczesnej tradycji muzycznej i widowiskowej w Japonii (kagura, ceremonia przywoływania duszy – chinkon), analizę zawartych w Kojiki pieśni kayō oraz fragmentów narracji poświęconych symbolice najstarszych japońskich instrumentów muzycznych. Analizy wybranych opisów muzycznych dokonano z uwzględnieniem kontekstu społeczno-kulturowego oraz pod kątem zastosowania środków językowych. Na przykładzie przedstawionego w artykule materiału dowodowego scharakteryzowano życie muzyczne w starożytnej Japonii. Zwrócono też uwagę na rolę muzyki w kształtowaniu się twórczości literackiej.

Order in ancient Greek dance rituals: The dance of Pan and the Nymphs


 Dance maintained an important role in antiquity and was believed to be a ritual act that should be treated and performed with the outmost respect, regardless of its severe or ludicrous character. Despite the lack of adequate data, ancient sources now and again provide enough details on dance rituals, so as to be able to recognize and even more reconstruct the structure and order of an ancient performance, the so-called “τάξις” of Alkman. The cult of Pan and the Nymphs was deeply connected to dance and music. They were mostly celebrated in outdoor shrines and sacred grottos throughout the Greek countryside. Numerous votive offerings depict the circular dance of these vegetation deities, a dance representation where the researcher can recognize specific roles amongst the participants: the dance leader, the principal dancer, the chain of dancers and the musician. Their position in the dance ensemble was ranked accordingly, however, sex, age, appearance, and social status were also determining factors always taken into consideration. 

불교의식무용과 영산재 - 경전에 보이는 작법무와 영산재 작법무 분류 중심으로 -

불교의식무용과 영산재 - 경전에 보이는 작법무와 영산재 작법무 분류 중심으로 -

Ethical and methodological responses to risks in fieldwork with deaf Ugandans

ABSTRACTWhile members of marginalised communities may be motivated to participate in ethnographic research by the desire to have their stories ‘heard’/seen, find a place in history and transmit their legacy, telling and publishing these stories may also put them and the researchers at risk. This paper discusses the ethical and methodological dilemmas inherent in studies on the Ugandan deaf community’s emancipation and sustainability. A first risk factor resides in the country’s political situation, strategy planning, financial management and pressures on democracy and human rights. Other risk factors are power hierarchies and questionable ideologies on the status of Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL) (factor 2) and the sometimes-scant attention to ethics in development partnerships (factor 3). These risks directly and indirectly enter the research space, for example, when participants warn that their own and the researcher’s safety could be compromised if certain information is divulged, resulting in social isolation, loss of income, and even threats to life and limb. Information sharing, transparency in partnerships, and attention to the status of UgSL are keys in the circumvention of these risks. The ‘ritual dance’ metaphor illuminates the constant and intricate balancing of academic responsibility, the well-being of the community, and the interests of the other players.

"Threads thin to the point of invisibility, yet strong as ropes" : Afrofuturistic Diaspora in Paule Marshall’s <i>Praisesong for the Widow</i>

Praisesong for the Widow (1984) tells the story of African-American Avey Johnson’s arrival in Grenada, having abandoned an opulent Caribbean cruise, and her sudden encounter with the local “excursion” on nearby Carriacou. Having experienced physical and psychological unease even before this trip she finds that, in attempting to return “home” to her comfortable life in New York, she discovers a new home, that within the transatlantic African diaspora. Ostensibly, Praisesong is a story of a woman past middle age “rediscovering herself” against the backdrop of an exotic Caribbean tourist imaginary, but Avey comes to an understanding not only of herself but of the people around her, both in present-day Carriacou and in the memories of her childhood and earlier adult life. Her past, present and future converge on her at once and, through the ritual dance that forms the novel’s climax, Marshall portrays Avey’s, and by extension all diasporic peoples’ spiritual healing, and the reclamation of our cultural and historic identity from the debilitating effects of slavery, colonialism and “Western” materialism. Avey represents the diasporic subject who must be reunited with a culture she has trained herself to deny, and this culture is not limited by geography. I will be reading this novel through an Afrofuturistic lens, given its recovery of “the histories of counter-futures created in a century hostile to Afrodiasporic projection.” [1] Praisesong is a figurative reconnection of an imagined past with a destabilised present, and a re-engagement with representations of blackness, Caribbeanness, and Africanness that transcend linguistic and spatial boundaries. The counterhistory that Marshall presents allows for an imagining of an integrated black diaspora, one that exists outside of strict geopolitical chronology. Avey rediscovers herself and her people(s) chiefly through the figure of Lebert Joseph, her unofficial tour guide to the excursion. Joseph, however, is a manifestation of Papa Legba/Eshu Elegbara, the trickster deity of Yoruba/Fon mythology who is at once guardian of knowledge, speaker of all languages, and gatekeeper between this world and the next. Avey, who has been cut off from ancestral knowledge, can only come back to herself and her origins through the ancestors – who communicate, in turn, through him. This reconnection is cosmological as well as cultural, and through my exploration of the characterisation of Lebert Joseph I will argue that Marshall uses African mythology – which she turns into Caribbean cosmology – to envision a black future identity that is not “American,” not “Caribbean,” not strictly “African,” but one that belongs to black people from all of these “nations,” and from which we can all build a trans-temporal, transnational future. [1] Kelly Baker Josephs, ‘Beyond Geography, Past Time: Afrofuturism, The Rainmaker’s Mistake, and Caribbean Studies,’ Small Axe 17, 2013, pp.123-135 (p.126).

Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building

Reviewed by: Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building David Lipset Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building. Documentary, 93 minutes, dcp or Blu-ray, color, 2015. Written and directed by Sarah Grohnert; produced by Alexander Behse. Distributed by Monsoon Pictures International and the New Zealand Film Commission. See http://evertheland.com/ for prices and availability. Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building celebrates the Tūhoetribe, the Māori people who live in a heavily forested corner of the North Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Tūhoe filed compensation claims with the Waitangi Commission in 2007 and subsequently decided to allocate nz$15 million for the construction of a large tribal center at the valley entrance of their contested, tragic land. Designed by Ivan Mercep, the center was meant to adhere with the Living Building Challenge, whose stringent standards of sustainability require careful attention to material sourcing and a great deal of compliance documentation. Called Te Uru Tamatua, it was to be the first such building in Aotearoa. In a visually compelling way, Ever the Land tracks the building process by embedding it in the context of the dialogue surrounding it. That dialogue, on which the filmmaker unobtrusively dotes, tells a thought-provoking story. Through voices and actions, we learn of the contested relationship between Tūhoe green ideology and tribal solidarity. This view is asserted in lovely scenes in which children are put to bed by mothers with stories about ancestor-spirits who hate trash, [End Page 197] bricks are handmade for the new building, and, in shots interspersed throughout the narrative, fog rises over thick forests that cover their mountainsides. But some Tūhoe voices complain. It is to the great credit of the young director, Sarah Grohnert, that scenes are included in which men rather forcibly object to money being allocated for a tribal purpose rather than to help buy individuals houses to live in. The Tūhoe are poor, the movie makes clear, and live day to day in subsistence pursuits, sending children to school as best they can. The implication would be that, for dissenters, the tribal center is nothing but a vain extravagance. Use is also made of voiceovers from the radio announcing the project, the death of the building’s architect, and the pending settlement from the New Zealand government. The latter agreement is indeed signed in 2013 in Parliament. The tribe is compensated and receives more control over the Urewera National Park on its land. The state apologizes for a past of violence, indignities, and land theft. Brick by brick, board by board, solar panel by solar panel, Tūhoe and Pākehā laborers and managers erect the building. Images of the fog, the forest, trucks dumping cement, rooms stuffed with scaffolding, and so forth appear like a kind of call-and-response chorus throughout the movie. Meanwhile, impromptu meetings of orange-vested men and women in hard hats take place on the job site. Building products imported from Europe are banned, as are red-list chemicals. In more formal settings, Tūhoe discuss the pending settlement with the Crown and are kept in the loop about the roject. Will it be earthquake proof? How will it contribute to a sustainable future for the tribe? The movie more or less culminates with the opening ceremony for the building. An intense haka (ritual dance) is performed, after which a large throng of onlookers make their way across a parking lot. A couple of children cut a braided ribbon made of leaves and enter the edifice for a first look at its cavernous rooms, display cases for artifacts of tribal history, and recycling bins. The narrative begins and ends with a scene of the same rural setting, as if to suggest that the new building has not had any demonstrative impact on the relatively remote and basic quality of life of the Tūhoe. At first, we see through a window, perhaps of a car in which the filmmakers arrive, a somewhat distant image of a modest home at the foot of a forested mountainside. A grassy field that is fenced in several ways, perhaps as...

Symbols of the Goddess in Balkan women’s dance

Abstract Communal dance has been a primary means of worship in Eastern Europe and the Near East for over 9000 years, depicted in rock art and pottery fragments showing circles of dancing women. Existing women’s dance traditions of the Balkans may be direct descendants of these ancient rituals, and may offer living links to matrifocal Goddess cultures of Neolithic Old Europe. Women’s dances and textiles incorporate symbols such as the circle, sun, spiral, zigzag, and Tree of Life, which can be identified with the Goddess. Traditional dance circles, both past and present, also emphasize ancient values of community, connection, cooperation, shared leadership, and peace. Even as these dances change in their places of origin, they are being given new life as an embodied spiritual practice embraced by dancers all over the world. The contemporary movement practice of women’s ritual dances can offer experiences of healing, insight, and transformation to contemporary women from different cultures.

Places for Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines by William Peterson

Reviewed by: Places for Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines by William Peterson Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco PLACES FOR HAPPINESS: COMMUNITY, SELF, AND PERFORMANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES. By William Peterson. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016. Cloth, $59. Tourism is now considered a major economic "engine of growth" in the archipelagic nation of the Philippines, and as Bernado M. Villegas (2016) reports tourism is now second to business processing outsourcing in terms of financial contribution to the nation's GDP. According to the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, this phenomenon may be attributed to the country's most successful tourism campaign to date: "It's More Fun in the Philippines." Launched in 2012, the campaign is believed to have attracted up to almost 5 million foreign visitors as compared to foreign tourists prior to the release of the campaign (Department of Tourism 2015). In this campaign, the Philippine government has crafted a brand that has been communicating how happiness, performances, and community may be simultaneously experienced when one visits the country. The same communication is the starting point of William Peterson's Places for Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines, who in a sense is arguing for these vectors for the understanding of Philippine theatre and performance. In Places for Happiness, Peterson centers on an investigation regarding how local psychological, political, and cultural concepts may contribute to the understanding of Philippine performance culture in its complex ontology. In my view, the inclusion of "happiness" in the title of the book is a conceptual strategy to locate the place of the Philippines in the scholarly world of Southeast Asian theatre and performance, where scholars are often engaged in a [End Page 506] constant search for the indigenous. As Peterson implies, there is "uninhibited fun through performance" (p. 2) in the archipelago, following a comment made by a fellow passenger on Philippine Airlines about two Filipino children happily playing en route to Manila, the nation's capital. He later notes what may be inferred as a prelude to his larger claims on Philippine performance: "Fun was its own reason for being, and from that we took pleasure that contributed to our individual and collective happiness" (p. 2). Happiness is a Filipino core value. As Peterson explains, it is in being happy where "the self only truly exists in relation to the other" (p. 4). In relation, he argues that theatre (performance) in the archipelago "through celebration and ritual is the key productive, purposeful activity that links the individual to the collective in ways that contribute to happiness in the Philippines" (p. 4). Peterson reminds his readers that one must understand this place for happiness is not solely about locating a physical space where people are "happy" but also about how this happiness resides inside the (Filipino) individual as manifested through various forms of theatres and performances. Peterson relies on three analytical frames as he attempts to provide an understanding of Philippine performance. At the same time, this linking is an attempt toward a pursuit of performance theory. Peterson connects the psychosociological conception of play (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) with the Filipino concept of the self: kapwa (a sense of individuality that is primarily rooted in the individual's relationship with the other) and the concept of bayan, referring to emplacement, belonging, community, and country. In providing details about how these concepts may be engaged in an intellectual conversation, Peterson investigates performance activities in the Philippines, arguing for performance as paradoxically connecting and separating community members of the archipelago: "bring communities together and to separate them from one another" (p. 14). The performances investigated include the sinakulo, a local passion play on the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; the moriones, a folk-Catholic performance-ritual in the island of Marinduque reenacting the beheading of Longinus, a Roman soldier who proclaimed that Jesus was indeed the Christ after his blind eye was miraculously healed from the blood spattering after lancing his spear at Jesus's side; ati-atihan, a dance ritual in the island of Panay; performances of the Bayanihan Dance Group in international festivals; the street dancing performance competition based on the different regional...

The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon depictions of dance

AbstractThe scattered nature of references to dance and the ambiguity of its vocabulary have obscured Anglo-Saxon dance practices, but evidence suggests that dance was a significant cultural phenomenon. The earlier centuries of the Anglo-Saxon period saw the depiction of weapon dances, and later sources also allow us a glimpse of lively secular dance. Performance traditions may have included dance combined with satirical songs, as well as possible secular ritual dance. Finally, scripture provided examples of both holy dance and lascivious female dance. Contemporary iconography of these dance practices, combined with continued associations between dance and music, allow us to understand the conventions in the depiction of dance, and in turn these suggest that the figure of ‘Hearing’ on the Fuller Brooch, traditionally regarded as running, is in fact dancing.

The Anthropo-Semiotics of the Chinese Funeral Striptease

Abstract Although ritual funeral dances have been present throughout the history of some human societies, it is noteworthy that in some rural areas of countries such as China the funeral striptease as a cultural tradition has been established. The general goal of this work is to understand the presence of the striptease as a component part of funeral rituals in Chinese rural culture. To this end, the works of Finol on anthropo-semiotics (2011), of Lotman on the semiotics of culture (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000), of Peirce on triadic semiotics (1987), of Van Gennep on rites of passage (1984, 2008), and Del Fresno’s concept of Netnography (2011) were used to analyze this phenomenon from an epistemological introspective-experiential approach (Padrón Guillén 2001, 2003). The study concludes with three main findings: the funeral striptease serves as a mask used by humans to hide the fear of death, to give an aesthetic role to death, and to express the underlying nakedness of a person faced with the binomial life/death.

From Global Decisions and Local Changes

This paper analyses the transforming effects the “UNESCO intangible cultural heritage” label has on a cultural practice. It uses as a case study the ritual ceremony of the Voladores, an indigenous ritual dance practiced in different areas of Mexico since pre-colonial times. In 2009, it was declared the second of seven UNESCO intangible cultural heritages in Mexico. The following study examines ways in which perceptions and performance of the dance have changed after the declaration from an actor’s perspective. After the declaration the national and international interest of tourist and institutions increased. As a consequence, dancers were able to earn a significant amount of money and gain social recognition through public presentations of the dance, which transformed the ritual into an economic and social resource. On the one hand, the new function changed the ceremony in ways to make it more attractive to tourists. On the other hand, a tendency towards revitalizing and preserving traditional elements came to play as well. This was partly initiated through the UNESCO Safeguarding guidelines and pushed by many dancers afraid of a potential “sell-out of their culture to tourists”. These two aspects seem to be mutually exclusive at first but this paper will show that a binary model of “culture vs. commerce” does not provide an adequate conceptual framework to fully understand the complexities of culture.

A Study on Implication and Aesthetics of East Asian Royal Ritual Dancing based on Theory of Rite and Music

A Study on Implication and Aesthetics of East Asian Royal Ritual Dancing based on Theory of Rite and Music

“All Art is Part of the Same Constellation”: A Conversation on Craft and Artistic Practice with Heri Dono

In this interview with Heri Dono, the artist discusses his ongoing relationship to craft and traditional art in Indonesia. Dono is an artist who intentionally blurs the boundaries between fine art and craft to subvert artistic conventions. Born in 1960 in Jakarta and raised in Semarang, Central Java, Dono is among a generation of artists who came of age during the politically repressive era of Suharto, also known as the New Order (1966–1998). Dono studied painting at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI) in Yogyakarta between 1980 and 1987. He dropped out of art school to study the popular form of Javanese shadow puppetry known as wayang kulit, and became a professionally trained storyteller dalang (puppet master). That experience heavily inspired Dono’s paintings, sculptures, installations, and performances, enabling him to develop his own personal aesthetic and visual language based on the characters depicted in the wayang. Dono regularly enlists craftsmen as well as untrained members of the local community to participate in his projects as a tool of empowerment. In pieces such as Wayang Legenda (1988) and Kuda Binal (1992), Dono drew upon traditional modes of storytelling and ritual dancing as a subtle form of social critique and political commentary.

Fungsi Ritual Tari Ngrengkau pada Masyarakat Dayak Benuak di Kalimantan Timur

The performance of the Ngerangkau dance in the Kwangkai ritual is a re-actualization of the mystic relationship between the Dayak Benuaq community and the spirits of their deceased ancestors. This community becomes afraid if this ritual is not performed, since they believe that by performing the Ngrengkau dance ritual, they will be protected and kept away from any danger. For this reason, the ritual has been preserved, due to its close connection with various concerns of the Dayak Benuaq community, such as its function in escorting the souls of the dead to heaven, entertaining the spirits, keeping away evil spirits, ensuring fertility, and honouring the ancestors of the local community, in addition to other functions in the life of the community. Keywords : Ngrengkau dance, function, and ritual.

Hopi Katsina Songs ed. by Emory Sekaquaptewa, Kenneth C. Hill, and Dorothy K. Washburn

Reviewed by: Hopi Katsina Songs ed. by Emory Sekaquaptewa, Kenneth C. Hill, and Dorothy K. Washburn Jeremy Strachan Hopi Katsina Songs. Edited by Emory Sekaquaptewa, Kenneth C. Hill, and Dorothy K. Washburn. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. [xi, 421 p. ISBN 9780803262881. $65.] Hopi transcriptions (with English translations), appendices, bibliography, index. Emory Sekaquaptewa (1928–2007) was a Hopi linguist, anthropologist, and tribal judge who dedicated much of his life to preserving Hopi culture and language. Among his numerous contributions as researcher, educator, and steward of Hopi knowledge, the most well-known is the Hopi Dictionary Project, for which he served as Cultural Editor. The project was a decade-long initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities undertaken in partnership with the University of Arizona, which culminated with the landmark publication of the Hopi Dictionary = Hopìikwa lavàytutuveni: a Hopi–English dictionary of the Third Mesa dialect with an English–Hopi finder list and a sketch of Hopi grammar (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998). Hopi Dictionary, a systematic compendium of Third Mesa dialect, features some 30,000 entries and a sketch of Hopi grammar, and has since been adopted by the Hopi people as the standard guide for teaching the language. Hopi Katsina Songs, edited by Sekaquaptewa along with Kenneth C. Hill and Dorothy K. Washburn, is a crucial extension of the Hopi Dictionary Project (which Hill also edited) that will remain valuable for scholars working with the rich heritage of archived Hopi songs. Like the Dictionary, the present volume is not meant, as the editors themselves indicate, to be read down from front to back (p. 38); instead, it presents 150 songs drawn from seven separate archival collections, annotated individually with word-by-word translations (done by Sekaquaptewa, who also contributed 25 songs) and explanatory comments (provided by Washburn) illuminating each song’s metaphorical meanings as they relate to larger themes in Hopi cosmology. As such, folklorists and ethnomusicologists will find in this book an important textual guide to accompany extant archival recordings of Hopi katsina songs found in a number of individual and public collections. [End Page 126] To a broader readership, this book will provide an attractive point of entry into understanding the value systems and objects that comprise Hopi cultural patrimony—katsina songs are, in essence, oral texts that “describe the core beliefs of the Hopi life-way and how they should be followed” (p. 19). Katsinas (also commonly known as “kachinas”) are “perfect life-promoting spirit beings” who, in Hopi belief, travel from their homes, from the four cardinal directions in the Fifth World in the form of clouds or rain, to Hopi villages in the present (Fourth) World (p. 1). Their appearances at festivals, gatherings, and ritual dances align with key times in the cultivation cycle of corn, and the songs themselves, as the present volume so richly details, delineate myriad aspects of the metaphors that connect contemporary Hopi culture to the past. The songs in the book are taken from recordings that span the first half of the twentieth century, in addition to those contributed by Sekaquaptewa himself. The earliest recorded katsina songs, from the Natalie Curtis Burlin collection, date from 1903. Sekaquaptewa attempted to translate recordings made in the 1890s by Jesse Walter Fewkes, but the degraded sound quality of those examples prevented any meaningful translation. The most recent recordings, made by ethnomusicologist George List, date from 1960. In sum, the main goal of katsina songs is to instill and reinforce a positive, productive, and moral community-based lifeway. Corn, as is well known, is the key metaphor to Hopi life. It forms the subject of many of the songs transcribed here, and the various aspects of its progenitive, sustaining properties—as well as the important lessons in morals and ethics embodied in the corn lifeway—are voiced evocatively and sensually in Sekaquaptewa’s translations. The editors, in anticipating any possible charges of impropriety for disseminating or reproducing culturally-sensitive or restricted material, make the disclaimer right away that katsina song are, by and large, public texts, not limited to Hopi audiences. Indeed, they are “relevant for all humankind” (p. 1), although it is doubtful that such universality...