what the is all about. The of these societies is truly a different in which (in most cases) everybody performs, there are no full-time musical specialists, the sounds are not always easy to listen to, a piece may last 15 hours, and there is no easily accessible vocabulary with which to discover what they are doing. One is not surprised that musicians have preferred to work with the of musical specialists in other parts of the world, nor that anthropologists have felt ill-equipped and left the matter to marginal comments on song texts and frequent statements to the effect that music is very important to the members of this society. Unsurprising as it may be, the resulting neglect is nevertheless unfortunate, because is indeed very important. Regardless of how importance is measured, the amount of time and resources devoted to by the entire population of most Lowland South American societies is eloquent. Analyses of work habits show that subsistence could be assured with 3 or 4 hours of work a day under traditional conditions (Carneiro 1961); members of many societies sing nearly this long every day for long periods of time. Yet how much more we know about the socio-economic features of these societies than the musical! Music is a special form of communication. Its very nonspeech features make it a privileged vehicle for transmitting values and ethos that are more easily musicked than put into speech. These are communicated not only through the sounds, but in the movements of the performers, and the time, place, and conditions under which they are performed. In the following pages I will discuss some of the things we can 0014-1836/79/2303-0373$0.66 O 1979 Society for Ethnomusicology, Inc.