Women's Songs Research Articles

Historical Glimpse of Music in Yemen in the 1930s: A First Approach to the Cylinders Recorded by Hans Helfritz

The 102 cylinders recorded by Hans Helfritz in Yemen in 1930–31 and held by the Berlin Phonogramm-Archive represent a precious asset for the study of music of this country. They are the first large number of recordings of Yemenite music carried out in the field, just before the beginning of the first commercial recordings in Aden a few years later. Unlike the Aden recordings, Helfritz's represent mainly popular musical genres from the different tribes from the Highlands and Hadramawt, soldiers' songs, work songs, women's songs, and Jewish songs. As a first approach to this collection, I re-documented an anthology of a dozen of these recordings. I brought together as much information as possible from different sources in order to contextualize this music and its collection: Helfritz's biography, his books, his two main travels to Yemen and how he recorded music, and some considerations about Helfritz's contribution to the knowledge of Yemenite music. I consider the ambiguities of his orientalist vision and approach as an explorer more than as a musicologist, which contributed to the form and content of the collection itself. Finally, I bring up a few ethical considerations about these "captured sounds" and the future of this collection.

Editor’s Preface: Songs of Women in the Bible

Editor’s Preface: Songs of Women in the Bible

Woman Hymns and Christian Songs: Analysing women’s marginalisation in Kidung Jemaat

Singing is a tool used by Christians to worship. The song forms the attitude of its adherents by following the verses contained in the song. This paper aims to analyse the Kidung Jemaat song used by Christians in Indonesia using the lens of feminist theology. The dominance of the patriarchal concept causes an imbalance in relations between society and the church. The research was carried out by qualitative research, observing and carefully reading the poems used by the church in general, especially Kidung Jemaat. The study found that church hymns mention very little about women's stories, whereas the Bible talks about women's ministry in the community. The people's attitude was formed over the years, causing women to be marginalised in Christian singing. As a result, women are also marginalised in worship in the church and community. The church needs to encourage church musicians to create women's songs in the church.

As Though “Wit” Never Were: The Dual Pronoun as Interpretive Crux in The Wife's Lament

As Though “Wit” Never Were: The Dual Pronoun as Interpretive Crux in <i>The Wife's Lament</i>

The Cultural Hybridity of Chineseness

Abstract This article looks at three contemporary novels where songs sung by rural women from the border region of northern Shaanxi Province evoke cultural and temporal hybridities, fusing social continuity with the threat and promise of change. The novels alternately portray untamed others—ranging from a Xiongnu soldier to a mountain bride to a country girl—as invasive threats and purveyors of potentially beneficial hybridities, adapting tropes of ethnic alterity to rethink the rural-urban divide and challenge both urban-centered and rural-centered discourses of progress. The wild brings vibrancy to the civilized, the center is drawn to the periphery, and the rural and urban are alternately desired and dismissed. In the end, these rural women's songs erase hierarchical notions of center and periphery and bring together alternative worldviews and visions of progress as only songs of the borderland can.

Constructing a Decentered Archival Method: AILLA Recordings and Wanano/KotiriaKaya Basa‘Sad Songs’

I consider how Sherzer's discourse‐centered approach can be extended in new ways, particularly through the use of digital archiving. My work concerns women's songs produced in Kotiria (fka Wanano/Guanano), an Eastern Tukanoan language spoken in the Upper Rio Negro. The data I use, collected by Janet Chernela, is “housed” electronically through the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) at the University of Texas at Austin. This archive is part of Sherzer's lasting legacy—a legacy that is becoming part of indigenous peoples’ experiences of themselves as major producers of the discourses that represent them to the world. I describe howAILLAcontributes to the ability of indigenous people and anthropologists to fruitfully negotiate the collection and analysis of matters of cultural, linguistic, and musical salience. I also describe how in the Kotiria case, the existence ofAILLAhas been fundamental to geographically dispersed relations among academics working with indigenous groups in the region. In this way, indigenous voices are able to enter new flows of meaning creation on both localized and more global levels.

"Good Ladies Be Working": Singing at Work in Tudor Woman's Song

“Attend thee, go play thee”, as indicated by the title it is given in the mid-Tudor ballad collection, A Handful of Pleasant Delights – “The scoffe of a Ladie, as pretie as may be, to a yong man that went a wooing” – is an example of female-voiced invective or flyting. While early modern female-voiced complaint has attracted a wealth of critical work, little attention has been paid to the female-voiced scoff. The comic scoff is pitched at a lower social register than that which conventionally characterizes the more courtly love complaint. It thereby provides evidence for a wider social range of female voices in lyric verse and song. Moreover, this scoff is especially significant because it draws much-needed attention to the status of the non-elite working woman’s voice in performance, raising questions about how working subjectivities were fashioned and deployed. Such metaphors of voice are, of course, highly mediated, and not transparent windows onto the lived experience of women or forthright expressions of agency. Yet, by attending to the complex relationship between gender, genre, voice and embodiment, it is possible to address these difficult questions of historical agency.

Representations of Indigenous Cultural Property in Collaborative Publishing Projects: The Warlpiri Women's Yawulyu Songbooks

ABSTRACTThis paper explores issues around the representation of Indigenous cultural property, voices and images in two books of Warlpiri women's yawulyu song traditions that form part of a series published by Batchelor Press (Gallagher, C.N., et al., 2014. Jardiwanpa Yawulyu: Warlpiri Women’s Songs from Yuendumu. Batchelor: Batchelor Press and Warlpiri Women from Yuendumu. 2017. Yurntumu-wardingki juju-ngaliya-kurlangu yawulyu: Warlpiri Women’s Songs from Yuendumu [with Accompanying DVD]. Batchelor: Batchelor Press). These publications stem from collaborations between Indigenous knowledge holders and non-Indigenous researchers and involve long-term relationships between the team members. We draw out discussion of the motivations for making these books, and the agency within these intercultural teams, considering the colonising impact of academic research, the intercultural dimensions to Indigenous identities and the role of publications such as these in repatriation and reparation efforts. We demonstrate how Warlpiri women have directed the production processes and surrounding events so that these books not only represent forms of Warlpiri cultural knowledge but also contribute to the dynamic forms of cultural reproduction that ensure continued engagement with these song traditions into the future.

Cantos femininos: a participação da mulher na renovação das tradições luso-brasileiras

O presente artigo discute a participação dos cantos de mulheres na renovação das tradições luso-brasileiras. Para tanto, coteja versos tradicionais de coletivos femininos – nomeadamente Catadoras de Mangaba, Meninas de Sinhá e cantigas registradas pela Cia. Cabelo de Maria – com algumas versões de cancioneiros populares portugueses. A grande quantidade de versos idênticos ou similares deixa claro o papel fundamental dos cantos femininos na renovação de tradições portuguesas no Brasil, além de apresentar elementos do modo de vida, da expressão cultural e das formas de luta da mulher nas comunidades tradicionais do mundo contemporâneo.

Antarrengeny Awely: Alyawarr Women's Songs from Antarrengeny. 2013. Batchelor Press. Recorded by Myfany Turpin with Jenny Green and Richard Moyle. Annotated by Myfany Turpin and Alison Ngamperle Ross. Produced by Margaret Carew. 112-page book with notes in English and Alyawarr. Translations by Myfany Turpin and Alison Ngamperle Ross. Colour and b/w photographs, musical notations, map, glossary, sound printing technology. CD,

Antarrengeny Awely: Alyawarr Women's Songs from Antarrengeny. 2013. Batchelor Press. Recorded by Myfany Turpin with Jenny Green and Richard Moyle. Annotated by Myfany Turpin and Alison Ngamperle Ross. Produced by Margaret Carew. 112-page book with notes in English and Alyawarr. Translations by Myfany Turpin and Alison Ngamperle Ross. Colour and b/w photographs, musical notations, map, glossary, sound printing technology. CD,

Oral Traditions of Naqab Bedouin Women: Challenging Settler-Colonial Representations Through Embodied Performance

The Naqab Bedouin have faced—historically and today—various Israeli settler-colonial practices and discourses aimed at erasing their status as natives of the land. Israeli representations of the Naqab Bedouin often stereotype them as roaming nomads without any links (and consequently rights) to the land or to other Palestinian communities. Naqab Bedouin women's oral and embodied traditions constitute an important challenge to such settler-colonial representations. Women's songs, oral poetry and performances contain important historical counter-narratives, and they also function as embodied systems of learning, teaching, storing, and, to a certain extent, transmitting this community's indigenous memories, knowledges and ways of being.

Jardiwanpa Yawulya: Warlpiri Women's Songs from Yuendumu. 2014. Batchelor Press. Field recordings by Georgia Curran, Yuendumu, 2006. Annotated by Georgia Curran and Barbara Napanangka Martin. 88-page booklet with notes in English and Warlpiri. Colour and b/w photographs, drawings, musical notations, maps, bibliography, discography, filmography, glossary. CD, 3 tracks (67:50).

Jardiwanpa Yawulya: Warlpiri Women's Songs from Yuendumu. 2014. Batchelor Press. Field recordings by Georgia Curran, Yuendumu, 2006. Annotated by Georgia Curran and Barbara Napanangka Martin. 88-page booklet with notes in English and Warlpiri. Colour and b/w photographs, drawings, musical notations, maps, bibliography, discography, filmography, glossary. CD, 3 tracks (67:50). - Volume 48

Women Songs Made by a Male Perspective: Focusing on Twentieth Century Youth Women Songs by Baek Woo-yong

Women Songs Made by a Male Perspective: Focusing on Twentieth Century Youth Women Songs by Baek Woo-yong

Women's songs from West Africa

Introduction Women's Songs and Singing in West Africa: New Perspectives Thomas A. Hale and Aissata G. Sidikou 1. Wolof Women Break the Taboo of Sex through Songs Marame Gueye 2. Jola Kanyalen Songs from the Casamance, Sengeal: From 'Tradition' to Globalization Kirsten Langeveld 3. Azna Deities in the Songs of Taguimba Bouzou: A Window on the Visible and Invisible Boube Namaiwa 4. Initiation and Funeral Songs from the Guro of Cote d'Ivoire Ariane Deluz 5. Praises Performances by Jalimusolu in The Gambia Marloes Janson 6. Music about Feminine Modernity in the Sahara Aline Tauzin 7. Songs by Wolof Women Luciana Penna-Diaw 8. A Heroic Performance by Siramori Diabate of Mali Brahima Camara and Jan Jansen 9. Women's Tattooing Songs from Kajoor, Senegal George Joseph 10. Drummed Poems by Songhay-Zarma Women of Niger Fatima Mounkaila 11. Space, Language, and Identity in the Palm Tree Aissata G. Sidikou 12. Bambara Women's Songs in Southern Mali Bah Diakite 13. Patriarchy in Songs and Poetry by Zarma Women Aissata Niandou 14. Muslim Hausa Women's Songs Beverly B. Mack 15. Lamentation and Politics in the Sahelian Song Thomas A. Hale 16. Transformations in Tuareg Tende Singing: Women's Voices and Local Feminisms Susan J. Rasmussen 17. Income Strategies of a Jelimuso in Mali and France Nienke Muurling Index List of Contributors

Edge Effects in Warlpiri Yawulyu Songs: Resyllabification, Epenthesis, Final Vowel Modification

Song genres vary as to which aspects of language and music are matched to create a well-formed song. For example, English folk songs match stressed syllables to strong musical beats. Some song styles have no requirements on how language and music should align. This article analyses how text and music align in Warlpiri women's songs from central Australia and finds there are ‘text-setting’ rules for setting text to musical rhythm. We first identify the formal units of the text and music and then account for their combination by two matching rules. In Warlpiri, text-setting involves matching each syllable to one metrical (rhythmic) position and aligning phonological phrase edges with bar edges. Linguistic units smaller than the phrase, such as those in reduplications and other polymorphemic words, require no such alignment. Alignment is often met through lengthening the right edge of a phrase, which often results in a distortion of the patterns of syllabic prominence in speech. Preferred structures for both text and music can lead to variations of a song based on a reordering of these preferences. This can be exploited to restructure songs when words must be avoided for social reasons.

Flutes, Songs and Dreams: Cycles of Creation and Musical Performance among the Wauja of the Upper Xingu (Brazil)

The Wauja of the Upper Xingu say that their musical ritual is simultaneously of and for the spirits. I will address some factors of their cosmology and shamanism, and then investigate men's kawoká rituals and women's songs performed in iamurikumã rituals. I consider these two rituals to be integral parts of a single set, the kawoká–iamurikumã symbolic–ritual complex, in which there is a deep correlation between men, women and spirits: the latter transmit their musical creations to humans through dreams. Only the male master of the kawoká flutes and the female mistress of the iamurikumã songs are capable of memorising and reproducing this musical material. During ritual performance, the women transform the music of the flutes into iamurikumã songs and vice versa. Through ritual performance, the musical creation of the spirits is returned to them in a humanised and transformed form.

LA COMPIUTA DONZELLA: A FEMINIST VOICE IN THE ITALIAN TRECENTO

The purpose of this work is, first of all, to present two sonnets of doubtful attribution to a Compiuta Donzella di Firenze, belonging to the corpus of Tuscan and Northern courtly poetry, in which a female voice is contrary to the wishes of the dad. Furthermore, we intend to analyze the connections of these texts with other Romance lyrical codes, such as the woman's song or the poetry of the trobairitz.

"Between Death and Life": Mobility, War, and Marshallese Women's Songs of Survival

Q: Can you tell me about Marshallese music before the missionaries? A: I'm not sure about music before the missionaries, but I know that the women always made battle songs. --Bikinian councilman Majuro, interview by the author, 2009 In 2006 Women United Together in the Marshall Islands (WUTMI), the nongovernmental umbrella women's organization from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), released video intended to address the pervasive domestic violence severely compromising the lives of women throughout the developing island nation. (1) WUTMI translated the title of the film from Marshallese, Ekakwikwi Jinen Emmaan, to English, A Call to Arms. (2) The longer, more accurate translation, a call to sons to become angry through jealousy and avenge the injuries that have been done to their mothers, echoes the mother son relationship central to Marshallese cosmology. The film draws on traditional narrative and the rhetoric of warfare that reveal the customary power of women in Marshallese society to secure resolution following conflict. The film also evidences shifting gender roles as women have expanded their traditional vocal and musical roles intimes of conflict to include sounding symbolic and literal ekakwikwi (call to arms). Framed by modern ideological terrain, the film self-reflexively locates in global context where male-dominated hegemonic warfare as source of power is normalized. As the film progresses, domestic violente becomes the intelligible analogue for imperial violence, and the women call on their sons to confront the damages done by both the legacies of colonial involvement and current US militarism and neocolonialism. (3) The destabilization of women is presented as the destabilization of Marshallese culture in its entirety. (4) And what we hear are women assuming the responsibility to sound battle calls amidst unceasing violente with no end in sight. Cultural productions such as A Call to Arms participate in the complex processes of Marshallese indigenous identity construction by emphasizing the stability of traditional gender relations as an extension of the stability of the traditional Marshallese woman. When the viewer becomes attuned to the significations, many of which are referenced through sound-symbolism associated with traditional instruments that are rarely used today, she can then understand stability as host of multivalent mobilities afforded to women through their customary attributes that create and maintain affective alliances. Academic literature has, however, reproduced dichotomous gender associations, depicting the women as in opposition to the mobility of men, at times positing the complementarity of this gender relation and at other times failing to address the distinction between relational versus oppositional identities. (5) While there is historical and evidence to connect women to stability (and social efficacy in doing so), I argue that by examining women's traditional musical and vocal gender roles, specifically during warfare, we can better explore how women have regenerated culture as mechanism of stability during times of instability by maintaining situational flexibility, or the ability to maneuver and negotiate between multiple identities and identifications. (6) I suggest that this reading of women's traditional roles breaks from Western conceptualizations of bounded identities replete with polarized binaries, such as mobile and immobile or stable and unstable. Failing to address, in Joshua Tucker's terms, how cultural performances can clarify the ongoing resignification of indigeneity itself runs the risk of marking political projects of indigeneity as dictated solely by the conditions that have necessitated such projects rather than understanding the projects in, or on, indigenous terms, as negotiations of these conditions within spaces that archive the unique traditions and histories of Marshallese and other indigenous populations more broadly. …

Representing "Women's Songs" in Stories: Lyric Interpolations and Female Characters in Guillaume de Dole and the Roman de la Violette

Representing "Women's Songs" in Stories: Lyric Interpolations and Female Characters in Guillaume de Dole and the Roman de la Violette

Defining and Teaching the Canon in German Studies

The literary canon, firmly circumscribed and defined by numerous literary histories which establish the standards of our field, provides a most useful hermeneutic framework for everything we do in literary studies, hence in German Studies. Yes, Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka have proven to be giants in our field. And so have Heinrich von Veldeke, Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg, Walther von der Vogelweide, and many others. What can the current state of art in Medieval Studies tell us about the problematic issues concerning the canon (see the new Handbook of Medieval Studies, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010)? Both in research and in teaching there are always two stages in the critical treatment of the canon. Pedagogically it seems most advisable at first to present our students with the canon and to help them to digest it thoroughly, so that they can easily draw connections and move from one author/poet to the other, can explain historical, aesthetic, and social developments, and are informed enough to recognize genres, common motifs, the essential Stoff oi a text, and thus can comprehend how to differentiate among the various literary periods. However, although the canon proves productive for pragmatic purposes, it may also turn out to be stifling and blinding in the long run if we do not establish a healthy distance from it. Critical interpretations and meticulous analyses have regularly brought about so-called cultural or literary turns; they have helped us to recognize heretofore unknown poets and texts, and have forced us to reveal ideological biases, religious manipulations, and political agendas hidden in literary texts that make up our canon. Case in point: the rediscovery of Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/77-1445) in ca. 1959. Since then we have also begun to explore, invigorated by the insights which Oswald's poetry has provided us, the rather refreshing and impressive poetry by the so-called Monch von Salzburg, Hugo von Montfort, and Michel Beheim. Whereas traditional Germanistik conveyed the impression that the heyday of medieval German literature lay around 1200, today we have moved on considerably and learned to acknowledge the highly productive, often quite surprising and unexpected world from the 13th through the 15th centuries. Konrad von Wurzburg (fi. ca. 1270-1300) now certainly deserves our full acknowledgment as one of the masters of his time. But we are still on the tip of an iceberg, so to speak, considering the extensive number of late-medieval romances that have come into focus only recently, or are still awaiting their full rediscovery (Mai und Beaflor, ed. and trans. A. Classen, 2009; Reinfried von Braunschweig, 1871, rpt. 1997; Wilhelm von Osterreich, ed. 1906, rpt. 1970). Heinrich von dem Turlin's Diu Crane proves to be most challenging, posing countless questions that still cannot be fully answered (Markus Wennerhold, Spate mittelhochdeutsche Artusromane, 2005). But both the English translation by J. W Thomas (1989) and many scholarly monographs since then confirm how intriguing this text has proven to be. When and how well will we be able to teach such voluminous and complicated romances with the help of student-friendly and inexpensive editions/translations? The novels by Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrucken (1437) belong to the best works produced by a 15th-century female writer, but until today we do not have a satisfactory critical edition of any of those texts in our hands (see the contributions to Furstliche Frauentexte in Mittelalter und fruher Neuzeit, ed. Wolfgang Haubrichs et al., 2010) . There are a number of other significant German medieval women writers, apart from the famous mystics, such as Frau Ava, or anonymous 15th-century women's songs often to be found in larger songbook collections (mostly anonymous, however, though with clear gender orientation), which the canon has not completely ignored, but certainly left on the sideline. …