Voices to Remember: Conversation on the Digital Archives of Indigenous America
[00:00] Anar Parikh (AP): Anthropological Airwaves is the official podcast of the journal American Anthropologist, whose main offices are located on the traditional and ancestral territories of the Anacostan, and Piscataway peoples. The Anacostia and Potomac rivers have long been places of trade and gathering for Indigenous peoples, and Washington DC is now home to diverse Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. American Anthropologist has published articles throughout its history that have taken knowledge from Indigenous peoples for a scholarly audience and has not required its authors or editors to be good relations to Indigenous peoples and communities. Acknowledging territory is only one step in repairing relationships between anthropologists and Indigenous peoples. The Editorial Collective of the journal is committed to deep listening and engagement with Indigenous scholars, peoples, and communities to explore ways to be a better relation.
Parts of this episode were edited and produced from the traditional territories of the Catawba, Waxhaw, Cheraw, and Sugaree peoples, and specifically in Charlotte, North Carolina—a city located on the traditional crossroads of two Indigenous trading paths: the Occaneechi Path and the Lower Cherokee Traders’ Path, which facilitated the extensive trade network of Cherokee, Catawba, Saponi, and Congaree peoples prior to colonization. While many descendants of Cheraw, Waxhaw, and Sugaree communities eventually joined the Catawba peoples, today, the Catawba Nation continues to thrive as a federally recognized tribe located less than one hour south of where this recording took place.
[01:21] Intro music begins
[01:42] AP: Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for another episode of Anthro Airwaves – the official podcast of the journal American Anthropologist. This is Episode 5, Season 3-ish.
[01:53] Intro music ends
[02:27] AP: Anthropological Airwaves is pleased to present “Voices to Remember” a conversation between Massimo Squillacciotti - Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and the founder of the first Italian course of Cognitive Anthropology at the University of Siena; Luciano Giannelli - Professor of Glottology and South American Indigenous Languages at the University of Siena, and Paola Tine - PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. In this episode Massimo, Luciano, and Paola, discuss original audio recordings of the Guna people of Panama collected during the second half of the 1990s and recently digitally archived at the Interdepartmental Center for Studies on Pluriversal America of the University of Cagliari. This episode was originally recorded in Italian, and we are excited to be able to make both the Italian version and a dubbed English version available to Anthro Airwaves listeners. To begin, Massimo, Luciano, and Paola will talk about the making of these archives, before proceeding to discuss selected original recordings from the archive itself. The conversation between the three guests is rich with details and context: of Massimo’s four decades of experience working with the Guna people; of Luciano’s efforts to translate the material in collaboration with local researchers; and Paola’s questions of Indigenous inclusion, agency, and reciprocity in anthropological and archival work. We think there is a great deal listeners might take away from this episode about multi-generational stewardship of archival materials that is grounded in careful and relational praxis. If you are interested in learning more about this project, Massimo, Luciano, and Paola have provided a more detailed note about transliteration, data collection, and publication as well as a selection of images, and a list of references to accompany the episode transcripts. These supplemental materials are available on the episode page, located on the Anthropological Airwaves section of the American Anthropologist website. Links, as always, will be included in the show notes.
And with that, I’ll turn it over to Massimo, Luciano, and Paola.
[04:28] Tumbirikechu [tumbirikkèciu]: Susurros de la Naturaleza - A hush of Nature - Il respiro della natura begins
[05:04] Tumbirikechu [tumbirikkèciu]: Susurros de la Naturaleza - A hush of Nature - Il respiro della natura ends
PART I – THE ARCHIVES
[5:06] Paola Tine (PT): The song that we just heard is entitled Tumbirikechu [tumbirikèciu] or “The breath of nature”. It is a traditional Latin American motif and it is performed here by the Guna musician Marden Paniza [màrden panìssa] with his group the Bannaba [bànnaba] Project. This song introduces us to the theme of today's meeting with anthropologist Massimo Squillacciotti, who has conducted field research in Guna Yala and with linguist Luciano Giannelli, who has translated the local songs. In this podcast, I invite them to discuss the importance of the archives storing this precious material and we will listen to some selected songs of the Guna people on the topic of the haircut and the rite of female puberty. Welcome Massimo and Luciano. To begin our conversation, please tell us about your ethnographic and linguistic research among the Guna people and the history of this archive and why it is so special and important.
How I met the Guna
[06:09] Man speaking in Italian begins
[6:14] Overlapping speech begins
[6:14] Massimo Squillaccioti (MS): My first contact with Guna culture took place in the 1970s, when I was teaching Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Educational Sciences in the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome. Students attended the course from many parts of the world and from among them, in 1978, I met a Guna man named Aiban Wagua [àiban uàgua]. We became good friends, to the point that we even got to know each other’s families. Aiban prepared his dissertation under my supervision entitled “Kuna people between two educational systems. Analysis of the most significant cultural expressions and the risks of conflict". After graduating in February of 1981, he invited me to his village Ogobsuggun [ogopsùkkun] so that I could meet his family in person and they could meet me. It wasn’t long before I was there. Every evening at the local school of the village, I presented the young teachers something anthropologists had understood and written about their culture! In short, I found myself working "with them and for them"…and in exchange they taught me their language. This was only the beginning of the story of our relations, as collaboration between the University of Siena and the Congreso General Kuna de la Cultura [kongrèso heneràl de la cultùra cùna] was established soon after. In 1997, the sagla dummad [sàila dùmmat] (which is a title equivalent to that of 'president') Carlos López [kàrlos lòpes] and Aiban Wagua [àiban uàgua] came to Siena for a seminar on oral tradition, presenting the chants of the Guna resistance, where what we translate as "chant" they actually call "treaty", or "path" (igala [igàla] in Guna). This performance, undertaken in a university classroom, revealed how the sagla [sàila] remembers history- This is subsequently interpreted by the argar [àrgar], an assistant spokesperson who explains the historical facts with comparisons with the problems that the Guna people are once again experiencing in contemporary times. Thus, these songs are passed from generation to generation because they always support the struggle for life in the spirit of the native people. Here my personal relationships had changed into something else, with the transition to the institutional level, which was marked, with the help of colleagues and students of the University of Siena, by the establishment of a Center for Studies on Indigenous America: the CISAI.
The archive
[08:48] MS: The CISAI developed a website for the publication of materials and documents developed in research and study. Since 2017 the CISAI has hosted an organised archive of these materials and by Archive we mean the orderly and systematic collection of acts and documents whose conservation is considered to be of public interest, and perhaps with a specific theme or field of study and research. There are various types of archives that exist but most can be characterised in two ways: 1) The library-type archive - old-fashioned, so to speak – these days equipped with IT resources; and 2) Archives like the CISAI Archive, which is present in two locations: a) firstly in a reserved space at the CISAP site (the Interdepartmental Center for Studies on Pluriversal America of the University of Cagliari); b) secondly in an autonomous space or domain on Academia's international platform.
[09:52] MS: Both of these archives are static in so much that they are limited to collecting the material elaborated and produced by the Center in the course of its activities. These are the years ranging from 1998 to 2017, after which the CISAI stopped operating. Today the Archive is in digital format, which allows for the conservation of materials that can be consulted remotely, that which, over time, would deteriorate if recorded on other media. Furthermore, a comprehensive Ethnographic Archive is a place of conservation and development of research, because it allows access to digitized materials of different formats: textual - audio - video and the support of a critical apparatus such as cards - indexes - concept maps etc. It is therefore a complex archiving system whose access is granted to researchers who want to be part of it, following two principles: the "principle of reciprocity" and the "ethics of form". By this I mean the respect and protection of intellectual property, including that of subjects who have been involved in data collection, whether indigenous people or local institutions.
[11:08] MS: With regard to these issues, I want to move now to introduce our work entitled Ied Namagged [ìed namà kket] (literally the ‘Song of the tonsure’), which accompanies the rite of female puberty among the Guna. This is now available in the CISAI archive at the CISAP site, with three types of documentation: the text of the "song", the audio track of the song and critical sections with linguistic and ethnographic discussion. Following the "principle of reciprocity", in the past years we have collaborated with indigenous cultural organizations and trained both their researchers in Panama and our researchers in Siena, again with the collaboration of Aiban Wagua [àiban uàgua] and other Guna operators. We then started a fruitful discussion on the research at Guna Yala [kuna iàla] on the writing of their mother tongue language, producing and experimenting with didactic material for teaching and learning the language, working in particular with the teachers of Guna Yala.
[12:12] MS: With the other principle I mentioned, the "ethics of form", we mean not only the accompaniment in each document of the complementary data concerning (the how, where, when, who ...), but above all the recognition that the collected materials from the field are the property of the Guna people and, as such, their dissemination is bound by legal and ethical considerations which, to some of these documents of oral tradition, is managed by the masters and managers of the tradition itself. This is the case in the publication of I canti della Resistenza Cuna – translated as the chants of the resistance, which I mentioned earlier - which, in agreement with the Congreso General de la Cultura Kuna [kongrèso heneràl de la cultùra cùna], is now also available in the CISAI archive on Academia. A different discourse takes place on those songs that we can define as "for public use" and whose memory also passes through and depends on who, where and how the song is listened to. As such, while loyalty to the "meaning of the text" may be relative, participants can still contextualise it and make sense of it. This is the case of the Song of the tonsure Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket] that accompanies the rite of female puberty, which we have also published and made available.
[13:32] Overlapping speech ends
[13:36] Man speaking in Italian ends
[13:37] PT: Thank you very much Massimo. Luciano, would you like to tell us more about the recording of this song?
Work on the text and the critical apparatus
[13:45] Luciano Gianelli (LG): The song was collected on magnetic tape by Antonio Réuter Orán [antònio réuter oràn] from the voice of Teresa Pérez [terésa pères] on the island of Dubbir [tùpir] or Dubbile [tupìle], in Guna Yala [kuna iàla], in the second half of the 1990s.
[13:48] Man speaking in Italian begins
[13:48] Overlapping speech begins
[14:01] LG: Orán [oràn] drafted a rather free translation into Spanish, which is stored within the protocols on the website and in a printed publication. The long work on the text of the song Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket] begun in 1998. This work first of all consisted in the writing of the song’s text, using the official orthographic system developed by the Guna institutions, and in a strict phonetic transcription, by Beatrice Pacini, directly from the recording. All of this allowed for the morphological transcription of the text (using the interlinear translation technique) as faithfully as possible to the orally performed chant, and from this it was possible to make a translation of the text into Italian, while attempting to maintain its poetic nature. The delicate operation of morphological transcription, which presupposes the exact understanding of the sentences in detail, was carried out with the collaboration of Antonio Réuter Orán, Aiban Wagua and José Angel Colman [antònio réuter oràn - àiban uàgua – and hosè ànhel còlman]. The same is true for the complex explanatory notes that accompany and decode the text, for which Aiban Wagua [àiban uàgua] also directly consulted with expert local singers (sagla [sàila]), not being able to go back to the original source, as Teresa Pérez [terésa pères] - the expert in singing and hair cutting - had in the meantime passed away.
[15:31] LG: However, Orán [oràn] and Pérez [pères] ensured that the interpretation was accurate, considering the fact that these chants contain specific terminology that is understood at a 'high' level (that of the initiated, which is semi-cryptic on a linguistic level), and is often not even clear to the native speakers themselves. Like Orán [oràn], most were not 'initiated' so to speak. It is well known that the sagla [sàila], or the nele [nèle] (local doctors, or shamans) employ local translators and interpreters argar [àrgar], for the performances. As I mentioned, the various transcriptions of the texts, and their translation into Spanish and Italian, are accompanied by explanatory protocols, both from a linguistic and content-related point of view, and by an ethnological introduction. According to the custom of Guna people, the entire work (while taking into account in a separate document the contributions of people in various capacities) is attributed to a broad ‘community authority’, and the copyright is of the Guna people. Precisely for this last principle of community authority of the cultural product, and for the jealous defence that the pre-Columbian peoples (and the Guna in particular) have of intellectual property, the handling and processing of materials by Italian personnel (which was formally implemented in joint work with the Guna themselves and their institutions) constitutes a very rare example of interethnic collaboration. It is obvious that operations of this kind (involving transcription, translation and analysis), are essential for handing down an oral production text in a correct and complete form, and it is good that these materials are now well protected in a digital archive, which allows for the transmission of the oral performance into recorded audio and translated text, where the performance would otherwise be ephemeral. For the purposes of contextualisation, it would have been even better if there was the accompaniment of a video recording, which unfortunately is not the case.
[17:35] Overlapping speech ends
[17:35] Man speaking in Italian ends
PART II – BODY AND VOICE
[17:40] PT: Massimo and Luciano have selected two sequences from the ‘Song of the Tonsure’ - Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket]. The first excerpt from Chant VIII concerns the actual haircut and the second excerpt is the final sequence of the ritual with the "Chants XII to XIV" in which the narration talks about the passage to the afterlife of the ied [ìed], the hair cutter. The ritual of female puberty was witnessed by Massimo in 1981 and 2004 in the village of Ogobsuggun [ogopsùkkun] in Guna Yala [kuna iàla] where the rite of passage of female puberty takes place. This ritual involves a female expert in the ceremony entering a hut to cut the girl's hair when she reaches the end of her first menstruation. The operator (ied [ìed]) begins with a ceremonial song addressed to the girl, with an invocation to the "protective spirit of the rite", and then proceeds with the operation of the cut, addressing the song to the surrounding people and inviting them to participate: the spirit of continuity and renewal of life (which the girl is now representing) is here celebrated and called to assist the operator and "bless" the rite, to help the village people to connect symbolic meanings expressed in the song with the spirit of life on Mother Earth. Luciano and Massimo, what are the phases of this ritual and what do they mean?
[19:14] Man speaking in Italian begins
[19:16] Overlapping speech beings
[19:16] LG: Chant VIII represents a crucial moment involving 3rd person narration of the hairdresser (iedi [ìed]) performing the actual ritual with the scissors on the girl's hair. The text is actually as if it was in the first person because Teresa, in addressing the girl, speaks of herself. The other three chants are the description of the journey that, imagining herself dead, the iedi [ìed] will make on a river to go into the lap of Gammibe [kammìbe] (in essence, the sun) to receive judgment on her adequacy in carrying out her tasks, which include her ability as a hairdresser and her willingness to sacrifice her own duties as a mother to serve the community. The iedi [ìed] also repeatedly emphasizes her strength in resisting the intoxication caused by the ritual intake of inna [ìnna], a local alcoholic drink. In the narration of the chant, she passes under enormous scissors, which would cut her to pieces if she behaved badly or in any case not sufficiently in life; but she will ultimately pass unscathed under the scissors. It must also be said that the events staged by the iedi [ìed] have a symbolic meaning corresponding to the girl's passage from the condition of a child [mìmmi] to that of a woman (sisgwa [sisgua]).
[20:30] Man speaking in Italian ends
[20:30] Overlapping speech beings
[20:32] PT: Massimo, could you explain some more about the rite itself?
[20:35] Man speaking in Italian begins
[20:36] Overlapping speech begins
[20:36] MS: The rite of passage takes place in three successive movements, which are unitary in their overall development, due to structure, experience and participation. These are the entrance into puberty, the haircut by the iedi [ièdi], the initiation rite and the village festival with the delegation of the final name of the child now considered grown up (sisgwa [sisgua]). The first moment takes place in the hut of the girl's family, where, the men build a small structure called (negdummad [neidùmmat]) which literally means ‘the hut of the night’, consisting of a small fence of reeds that act as a screen (surba [sùrba]). Here the girl remains seated on a stool, dressed only in a tunic and showered several times a day, solely in the presence of women. She can eat only in the evenings, while during the day she is allowed to drink a beverage consisting of shredded cocoa, corn and brown sugar. These limitations underline "the passage of status and the new responsibilities that await her as a woman", as related to me by my interpreter Edilia Stanley. After four days the girl’s body is painted with a black, vegetable substance called genipa [genìpa], and at this point the eldest male of the family can communicate the event to the village by going to the Meeting Cabin (onmagged nega [onmàked nèga ]) in front of the chiefs or sages (sagla [sàila]) and to other people met along the way, while walking through the village carrying a lighted lantern. At this point (and it is the second moment) the performance of the hair cut that always takes place inside the hut of the girl's family can start. This is performed by the iedi [ièdi], who sings the ceremonial song Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket]. After this rite, preparations begin for the next party (innasugd [innasùit]) which will take place in the Great Village Hut (inna nega [ìnna nèga]) once the men of the village have finished collecting food and wood. The task of the women is to extract the sugar from the cane and cook it over large campfires to obtain a fermented drink (innagagbid [innagàibit] or gagbir [kàibir]).
[22:52] MS: On the day of the ceremony and the community feast (this is the third and last moment) all the people converge on the large hut of inna nega [ìnna nèga] where, at the entrance, men and women paint their feet with the akiote [aci-òte] as a sign that in heaven Gammibe [kammìbe] - the protective spirit of the rite - is giving his blessing. During this time, the (cantor) – the master of the ceremony and specialist in the sound of the flute - dressed in a ritual cap, welcomes the participants with the music of flutes and the rhythm of maracas. Once the procession reaches its destination, the cantor accompanied by other musicians, begins the ceremony by singing a celebration and initiation chant (gammu igala [kammu igàla]) composed of myths and autobiographical stories, of creation, of animals and of resurrection. In the center, sit the main female "actors": the girl, the female relatives of the girl and the iedi [ièdi]. The "new" girl is introduced to the village with her adult name. After this ceremony, the girl is now considered a woman and is authorized to contract marriage. The rest of the participants are crowded in the free space, men and women separated, and all of the participants are hit with puffs of tobacco smoke (from the musician). At this point the cantor always accompanied by the other flautists, concludes the ceremony by ending his song and the party begins dancing and drinking. The drink - innagagbid [innagàibit] - is served in two mugs of different sizes, called macho [màcio] and hembra [émbra], depending on whether they are intended for a man or a woman.
[24:40] Overlapping speech ends
[24:46] Man speaking in Italian ends
[24:47] Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket] Canto VIII: Chant of the Haircut begins
[25:52] Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket] Canto VIII: Chant of the Haircut ends
[25:43] PT: We have listened to the song of Chant VIII. I will now read the translation of the song.
She dances with the others in the center of the enclosure (which is like a nest), telling the drinks that she consumes that they will not prostrate her, and that she will soon be sober again. She hugs her friends around, who laugh happily, she says she really feels like she is the hairdresser of the village, while moving in her chair. She cuts the hair of the young girl, that falling fill her womb, she says that she does not know the girl well, but that a new name will now be given to her by the cantor (gandule [kantùle]). She has now begun to cut her hair; while she drinks she talks; she is fully aware. And she moves towards the cantor (gandule [kantùle]), turning the golden cup of the drink in her hands (the ritual inna [ìnna]), she sharpens her awareness, and tells her friends that with her scissors she has penetrated the soul of the girl, now she knows her well. The drink makes her lose her balance, she almost falls over; but she will be stronger than the drink (inna [ìnna]).
[27:09] Man speaking in Italian begins
[27:12] Overlapping speech begins
[27:11] LG: The song consists of a poetic description made by Teresa Pérez [terésa pères] about the operations that the iedi [ièdi], or 'hair cutter' (which is an important institutional Guna figure) and other people perform in the ceremony of initiation of the girl at the moment of her menstruation. These songs end with the powerful description of the visions that the hair cutter - here, Pérez [pères] herself - has of her future, including the afterlife. The text, in verses, usually separated by markers, was divided by the editors into 15 short sections, which we can define as 'chants', which are actually interspersed with extended pauses; therefore extending over a long time. The overall song is a representation of overlapping events, with a non-narrative trend, alternating between memories and forecasts, and therefore with varying and recurring spatial locations. However, there is a progressive 'logical' trend or, better said, spiritual progression, from the moment one leaves the private house to the journey after death. At the beginning, the cutter described herself in the act of leaving her home and her children (which is a sign of the self-denial of her private life), to go to the inna nega [ìnna nèga] (which literally means house of celebration and drink): So she leaves the private house to go to the house of the gandur [kàntur] (the flute player), where other people also join her for the ceremony. Some animals that are considered custodians are also brought to the surba where a dance takes place.
In Chant V the narration moves back to the place of the inna nega [ìnna nèga], with the use of the expression 'refreshing oneself' in a metaphorical sense. Here the term bugbu [bùibu] could be an allusion to the practice both of the ritual fumigation in the ceremony of the party, before drinking, as a 'screen' to drunkenness. Or it could refer to the ugobed chant [ugòbet] to control drunkenness. Then the story moves back to the surba, where the haircut can start, with the contribution of the iedi [ièdi]; here again, similarly to Chant VII, there is a tense 'debate' - protracted until the end – between the iedi and the beverage (inna [ìnna]), when the hairdresser declares her wisdom. The verses of Chant VIII, which we have just heard, summarize the events occurring in the surba [sùrba]. There people sing and dance, and a lot happens during the central and essential moment of the haircut, while the delegation of an adult name to the girl at the center of the rite will be held - with other actors - in the inna nega [ìnna nèga].
[27:57] Overlapping speech ends
[30:00] Man speaking in Italian ends
[30:01] PT: Thank you Luciano for explaining the chants. I have a question for you now Massimo. Could you discuss the cognitive elements involved in the performance of the hairdresser, or iedi?
[30:14] Man speaking in Italian begins
[30:15] Overlapping speech begins
[30:15] MS: In the initial moments of the performance, the operator addresses the girl in a colloquial tone, and then she talks to the rest of those present in recitative form, explaining the context and situation of the performance of her work. Through this narrative intervention the operator repeats each time the sequential order of actions in accordance with the performance of the rite, to maintain the ‘golden thread of the ritual’, enacted through her own memory of the song and by her personal ‘performance’. In her performance, several crucial elements are combined, including memory, voice, body, and rhythm; while there are several obscure meanings to many of the words that she recites that cannot be taken literally, so they must also be interpreted. There are structural and cognitive implications of the body, which highlights how the body and the voice play with each other through reciprocal references. In fact, in addition to the individualised performative approach, in the act of remembering and singing about the ritual, the performer also involves the body in the process of remembering and in this way, brings the people listening to perceive the abilities of the cutter, which involves both skill and wisdom.
[31:24] Overlapping speech ends
[31:24] Man speaking in Italian ends
[31:26] PT: The second excerpt concerns the chants XII-XIV with the passage of the hairdresser to the afterlife. Luciano, please tell us more about this song.
[33:37] Man speaking in Italian begins
[31:38] Overlapping speech begins
[31:38] LG: With chants IX, X and XI we arrive at the heart of the 'action', in which there is a spiritual connection to God, when the body of the cutter is carried to the cemetery on a boat also carrying animals and flowers. Then chant XII, the 'final fight', corresponds to the judgment on the 'soul' of the cutter, a judgment that can result in damnation or salvation, where the cutter demonstrates her conviction of receiving salvation due to her skills. The cutter declares herself adequately skilled, capable of sacrificing her private individual life, aware of her ability not to be overwhelmed by the drink, and knowledge on how to cut hair correctly.
[32:19] She thus affirms having an essential function in the structure of the community. This is why she is not afraid of undergoing judgment, "the judgment of the scissors" (for the idea that everyone will be judged by the objects she handles, that is, by the entities with which she enters into an effective and useful relationship). Eight pairs of silver scissors are suspended above her threatening her success, but the iedi [ièdi] passes unscathed under them, proudly shouting that she will not be quartered, and so the scissors stop moving. And having overcome this judgment, she can proceed placidly (these are chants XIII and XIV) to the seat of Gammibe [kammìbe], the sun, in a completely golden environment. From a moral point of view we are faced with the supposition that a collaborative spirit allows for salvation after death as well as wisdom in life. From chants XIII and XIV we will see a continuation of the journey by water, on a golden boat, through a river of gold, while golden bell towers rise with the ringing of bells, and only a shadow of regret for earthly life. The destination is precisely at Gammibe [kammìbe], the sun: a sort of paradise described in the rest of the verses, up to the end of Chant XV.
[33:34] Overlapping speech ends
[33:35] Man speaking in Italian ends
[33:36] Ied Namagged Chant XII – XIV begins
[34:45] Ied Namagged Chant XII – XIV ends
[34:46] PT: We have just listened to Chants XII to XIV. I will now read a translation of the songs:She is about to fight with the scissors, she is at their threshold, and shouts: 'delicate silver that you hold tightly, tinkling, here I am! She opens the door, the scissors hang shining on a golden thread. The cutter observes, the scissors creak, the cutter risks being quartered, as often happens to inadequate cutters, and the soul must save the body. Eight pairs of scissors are suspended. The cutter says: 'stand in front of me and growl'. But they suddenly stop, and the cutter says: 'I'm coming to you! I feel the girl's soul, the one who cut her hair to perfection comes. And she says: 'you will not tear me apart; you will never tear me apart'.
[35:45] PT: In chant XIII the hairdresser says that she has penetrated the girl's soul. The scissors are behind her, following her threateningly, she moves towards them and she tells them that she will get on a boat and that she will travel toward the supreme father (the sun). Her friends ask her if she really wants to leave (for the afterlife), leaving her children behind. But the cutter moves on to embark on a golden boat, on a river of gold. She is going to Gammibe ([kammìbe], the sun), she looks at him, looks around him, and the golden bell towers rise up. The river of gold flows, frothing, the golden bell towers ring, their golden flags wave, the hairdresser observes.
[36:37] PT: Finally, in chant XIV she proceeds, without thinking about the house she is leaving, without regrets for abandoning her children. She has now arrived to Gammibe’s place [kammìbe]. The golden boat stops, she goes down a golden staircase, in a dance, she thinks that she will not return. She goes to Gammibe [kammìbe], she has opened the door, she enters and there is a shiny, worked gold chair. She sits down, then swings in a hammock, and then she stands, still, in front of Gammibe [kammìbe].
PART III – CONCLUSION
[37:12] Man speaking in Italian begins
[37:16] Overlapping speech begins
[37:16] MS: Among the vast literature of anthropology and ethno-linguistics on the Guna, references to the complexity of the rite of passage of puberty are present only in a few texts that refer to the substance of the rite and without any documentation regarding the intervention of the expert woman, as well as the associated chants. However, starting also from the texts suggested in the references section, we can observe some relevant aspects: in the first place, the practice of the rite can vary between one village and another; secondly, the presence and understanding of material and symbolic elements present in the tradition of the rite are being lost over time, which is increasingly assuming the value of a mere social celebration. Some examples of these variations, and bearing in mind our ethnographic experience (1981 and 2004), are: 1) the presence of ritual objects in the girl's enclosure (surba [sùrba]), such as a model of a canoe, and the use of a spoon with which water can be sprinkled on the girl's body; 2) water being supplied by the participating women, 8 times each; 3) contributions to this supply of water with a certain quantity treated with perfumed substances said to regenerate the body of the girl; 4) the girl's mother painting her daughter's body with a black vegetable substance, after 4 days of seclusion; 5) the mother herself cutting the hair in the presence of the other women of the family.
[38:47] MS: In light of these considerations it is good to recall some general observations on cultural dynamics such as: 1) the dialectic of the processes of modernization and transformation, due to the presence of acculturation and deculturation phenomena, as well as the traditionalization of culture for the social action carried out by the sagla [sàila] in favour of the conservation and transmission of tradition; 2) the freedom allowed to the cantor to introduce personal and situational elements and references into the song, even if not present in the song itself, as inherited and learned from the master; 3) every performance of a song, even more so with of songs with a ritual value, is always “contextualised”, that is, the cantor keeps in mind the context in which it is expressed.
[39:39] MS: Specifically, the song Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket] sees the iedi [ièdi] in a "movement" that goes from their personal history, to the assumption of elements of culture linked both to the specific function and to the underlying symbology. Here I highlight some of these symbolic aspects of the rite and of the Song such as the presence of the model of canoe in the surba [sùrba] and of the boat in the song of the iedi [ièdi] as symbols of the passage of time and life’s condition, in the first case as a girl becomes a woman, and, in the second case, from mother of a family to an expert woman responsible for cutting on behalf of the community. Again, the use of painting the face or body with the black color, obtained from the genipina berry [genìpa], derives from the warrior tradition of obscuring the face and thus frightening the opponent and, when transferred to the rite of puberty, the painting on the girl's body underlines the courage with which the girl herself must meet her new condition as a woman.
[40:38] Overlapping speech ends
[40:43] Man speaking in Italian ends
[40:45] PT: There is a risk, as you say Massimo that both the recordings and the background knowledge of the context of indigenous performances such as these are being lost over time. This further demonstrates the importance of archives such as this one for preserving these cultural histories that otherwise may completely disappear. The symbology that you have pointed out also reinforces why anthropological analysis can be so important for investigating and understanding the underlying meanings of such rituals. Luciano, is there anything else that you would like to add?
[41:25] man speaking in Italian begins
[41:25] Overlapping speech begins
[14:25] LG: I would like to conclude by underlining some aspects - albeit already mentioned - of our work. In the first place, the songs collected by us include the ritual section that the iedi [ìed] must perform in the girl's hut; this is the second moment of the entire rite, and through the songs we are carried from the initial invocation at the surba [sùrba ], next to the haircut, and through to the conclusion of this moment of the initiation rite. Secondly, I insist on the fact that the language of singing is characterized not only by its specific terminology, but also develops itself at a 'high' and semi-cryptic linguistic level that is not clear to native speakers themselves as they are not 'initiates' so to speak.
[42:09] LG: Finally, I remember that the publication of our work is copyright of the Guna people, precisely because of the way the work was carried out and controlled and because the property is and remains, in fact, of the Guna people. I would now add some considerations that I consider important regarding the general theme of this work on the Digital Archives of Indigenous America. In our CISAI Archive we present the transcription of the song together with vast critical apparatus, in addition to the audio recording of the song and the anthropological analysis of the rite. This complex work is necessary for its archiving and starts from the paradigm that the analysis of the text needs reference to its context of execution to be understood and interpreted, with the awareness that "text" and "context" are not autonomous and undifferentiated elements but have a relationship between them that makes each individual performance specific. Thus, the representation of an event that is to be returned to an external eye is based precisely on the assumption in the analysis of the three terms of the relationship: text - context - outline. And this is a perspective already indicated and used by Gregory Bateson. Otherwise the anthropologist's analysis is misled and the interpretation he gives of it becomes a "fiction", that is, a "staging" and not a "representation" of the event in question; fiction that is proposed as real because it becomes “true” according to the adopted perspective.
[43:39] Overlapping speech ends
[43:39] Man speaking in Italian ends
[43:41] PT: With Luciano and Massimo, we have addressed the importance of digital archives and their networking in compliance with the many ethical and methodological principles that the use of field research entails. During these reflections we also had the opportunity to discuss a traditional rite of the Guna people of Panama, the Ied Namagged [ìed namàkket] or "Song of the tonsure" in the rite of female puberty, performed by the expert woman both with singing and with the actual intervention of the haircut. Thus, numerous questions emerged related to the difficult translation of the songs, to their interpretation and, more generally, to making this material available to other researchers. In so doing, we have stressed the importance of context and interpretation.
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[44:32] PT: Thanks again Massimo and Luciano for this conversation, to Josh Smiech for his translation and to everyone that has listened to this podcast today.
[44:51] AP: Thank you for listening to another episode of Anthropological Airwaves, we’ll be back in your ears next month with more great anthro audio.
This episode was hosted, produced, and engineered by Paola Tine, who also translated the Italian into English. The episode was translated to English by Paola Tine.
[44:58] Outro music ends
[44:58] AP It was dubbed by Josh Smeich. Special thanks to Jacklyn Lacey, Kisha Supernant, and Sherina Felicianos Santos for additional editorial guidance. The intro and outro music you here is “Waiting” by Crowander. As always, closed caption versions of the episode will be available on the Anthropological Airwaves YouTube page and full transcriptions of the episode are available on the episode page on the website. There you will also find a trove of supplemental content to go with the episode. Links to both are included in the show notes. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Anthropological Airwaves wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, don’t forget to rate and review us wherever you listen to Anthro Airwaves. A five-star review in particular will help other listeners find the show! We would also love to hear from you in general. If you have feedback, recommendations, or your thoughts on recent episodes, send an email to amanthpodcast@gmail.com. You can also reach out to us on our Facebook page Anthropological Airwaves or on Twitter with the handle @AnthroAirwaves. Find links to all of our contact information in the show notes and on the Anthropological Airwaves section of the American Anthropologist website.
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