Why Suya Sing:A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People

by Anthony Seeger, John Blacking (Editor)

"Like many other South American Indian communities, the Suya Indians of Mato Grosso, Brazil, devote a great deal of time and energy to making music, especially singing. In paperback for the first time, Anthony Seeger's Why Suya Sing considers the reasons for the importance of music for the Suya - and by extension for other groups - through an examination of myth telling, speech making, and singing in an initiation ceremony." This new paperback edition features a CD offering examples of the myth telling, speeches, and singing discussed, as well as a new afterword that describes the continuing use of music by the Suya in their recent conflicts with cattle ranchers and soybean farmers.

Genres: Music, Ethnography

Audio Cassette

First published December 25, 1987

Reviews

[Cecilie Jøhnk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little non-fiction book is one of the most memorable books I have read.
I was much wiser after having read it, and yet it is not hard to read.

[Rivka Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sensible, humane, yet rigorous structuralist study of the Suya community, written by one of the best professors in the world. A masterpiece.