ABSTRACT

It is very important for ecomusicologists to be careful with the definitions of the central terms of the field because unreflective or ethnocentric definitions can create problems for our future work. The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins once argued that “much of anthropology can be considered a sustained effort at synthesizing an original segmentation of its object, an analytic distinction of cultural domains it had made without due reflection, if clearly [based] on the model presented by our own [Euro-American] society.” A bit like Humpty Dumpty after he fell from the wall, once broken up into parts it can be very difficult to repair the initial segmentation of a field. This paper illustrates the challenge to ecomusicology through a discussion of the ways the Kĩsêdjê/Suyá Indians of Brazil relate with animals and the central importance of those relationships to their music. Kĩsêdjê hunt and fish in their forest and rivers, but they also maintain that all animals and fish also live in large villages where they look like humans to one another, speak to each other, and sing their own songs during their ceremonies. Each species has its own distinct perspective on the world and on the other species, and communication between them often involves music. A brief comparative discussion suggests that the distinction between humans and animals is for many peoples more permeable and malleable than acknowledged in much Euro-American scientific research on humans and animals.