The Kuna Indians of Panama, probably best known for molas, their colorful appliqué blouses, also have a rich literary tradition of oral stories and performances. One of the largest indigenous groups in the South American tropics, the majority of them (about 70,000) reside in Kuna Yala, a string of island and mainland villages stretching along the Caribbean coast. It is here that Joel Sherzer lived among them, photographing and recording their verbal performances, which he feels are representative of the beauty, complexity, and diversity of the oral literary traditions of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.This book is organized into three types of texts: humorous and moralistic stories; myths and magical chants; and women's songs. While quite different from one another, they share features characteristic of Kuna literature as a whole, including appreciation of their environment and a remarkable knowledge of their plants and animals; a belief in spirits as an important component of their world in curing, magic, and aesthetics; and, especially, great humor and a sense of play.Vividly illustrated by a Kuna artist and accompanied by photographs that lend a sense of being present at the performances, the texts provide readers with a unique aesthetic perspective on this rich culture while preserving an endangered and valuable indigenous oral tradition.

Stories, Myths, Chants, and Songs of the Kuna Indians (Llilas Translations from Latin America Series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Sherzer, Joel

Anthropology

University of Texas Press

The Kuna Indians of Panama, probably best known for molas, their colorful appliqué blouses, also have a rich literary tradition of oral stories and performances. One of the largest indigenous groups in the South American tropics, the majority of them (about 70,000) reside in Kuna Yala, a string of island and mainland villages stretching along the Caribbean coast. It is here that Joel Sherzer lived among them, photographing and recording their verbal performances, which he feels are representative of the beauty, complexity, and diversity of the oral literary traditions of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.
This book is organized into three types of texts: humorous and moralistic stories; myths and magical chants; and women's songs. While quite different from one another, they share features characteristic of Kuna literature as a whole, including appreciation of their environment and a remarkable knowledge of their plants and animals; a belief in spirits as an important component of their world in curing, magic, and aesthetics; and, especially, great humor and a sense of play.
Vividly illustrated by a Kuna artist and accompanied by photographs that lend a sense of being present at the performances, the texts provide readers with a unique aesthetic perspective on this rich culture while preserving an endangered and valuable indigenous oral tradition.

Stories, Myths, Chants, and Songs of the Kuna Indians (LLILAS Translations from Latin America Series)

History

Americas

Kuna Ways of Speaking: An Ethnographic Perspective

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Univ of Texas Pr

Kuna Ways of Speaking: An Ethnographic Perspective (Texas Linguistics Series)

Puns, jokes, proverbs, riddles, play languages, verbal dueling, parallelism, metaphor, grammatical stretching and manipulation in poetry and song— people around the world enjoy these forms of speech play and verbal artistry which form an intrinsic part of the fabric of their lives. Verbal playfulness is not a frivolous pursuit. Often indicative of people's deepest values and worldview, speech play is a significant site of intersection among language, culture, society, and individual expression.In this book, Joel Sherzer examines many kinds of speech play from places as diverse as the United States, France, Italy, Bali, and Latin America to offer the first full-scale study of speech play and verbal art. He brings together various speech-play forms and processes and shows what they have in common and how they overlap. He also demonstrates that speech play explores and indeed flirts with the boundaries of the socially, culturally, and linguistically possible and appropriate, thus making it relevant for anthropological and linguistic theory and practice, as well as for folklore and literary criticism.

Speech Play and Verbal Art

Social Sciences

Puns, jokes, proverbs, riddles, play languages, verbal dueling, parallelism, metaphor, grammatical stretching and manipulation in poetry and song— people around the world enjoy these forms of speech play and verbal artistry which form an intrinsic part of the fabric of their lives. Verbal playfulness is not a frivolous pursuit. Often indicative of people's deepest values and worldview, speech play is a significant site of intersection among language, culture, society, and individual expression.
In this book, Joel Sherzer examines many kinds of speech play from places as diverse as the United States, France, Italy, Bali, and Latin America to offer the first full-scale study of speech play and verbal art. He brings together various speech-play forms and processes and shows what they have in common and how they overlap. He also demonstrates that speech play explores and indeed flirts with the boundaries of the socially, culturally, and linguistically possible and appropriate, thus making it relevant for anthropological and linguistic theory and practice, as well as for folklore and literary criticism.

This book, by one of the leading scholars in linguistic anthropology, concerns the verbal art of the Kuna Indians of San Blas, Panama. The author describes a rich and varied array of Kuna verbal practices, ranging from reporting, formal speechmaking and political oratory to chants and magical communication with the spirit world. This is a world in which all knowledge and information, from history and geography to the latest sport news from Panama City, is orally conceived, perceived and transmitted, and Joel Sherzer demonstrates how experience is shaped by these verbal discourses. This book represents the complete range of verbal performances in a single Native American society. These are transcribed in the original native language from tape recordings of actual events and translated into English. It is a significant contribution to theory, practice and method in anthropology, folklore and oral literature.

Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through its Discourse (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, Series Number 21)

Cambridge University Press

This book, by one of the leading scholars in linguistic anthropology, concerns the verbal art of the Kuna Indians of San Blas, Panama. The author describes a rich and varied array of Kuna verbal practices, ranging from reporting, formal speechmaking and political oratory to chants and magical communication with the spirit world. This is a world in which all knowledge and information, from history and geography to the latest sport news from Panama City, is orally conceived, perceived and transmitted, and Joel Sherzer demonstrates how experience is shaped by these verbal discourses. This book represents the complete range of verbal performances in a single Native American society. These are transcribed in the original native language from tape recordings of actual events and translated into English. It is a significant contribution to theory, practice and method in anthropology, folklore and oral literature.

First published in 1990, this linguistic study of the Kuna Indians of Panama is now available only from UNM Press.

Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through Its Discourse

University of New Mexico Press

Book by Joel Sherzer, Sherzer, Joel

Kuna Ways of Speaking

Joel Sherzer

Hats Off Books

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Books by Sherzer, Joel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sherzer, Joel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Stories, Myths, Chants, and Songs of the Kuna Indians (Llilas Translations from Latin America Series)

Stories, Myths, Chants, and Songs of the Kuna Indians (LLILAS Translations from Latin America Series)

Kuna Ways of Speaking: An Ethnographic Perspective

Kuna Ways of Speaking: An Ethnographic Perspective (Texas Linguistics Series)

Speech Play and Verbal Art

Speech Play and Verbal Art

Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through its Discourse (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, Series Number 21)

Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through its Discourse (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture, Series Number 21)

Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through Its Discourse

Kuna Ways of Speaking