Boklansering: A people of stories in the forest of myth

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"A people of stories in the forest of myth
The Yukuna of Miritiparaná"
av Jon Schackt

Bokbeskrivelse:

The title of this book plays on the importance myth has held as a focal theme in the study of Amazonian cultures. This is not least due to the work and legacy of Claude Lévi-Strauss, whose influential theory of myth was largely based on the study of material gathered from tropical South America. However, the survival to this day of strong oral cultures and traditions among Amazonian Indians provides an underpinning for the lasting significance of the theme.

Many Indian peoples of this region place high value on oral skills, and some emphasize as well the importance of upholding their extensive oral traditions. The Yukuna, an Arawakan-speaking group of Colombian northwest Amazonia, in fact self-identify as 'the People of the Stories', looking upon themselves as custodians of a vast body of oral traditions inherited from their ancestors. They regularly narrate long myths and legends in public and ritualized settings where narrators gain honour and prestige by demonstrating their comprehensive knowledge of these.

Much of the scholarly literature on myth and oral traditions is focused either on the formal analyses og motifs and symbols or on storytelling as a social discourse. In this book, Jon Schackt takes a more holistic approach. Weaving extracts from recorded narratives together with his own ethnographic work on the Yukuna, he demonstrates how essential the narrated stories are, not only to the identity and self-understanding of this people, but to their kinship system and social structure as well. The Yukuna and their narrative tradition form two sides of the same coin. That is also what the Yukuna say: only those who manage to uphold and transmit the oral traditions to new generations will prevail as Yukuna. The alternative is to 'become lost'.

Jon Schackt er førsteamanuensis ved institutt for arkeologi og sosialantropologi ved UiT, Norges arktiske universitet.

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