Editore: Novus Press, 2014
ISBN 10: 8270997420 ISBN 13: 9788270997428
Da: Bookmonger.Ltd, HILLSIDE, NJ, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condizione: Very Good. No Dust Jacket* Crease on cover*.
Editore: Novus Press, 2014
ISBN 10: 8270997420 ISBN 13: 9788270997428
Da: Michener & Rutledge Booksellers, Inc., Baldwin City, KS, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condizione: Very Good+. Condizione sovraccoperta: Very Good. Text clean and tight; 9.50 X 7 X 1 inches; 271 pages.
Editore: Oslo : Novus Press, 2014
ISBN 10: 8270997420 ISBN 13: 9788270997428
Da: Joseph Burridge Books, Dagenham, Regno Unito
Hardcover. Condizione: New. 271 p. 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 emphasise 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 ritualised 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 of 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'.