Coronavirus

Tsantsa (shrunken head) with rope, Shuar
14 x 11 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

Manganja Woman
14 x 11 inches, various materials on paper, 2020

The Coronavirus has stopped life in it tracks for the most part yet the top 100 moves forward. We're well into 2020 and the list for this year starts to take shape. Represented here are the numbers one and two thus far. Both come form the 3-cd set Voices of the World: An Anthology of Vocal Expression [Le Cant du Monde, 1999]. Coordinated by Hugo Zemp it features recordings by some of the world's renown ethnomusicologists. The box set is dominating the list and the track Chingolingo, chant yodle by a group of Mang'anja women from Malawi is destined to end on top at the end of the year. 

It felt appropriate given the circumstances to make these drawings. It's the sort of activity that takes time, is a lot of tedious and sometimes rather mindless work. Like most everybody else, the days spent at home are consumed by the cascade of news surrounding the Coronavirus. I've always been a numbers and lists person and that's what I get lost in; percentages, numbers, comparisons by country and regions, and other statistical trivia. I thought it appropriate to add some stats under the captions I penciled in. When I finished the Mang'anja woman Malawi was one of only a handful countries in the world with no reported cases. This was a few days ago. Now there are four. Nobody's died yet from the disease. Vietnam, whose Bahnar people I wrote about last week, has since doubled their cases, but still no deaths there either. The first country represented in these series who suffered fatalities is Ecuador. The count there as of today: 3,465 cases and 172 fatalities are reported. 

The Shuar, better known by their older name Jivaro, live in the Amazon Rainforests of Ecuador. I won't dwell on their history too much, as history of their shrunken head traditions have been a focus of many writings (including in this blog) but one anecdote I learned today I will mention: The function this tradition has in Shuar culture is for men to keep their wives and daughters in line. The track Ujaj, currently residing at number two, is sung by a group of women. I've always wanted to draw a picture of a shrunken head.