Gentlemen in the Jungle

Michael J. Harner playing a shaman's drum/Shuar woman preparing beer

My purchases this year of the LP Music of the Jívaro of Ecuador as an mp3 file and the book Visages the Bronze, and free downloads of the LP Jívaro and a pdf of The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls all contributed to an enormous amount of recordings by the Shuar people (as the Jivaro are currently referred to) in the Top 100 but other sources were accessed as well. I've read current academic papers on Shuar culture as well as some early anthropological studies done in the 1930s. The four titles listed above are by the ethnologists Philippe Luzuy and anthropologist Michael J. Harner. I've painted Michael J. Harner here to illustrate the song Social Dance Singing (female chorus) that he recorded in 1972 together with an image of a woman preparing mash for manioc beer that Harner also took in 1972 and appears in the liner notes of Music of the Jívaro of Ecuador. [Folkways, 1973] The image of the woman photographed by Harner would also be appropriate for the song Chant de la bière de mais but for the Luzuy recording of it I used an image of the Finnish anthropologist Rafael Karsten paired with an image from a photo that he took during his frequent stays with Ecuadorian Indians in the early 1930. 

Shuar man (after a photo by Karsten)/Rafael Karsten

Karsten's book Head-hunters of the Western Amazonas was the first serious academic study of the Shuar. The Jivaro, as they were then called, had an almost mythical status in the Western imagination. So much had been fantasized and speculated since their famous shrunken heads became a fad for collectors in the late 19th century, yet none had studied their actual culture until Karsten spent time with them. Karsten's observations however, as one might expect given the early date, are far from objective.

The song Chant de la bière de mais (recorded in 1960 by Luzuy) curiously enough is identical to another social dance song from Harner's 1972 recordings on Music of the Jívaro of Ecuador. Harner's recording is not just the same song as the one Luzuy recorded twelve years earlier but it's identical note for note, as identical as a Beethoven piano sonata recorded by two different pianists at different times. Beethoven's music was written down but the Shuar songs are passed on from one singer to another. Stranger yet, even more starteling, is the fact that the singer recorded by Luzuy is a man while the singer recorded by Harner is a woman. Michael Harner, as well as others who have studied the Shuar, observed strict gender roles. (I wrote about the mysogyny of Shuar culture earlier, you can read it here.) Cultures like the Shuar may be much more flexible as anthropologists would be able to observe. (Here's the link to all my recent musings on the recordings of the Shuar.) 

Matthew W. Stirling/Shuar woman (after a photo by Stirling)

Philippe Luzuy recorded five tracks listed in this Top 100 and I still have not been able to find an image he appears on. For the fifth recording then, which is called Chant sur l'oiseau Toucan, I continued to chronicle the history of Shuar anthropology. A few years after Karsten, still in the 1930s, the American Matthew W. Stirling, produced a study of much greater integrity. Historical and Ethnographical Material on the Jivaro Indians has the flaw that Stirling relied on a certain translator who was biased, coming from a rivalling tribe. Harner, who used Stirling's book as a guidebook, tracked the informant down thirty years later and was able to set the record straight on some of Stirling's conclusions. In the painting here Stirling is seen carrying a gun (I think this may be a first for me!) in the Ecuadorian jungle. Next to him is an image of a Shuar individual he had photographed. 

Note: The photograph I used to portray Matthew Stirling, also features his wife, and long time collaborator, Marion Stirling. It felt really really weird to edit out Marion Stirling and instead, replace her by a Shuar woman, the object of their studies. In reality Stirling is much taller than the (unnamed) Shuar woman. 

Of Violent People and of Friendly People

Indianerinnen mit kind (Shuar)/Michael J. Harner

 The Shuar, generally better known by their previous name Jivaro, were one of the most violent tribes written about in the anthropological history. They were head hunters, the source of the once collectable shrunken heads. (Earlier I wrote about the practice of infanticide among the Shuar.) The Jivaro warriors were feared throughout the region by their enemies but also by their own women. While the status of women throughout the world is usually not anywhere near the status of equality, the Jivaro women were worse off. Beatings were common. Only later in life, when widowed, or when they were children they could live in relative freedom. The suicide rate of Shuar women were among the highest in the world. Yet, their songs are among the sweetest and happiest I've encountered. Michael J. Harner recorded several dance songs and lullabies that are included on the Folkways LP 'Music of the Jivaro of Ecuador' along with war songs and other songs by men. Shaman's songs were recorded too. One freedom Shuar women enjoyed was to become a shaman. Not many neighboring tribes had female shamans. Harner was the first to study the Shuar in depth in the 1950s, earlier records are anecdotal, biased, or tainted by biased interpreters from neighboring tribes. Rafael Karsten, in the 1930s was the first anthropologist to attempt a study of the then called Jivaro, but later had to admit to Harner that all his information came from a translator belonging to a tribe not friendly to the Shuar. Harner tracked this individual down for his research and corrected Karsten's otherwise useful data. The photograph I used for this image was taken by Karsten in 1930. Harner, later in his career, became known for his research and books on (neo)shamanism and other spiritual new age practices. Shuar Social Dance Song (2): Female Chorus in #63 in the Top 100 2020.

Marjorie Shostak/!Kun San man

The historical contrast between the Shuar of Ecuador and the !Kung San of Botswana couldn't be greater. The Shuar had a violent death rate among men under 25 at a staggering 42%, the highest number ever recorded in the world, the number !Kung San men in contrast, is less than 0.5%. San women are considered equal. Marjorie Shostak, seen on the left, spend many years with the San people. She recorded the 'Sitenga with one man's voice' in Botswana in 1970. It's at #5 in the Top 100 2021. The song, by /Tilkay (also known as "Jimmy" from /Xai/Xai, itself was not illustrated in the liner notes to the album so I used another image from these notes. The man on the right was photographed by Shostak and is labeled: "A !Kung San man reclining." The ! and / symbols used in the text are vocal sounds, the ! represents the click sound made famous by Miriam Makeba in "The Click Song." One more thing: the object/subject differentiation disappears even further compared to the last painting I wrote about a few days back. The only photo I could find of a 'sitengena' being played was this very image of Marjorie Shostak.