Why Suya Sing Book Report

In the book 'Why Suya Sing’, the American ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger brings together about twenty-four months of research. The researcher spent the period of time with the indigenous community Suya, now prefers to be called Kisêdjê. These people of Ge language inhabit the Xingu Indigenous Park, in the center of Brazil. In his work, Seeger faces the music activity in the Suya culture like a fundamental part in the construction process of their social life. The name of the book is based in the ‘Mouse Ceremony’, which consists of a ritual of passage where young people begin their initiation in the social activities of the village through the relationship with an adult who gives their names. The Mouse ceremony lasts several days and reorders the social life in the middle of many events in the community, which includes several songs. One of the main celebrations of the ceremony is about the children who are already at the age of receiving a name, so far they are called only baby, and turning their status as members of the community. For boys, this is when they are removed from the home of their mother, have their lower lips pierced and are taken to the …show more content…
The Suyá music was a particular type of recreation. Singing created musical relationship between silence and sound, low and serious and high-pitched, between fast and slow, between unison and solo between crying and wailing songs, between short and silly songs and the long and serious songs of adults. Singing also established relationships between movements: between sitting and standing, walking clockwise and counterclockwise, approach the residential houses or walking away from the houses, jump and stop. The music established relationships between groups: men and women, between different tribes, and between members of the tribe. Thus, space, time, body and social identity were all set, and were defined by the vocal art (Seeger, 1987, p.