Synopses & Reviews
Sharing Our Knowledge brings together Native elders, tradition bearers, educators, cultural activists, anthropologists, linguists, historians, and museum professionals to explore the culture, history, and language of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska and their coastal neighbors. These interdisciplinary, collaborative essays present Tlingit culture, as well as the culture of their coastal neighbors,and#160;not as an object of study but rather as a living heritage that continues to inspire and guide the lives of communities and individuals throughout southeast Alaska and northwest British Columbia.and#160;
and#160;This volume focuses on the preservation and dissemination of Tlingit language, traditional cultural knowledge, and history from an activist Tlingit perspective. Sharing Our Knowledge also highlights a variety of collaborations between Native groups and individuals and non-Native researchers, emphasizing a long history of respectful, cooperative, and productive working relations aimed at recording and transmitting cultural knowledge for tribal use and promoting Native agency in preserving heritage. By focusing on these collaborations, the contributors demonstrate how such alliances have benefited the Tlingits and neighboring groups in preserving and protecting their heritage while advancing scholarship at the same time.and#160;and#160;
Review
andquot;This well-conceived and very well executed volume marks a major advance in discussions of the significance of aerophones and sound over a large area of South America.andquot;andmdash;Anthony Seeger, Journal of Anthropological Research
Synopsis
The first in-depth, comparative, and interdisciplinary study of indigenous Amazonian musical cultures,
Burst of Breath showcases new research on the dynamic range of ritual power and social significance of various wind instrumentsand#8212;including flutes, trumpets, clarinets, and whistlesand#8212;played in sacred rituals and ceremonies in Lowland South America.
The editors provide a detailed overview of the historical significance, scientific classification, shamanic and cosmological associations, and changing social meanings of ritual wind instruments within Amazonian cultures. These essays present a wide perspective that goes beyond better-documented areas such as the Upper Xingu and northwest Amazon. Some of the authors explore the ways ritual wind instruments are used to introduce natural sounds into social contexts and to cross boundaries between verbal and nonverbal communication. Others look at how ritual wind instruments and their music enter into local definitions and negotiations of relations between men, women, kin, insiders, and outsiders.
Closely considering these instruments in their many roles and contextsand#8212;in curing and purification, negotiating relations, connecting mythic ancestors and humans todayand#8212;this volume reveals the power and complexity of the music at the heart of collective rituals across lowland South America.
About the Author
Sergei Kan is a professor of anthropology and Native American studies at Dartmouth College. He is the editor and author of several books, including Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska; Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries; and Symbolic Immortality:and#160;Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century. Steve Henrikson is a curator of collections at the Alaska State Museum and is an adjunct instructor at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. He specializes in Tlingit material culture and art. He has lived in Juneau, Alaska, for many years and has been actively involved in organizing the periodic Tlingit clan conferences.and#160;