Reviewed Work: A Musical View of the Universe: Kalapalo Myth and Ritual Performances by Ellen B. Basso

Abstract

This work opens a vista on mythic narrative traditions and ritual enactments of the Kalapalo people, a Carib-speaking community resident in the Upper Xingu River Basin of Brazil. The approach is ethnographic and ethnolinguistic in character: extensive texts of native performances are presented, in English translations accompanied by illustrative samples of unanalyzed Carib; these narratives, along with the author's exegesis and descriptions of ritual events, constitute the empirical grounding for an inquiry into the patterns underlying Kalapalo artistic expression and worldview