The Kotas are a South Indian “tribal” people, numbering fewer than two thousand, based in seven villages in the Nilgiri Hills. Richard K. Wolf takes the title of his wide-ranging ethnographic study of the Kota from a local legend in which “a divine black cow of ancient times indicated with its hoof where each Kota village ( kokal ) should be founded. On the sites of these ‘black cow’s footprints,’ the ancestral village founders built their dwellings” (5). These houses, one of which is in each village, are known as “houses of the erected post.”
In The Black Cow’s Footprint , Wolf explores how the Kotas make and remake themselves through music, dance, and a host of other ritual and quotidian activities. These actions are filtered through the author’s “interest in how aspects of space, place, and time are socially deployed or constructed” (1). In this context, the temporal setting of the black cow story and the locations of the footprints take on special significance: “ancient times” indicates an abundance of catym (“truth”) in the world and the Kotas’ state of unity with god (both of which have since been lost), and “each village’s respective ‘house of the erected post’ … constitutes a center of moral gravity” (5). Likewise, other space/place/time matrixes--e.g., movement from home to village to cremation ground in response to the ever-flowing “rhythm of deaths” (170)--become coordinates for Wolf’s concept of “spacetime.” He uses this rubric, borrowed from anthropologist Nancy Munn, to position Kota activities, attitudes, and identities with respect to four pattern types: anchoring, centripetence, centrifugality, and interlocking.
Wolf employs spacetime patterning to theorize Kota identity formation during the tribe’s two main ceremonial complexes, the god complex ( devr ) and the death complex ( tav ). While the Kotas’ physical and spiritual trajectories are recognized as multifaceted, they generally proceed inwards (through centripetence towards unity) in the god ceremonies and outwards (by means of centrifugality towards differentiation) in the death complex. Interlocking occurs at various stages and on multiple levels (in both musical and social organizations) in these two realms. The author grounds his analysis of the Kotas’ god and death rituals in detailed ethnography, which then serves as a platform for further theorizing. For example, Wolf looks into Kotas’ metaphysical positioning in time and space, which is partially achieved through internal and social mapping of places through song, the cross-domain valuation of unity in society and music, and the converse move to individuality and bond breaking in mortuary rituals. Wolf also delves into the types, meanings, and consequences of affect in Kota ceremonies. In doing so, he considers how both musical and non-musical elements (such as foods and eating practices) register in the “emotional texture” of Kota ritual (177).
The persistence required in following Wolf’s wide-ranging and at times highly-complex investigations of non-musical issues pays off in the holistic understanding of Kota music that eventually emerges. While music itself is most directly addressed in Chapters 2 and 4, it is woven into much of the text. At times, Wolf considers broader issues related to music’s social function, as in his analysis of song texts filtered through the comments and reflections of his Kota collaborators. In other sections, he analyzes musical details, such as how kol players (the Kotas’ main melodic instrumentalists) “anchor” their melodies around structural drum beats “and more or less fit the rest of the melody in the intervening spaces” (2). The book’s four transcriptions are skillfully deployed to support his musical analysis as well as the broader theoretical issues of spacetime. In addition, the author regularly refers the reader to the accompanying CD. These thirty-nine musical and sound examples are invaluable in bringing the text to life.
In Chapter 5, Wolf more fully develops his concept of anchoring across a range of spacetimes. For Wolf, anchoring not only serves as a metaphor for musical coordination, but also describes the connections Kotas make with their geography, histories, social relations, and large-scale temporal events. The anchoring metaphor is especially useful because it allows room for “real” world slippage: just as a ship’s anchor may drag or be totally hoisted out of the water, anchor points in music, time, or social contexts may shift or be entirely reworked to meet changing circumstances. An example of the latter is the Kotas’ twentieth century transition from buffalo and cow sacrifices to vegetarian foods at the dry funeral ceremonies, and its consequences in their theorizing about death (184).
Music is sometimes central and sometimes peripheral or even silent in Wolf’s discussions. This is consistent with his contention that “social life is learned as an amalgam” (38). By positioning music in relation to many other activities, Wolf fashions a gestalt of the Kotas’ music. In this way, he brings the reader into the Kotas’ richly complex world of sound, smell, tastes, textures, and thinking. The Black Cow’s Footprint is a much-needed and extremely valuable addition to the limited ethnomusicological literature on Indian tribal peoples. The comprehensive glossary and detailed index add to the monograph’s value for ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, and others who will be drawn to Wolf’s careful ethnography and multifaceted analysis. While challenging, the book is well worth the effort in that it clearly conveys the author’s deep regard for the Kota and their musical endeavors
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[Review length: 871 words • Review posted on July 19, 2007]