Songs that Make the Road Dance: Courtship and Fertility Music of the Tz'utujil Maya

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Forewords
Allen Christenson
Sandra Orellana
Acknowledgements
Introduction
A Personal Note
Research in Santiago Atitlan
Chapter 1. The World of the Tz'utujil Maya
The World of Spirits:
Prayer of Nicolas Chiviliu Takaxoy
"Song of the Spirit-Lord of the World"
Duality and Metaphor in the Santo Mundo
The Presence of the Nawals
Chapter 2: The Dance and Songs of the Nawals
Old Mam Creates the "Recibos":
"Song of Francisco Sojuel"
Dance, Movement and Songs: the Divine Currency of Sacrifice
Dancing the Bundle of San Martin:
Midwife's prayer and "Song of San Martin"
Rocking the Cradle of the Marias:
"Song of the Rocking Cradle"
Dancing the Wind-men and the Rain-men
Rousing San Martin and the Spirit-Lords of Rain with Song:
"Song of Martin"
Calling the Spirits of the Dead and the Drowned with Song:
"Song of the Drowned"
Chapter 3: The "Songs of the Road": Texts and Contexts
The Road in the Tz'utujil Maya World
Old Mam, the Guardian of the Road, Creates Music and Dance:
"Songs of Mam"
The Third "Song of the Road", Songs of Fertility:
"Songs of the Young Man"
"Songs of the Young Girl"
"Atpal": a Narrative Song of Courting
"Songs of the Young Men and Young Girls, of Insults and Ridicule"
"Songs of the Old Maid"
Witchcraft and Shape-shifters in the Songs:
"Song of the Young Girl"
Sad Songs or "Tristes":
"They Fought"
"Sad Song of Our Fathers, Our Mothers"
Songs of the Flowers and the Fruit
"Songs of the Fruit"
Chapter 4: The Poetics of Tz'utujil Songs and their Relationship to K'iche'an Literature
The Poetics of the Popol Vuh
The Poetics of Tz'utujil Song Texts
Composition of the Texts and the Influence of Musical Rhythm
Chapter 5: The Music of the "Songs of the Nawals"
Musical Form and Style of the Songs
The "Recibos of Old Mam", the Vessels of Tz'utujil Culture: The "Song of Mam"
"Sad Song of the Young Man"
"Song of the Girl Who Says Goodbye to Her Mother"
"Song of the Old Maid" or "Song of the Road"
"Song of the Fruit"
The Tz'utujil guitar:
Historical Origins of the Tz'utujil Guitar
Tuning
Playing style and technique
Repertoire
How the Songs Survived: the Process of Assimilation and Transmission
Final Words
Contents of the Compact Discs
Works Cited
Glossary

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An important and previously unexplored body of esoteric ritual songs of the Tz’utujil Maya of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, the “Songs of the Old Ones” are a central vehicle for the transmission of cultural norms of behavior and beliefs within this group of highland Maya. Ethnomusicologist Linda O’Brien-Rothe began collecting these songs in 1966, and she has amassed the largest, and perhaps the only significant, collection that documents this nearly lost element of highland Maya ritual life.

This book presents a representative selection of the more than ninety songs in O’Brien-Rothe’s collection, including musical transcriptions and over two thousand lines presented in Tz’utujil and English translation. (Audio files of the songs can be downloaded from the UT Press website.) Using the words of the “songmen” who perform them, O’Brien-Rothe explores how the songs are intended to move the “Old Ones”—the ancestors or Nawals—to favor the people and cause the earth to labor and bring forth corn. She discusses how the songs give new insights into the complex meaning of dance in Maya cosmology, as well as how they employ poetic devices and designs that place them within the tradition of K’iche’an literature, of which they are an oral form. O’Brien-Rothe identifies continuities between the songs and the K’iche’an origin myth, the Popol Vuh, while also tracing their composition to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by their similarities with the early chaconas that were played on the Spanish guitarra española, which survives in Santiago Atitlán as a five-string guitar.

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