Early Alaskan Ethnoarchaeomusicology

Alaskan Eskimo Ceremonialism.
By Margaret Lantis. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, XI, New York: J. J. Augustin, I947.

This is a study of the distribution of certain ceremonies and rituals within the Alaskan Eskimo region. Part I is concerned with such ceremonies as those performed at birth, marriage, and death, memorial feasts and the hunting festival. Part II deals with such ceremonial elements as masks, shamanism and the dance house. Some conclusions and speculations regarding Eskimo cultural history as determined by the presence and absence of these ceremonial rituals are given in a final summary.
In the introduction Dr. Lantis bewails the lack of serious ethnographic studies of the Alaskan Eskimo. It may seem curious to the casual reader that an area, presumably so well known, actually has produced very few serious studies of Eskimo intellectual culture. One who becomes interested in this aspect of Eskimo culture soon finds that the standard weighty monographs concern themselves primarily with the technology of the Eskimo, with his methods of hunting and with the way in which he has adjusted himself to the difficult physical environment. To fill in a detailed account of his intellectual life one must glean comments from reports of the early explorers and of casual travellers. These observations are often very misleading.
In commenting on this limitation which so often afflicts the ethnologist in distributional and analytical research Dr. Lantis points out the principal weakness in her study. Fortunately she has lived long enough with the Nunivak Island Eskimo to appreciate her difficulties and to evaluate the somewhat naive descriptions of ceremonies and rituals so often found in the literature of the Alaskan Eskimo. Even so I feel she has been misled to some doubtful conclusions by sheer accident.
For example, in her speculations upon the distribution of certain ceremonies and rituals she concludes very tentatively that there is a northern boundary for a West Alaskan ceremonial area between Point Hope and Point Barrow in Northeast Alaska.
It happens that during my study of dance house ceremonies at Point Hope (published after this monograph) I found it difficult to keep my informants from ringing in accounts of ceremonies in which they had joined at Point Barrow during one of their frequent visits at that settlement. In any case I came to the conclusion that the ceremonial life of the two settlements was so closely related as to be almost indistinguishable.
Moreover, after becoming well steeped in Point Hope folklore I returned to St. Lawrence for some brief but interesting discussions with old friends there and also carried on such discussions with new friends at Point Barrow. These brief discussions served to fortify my impression that all of the large whale hunting settlements about Bering Strait and including Point Barrow have a remarkably homogeneous culture. E. W. Nelson, and particularly John Murdoch, who produced the basic monograph on the Point Barrow Eskimo, actually were not much interested in the intellectual life of the Eskimo. Murdoch writes with delightful candor, "It was exceedingly difficult to get any idea of the religious belief of the people, partly from our inability to make ourselves understood in regard to abstract ideas and partly from ignorance on our part of the proper method of conducting such inquiries. For instance, in trying to get at their ideas of a future life, we could only ask 'Where does a man go when he dies?' to which we, of course, received the obvious answer, 'To the cemetery!"
It is difficult to evaluate the significance in casual statements about the absence or presence of complex and esoteric beliefs and ceremonies. Relying upon these accounts Dr. Lantis comments that Point Barrow, Pacific Coast, and Bering Strait lacked the "Bladder Festival and the great Feast of the Dead." But at Point Hope the Whaling Feast, Nulukatuk, may be interpreted as a feast of the dead if the observer by chance emphasizes ceremonies of the first day which certainly are associated with lamenting and commemorating the dead. Moreover, at one point in this whaling feast boat owners distribute gifts in a manner which suggests elements of the Potlatch.
With these things in mind I have the feeling that Dr. Lantis' speculations would be materially altered if she knew the Point Barrow Eskimo as well as those on Nunivak Island.
But these are obvious difficulties faced by anyone who makes a distributional study of the complex elements of intellectual culture, and they should not be taken as a major criticism of Dr. Lantis' study. It seems to me that she has done a very workman-like job and that it will serve to point out how one of these "best known areas" still offers a profitable field of research for those interested in the folklore and philosophy of native peoples.

FROELICH RAINEY

The University Museum,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
RaineyThe Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 62, No. 244 (Apr. - Jun., 1949), pp. 208-210

Where did the Clovis people come from?

Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture

by Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley

 

Who were the first humans to inhabit North America? According to the now familiar story, mammal hunters entered the continent some 12,000 years ago via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. The presence of these early New World people was established by distinctive stone tools belonging to the Clovis culture. But are the Clovis tools Asian in origin? Drawing from original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies, noted archaeologists Dennis J. Stanford and Bruce A. Bradley challenge the old narrative and, in the process, counter traditional--and often subjective--approaches to archaeological testing for historical relatedness. The authors apply rigorous scholarship to a hypothesis that places the technological antecedents of Clovis in Europe and posits that the first Americans crossed the Atlantic by boat and arrived earlier than previously thought. Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.

Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future.

THE MYTH OF MATRIARCHAL PREHISTORY
Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future.
By Cynthia Eller.

Review by NATALIE ANGIER


I've lately become a convert to the utility of the Santa Claus myth. It's not that I think the story adds much magic to my 4-year-old daughter's life, but by giving her a powerful incentive to behave it adds magic to my own. You better watch out, little girl, or it's coal, socks and underwear for you!
By all accounts from archaeology and anthropology, the possibility that there has ever been a true matriarchy, a society in which women effectively ruled, is about as likely as the chance that an obese fellow in red pajamas can deliver presents to some two billion children in the course of one night. Yet despite considerable evidence that contradicts the story of a prelapsarian gynecocracy, and a glaring lack of evidence to support it, many people, according to Cynthia Eller, continue to subscribe to it. As Eller lays out in the fascinating if often depressing ''Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory,'' a sizable corps of feminists is convinced that male dominance is a relatively recent phenomenon and that before patriarchy grasped the globe in its bloody talons, women were respected members of their tribes, equal if not above men in status and influence, revered for their capacity to give birth and nourish the young and for their innate connectedness -- to one another, to the earth, to the men they suffered with fond affection.
Such a tale might not be a bad thing on its own. As Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has suggested, by helping to counter the notion that male dominance is inevitable, and by pointing out the ways in which patriarchy is culturally rather than biologically shaped, the myth of prehistoric matriarchy may inspire us to seek a fairer shake. But in the view of Eller, who has written books on the women's spirituality movement and conscientious objectors in World War II, the currently popular feminist versions are neither useful nor benign. For one thing, Eller notes, most adherents of the pro-matriarchy party line see it not as an empowering fairy tale but as a genuine account of our past. For another, she objects to key elements of the story, ones that I, too, find insupportable and every bit as stifling as any patriarchal rendering of femaleness.
As the matriarchalists see it, the lost paradise of female power was a paradise because women are so wonderful. Who needs the Nature Conservancy when mothers rule? Eller quotes Jane Alpert's delineation of the qualities that inhere by nature to those who give birth, including ''empathy, intuitiveness, adaptability, awareness of growth as a process rather than goal-ended; inventiveness, protective feelings toward others and a capacity to respond emotionally as well as rationally.'' Reading such paeans to female ''niceness'' makes one reach for Joyce Carol Oates and her brilliant snarl, ''How can I live my life without committing an act with a giant scissors?'' Eller describes the extent to which popular and even academic culture has been infected. Experts lead packaged pilgrimages to sites where matriarchy and its goddess culture were thought to have flourished, among them Malta, Crete, Ireland and Turkey. Universities offer courses with titles like ''Herstory of the Goddess,'' ''Reclaiming the Goddess'' and ''The Goddess and the Matriarchy Controversy.''
The myth of a matriarchal prehistory is not new, nor is it always flack copy for females. Many traditional cultures tell stories of dark distant days when women ruled, and made a harrowing mess of things. The matriarchy was transformed from a literary and cautionary trope to purported history in 1861, with the anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen's ''Motherright.'' Drawing on classical Greek sources, Eller writes, ''Bachofen postulated an era of matriarchy ending in classical times with the rise of men and the 'male principle.' ''A century later, buoyed by the research and theories of a few scholars, notably the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, feminists began to sketch out a rough timeline. The details are usually vague, but supposedly human societies began as matricentric, focused on the primacy of mothers and children. Men were around and welcome, of course, but unconcerned about virginity or chastity among the womenfolk because they were ignorant of the role that fathers played in reproduction anyway.
Matriarchalists pay particular attention to Europe in the Upper Paleolithic period, beginning around 40,000 years ago, ''when quite suddenly far more extensive archaeological remains appear, including carved and painted images of women.'' By the Neolithic era, some 8,000 to 4,000 years ago -- after the development of farming but before the perfection of metallurgy -- matriarchal culture was said to be in full glory. But then catastrophe struck. Marauding nomads from the Russian steppes, a people Gimbutas has named ''Kurgans,'' began invading neighboring lands, bringing violent codes of patriarchy with them and displacing or destroying the more peaceable matriarchalists. By 3000 B.C., it was all over for the gynecocrats. Women had been subordinated and even their goddess images replaced by one towering male Yahweh.
In the latter half of her book, Eller carefully clips every thread from which this matriarchal myth is woven. The goddess imagery of which feminist matriarchalists are so proud? Look at the ancient Greeks: Hera, Athena and other goddesses aplenty, and yet women were virtual slaves in their houses. All the prehistoric imagery evocative of pregnant bellies and female genitalia that adorns sites like Catalhoyuk, the matriarchalists' holiest of holies? Like clouds, these carvings and abstractions can resemble anything the viewer chooses to see in them. The ignorance of prehistoric men? If anything, Eller says, it is the mother's role in reproduction that has been questioned throughout history. Men have often been thought to plant the seed, with women merely serving as the field in which the seed -- the homunculus -- grows.
Eller is a committed but unflinching feminist, and her broad survey of the universality of male dominance is unsentimental and potentially disheartening. But she refuses to wax glum. She emphasizes that all studies of sex differences have shown the overlap between the sexes to be enormous and the genuine differences to be too tiny to hamstring us forever. And a future that offers greater visibility, power and status to women will be a better place for all, she suggests -- not because women are nicer or less destructive than men, but because that future is just.

---

Natalie Angier writes about science for The Times. Her latest book is ''Woman: An Intimate Geography.''

Music and social organization

Yupiit Yuraryarait. Yup'ik Ways of Dancing

By James A. Barker, Ann Fienup-Riordan and Theresa Arevgaq John

Far more than just a dance, the dynamic choreography of the Yup'ik provides an illuminating window into the morality, social organization, and colonial history of this indigenous people. In Yupiit Yuraryarait, anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan begins with a brief historical overview of the colonization and development of Alaska from the Yup'ik point of view. Then, armed with oral history testimony spanning thirty years, she shows how singing and dancing are interconnected and imbued with meaning in this complex ritual. Accompanied by 150 original photographs by James Barker and a DVD of the dancing, this volume marks the first in-depth look at the Yup'ik people through the lens of interpretive dance.

"good references for students and researchers"

 Becoming Human: Innovation in Prehistoric Material and Spiritual Culture

Colin Renfrew and Iain Morley (eds.)

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 282 pp.

 

A book with ‘innovation’ in the title and a picture of beautiful Chauvet Cave rhinoceroses on the front cover is instantly appealing to anyone interested in cognitive evolution, cave art, or the origins of modernity. Yet the title is broader than the contents of this book. The cover image more accurately sums up the main focus of this edited volume—the meaning of Franco-Cantabrian cave art.

This book is not a reference guide, nor a collection of state-of-the-art discoveries, nor an exploration into theology. Rather it is a conference proceedings resulting from a unique meeting held in 2004 at Les Eyzies, where theologians and archaeologists discussed the origins of religion. All of the contributors to Becoming Human are illustrious, being either Professors or Directors of something, with the exception of the first editor’s wife and co-editor. Fortunately for the editors, the contributors to the volume all follow the key aims of the Les Eyzies conference, which were, according to Professor Renfrew (pp. 2–3), “to consider the early emergence of the various qualities which we may consider particularly human” and to find “at what point in the archaeological record [we can] document the emergence of ritual, and of what we might regard as religious behaviour”.

The crossover between theology and archaeology was to me a completely novel idea and very intriguing, but disappointingly it hardly appears in this collection of papers. Sadly, there is no evidence of what were surely fascinating discussions at the Les Eyzies symposium. All but two chapters appear to have been written before the conference. Exceptions are the contributions by d’Errico and van Huyssteen. They both clearly address the inter-disciplinary dialogue between human origins and theology, or lack thereof. But while d’Errico only mentions it in his introduction, van Huyssteen sustains a discussion of it throughout his paper, in effect making it a central focus of his chapter. More predictably, the other authors just repeat the usual data and the views we are already familiar with from their journal articles. They are reluctant, or perhaps unable, to engage with the idea of bringing academic theology into prehistory.

Two chapters stand out—Jane Renfrew and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. They are true gems which alone make the book worth buying. Jane Renfrew was an unknown author to me in the area of hominid cognition, but she gives a fascinating tour of rare finds supporting the case for Neanderthal symbolism, highlighting details that readers might have neglected until now. For example, one of the child burials at La Ferrassie was covered with a cupmarked stone (p. 52). Her references are a useful starting point for people working on Neanderthal cognition. The chapter by van Huyssteen delves into the gulf that lies between theology and the “sciences” (represented by archaeology and paleoanthropology in this case). It shows that this author sees both sides of the divide and tries very concretely to bring the two approaches together. This chapter would make thought-provoking reading for scholars and laypersons of all areas, as it is accessible and targeted to theologians, archaeologists, and paleoanthropologists.

Anthropologists might be especially interested in a common strand running through the book which is the inclusion of ethnographic examples. Some of these are noteworthy, such as the universality of music in human rituals, mentioned in Morley’s chapter, or the taboos against images in many world religions, as Ward explains. The paper by Mellars is a nice blend of ethnographic and archaeological data.

The authors of Becoming Human seem unified in the belief that the Upper Paleolithic marked an important turning point in human evolution, whether it was cultural/ mental (e.g., Colin Renfrew, Donald) or physical/biological (e.g., Mithen, de Lumley). As Renfrew proposes in his Introduction chapter, the origins of spirituality can certainly be found in the “something more” that comes with the Upper Paleolithic (p. 3). In this book a large focus of many authors is on symbolism, and language to a lesser extent. Although symbolism was not explicitly agreed upon as a key indicator of the “something more,” I suspect this choice relates to the lack of discussion about the definition of the subject of interest, if it is “religion” or “spiritual culture.” Most chapters begin with the author introducing his or her definition of religion—Renfrew, Taçon, d’Errico, Mithen, Lewis-Williams, Morley, and Conkey all give different definitions. The reader is left wondering why, in the presence of at least two professors of theology, these acheologists have been left to grope for definitions of religion. One is astonished that the book did not begin with the chapters of the theologians, who should be the best placed to provide authoritative definitions of religion and spirituality. Reading the book in the order it is presented, one wonders throughout the whole book what the theologians have to say. It seems quite inappropriate that the theology professors’ contributions were left to the very end of the book, in a separate section, almost as a post-script. Van Huyssteen comes the closest to defining the “something more” with his nicely encapsulating phrase “human mental life includes biologically unprecedented ways of experiencing and understanding the world” (p. 244).

Despite the common goal of all authors, a wide range of views is evident. This reflects the ongoing debates among paleoanthropologists over the tempo and mode of the evolution of modern human behavior. Some authors in this book favor a gradual emergence along the hominin lineages of symbolism or spiritualism, followed by an explosion with the appearance of Homo sapiens (e.g., Renfrew, de Lumley, Taçon, d’Errico). Others argue for a sudden burst of symbolism in Homo sapiens preceded by nothing in previous species (e.g., Henshilwood, Mithen), while a few do not mention a “revolution” at all (e.g., Jane Renfrew, Donald, Morley). I do not dare to imagine how such starkly contrasting ideas could have clashed together at the symposium; for instance, Jane Renfrew presents many pieces of solid evidence to argue for symbolism in Neanderthals, but d’Errico then proceeds to criticize and discard most of her data. Such contradictory arguments will be confusing to a reader from theology. For that reason I would only recommend this book to the bravest of theologians who are specifically interested in human evolution. Still, this collection of divergent ideas can only enrich paleoanthropology students, because here is a rare volume where opposite points of view are printed side by side.

Many researchers are determined to show that the origins of humanity lie in their own archaeological site, artifacts, fossils, or practices. I regret that this includes some authors in Becoming Human. Probably because of this, the contributors to this volume tend to focus on the geographical area which is their specialty. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however; Paul Taçon’s expertise with the Australian record is welcome and refreshing. Similarly, the reader benefits from Jean Clottes’s vast knowledge of southern French cave art, such as his example of a hand stencil in Gargas of “a baby’s hand held at the wrist by an adult” (p. 197).

Becoming Human will probably find its best use as a source of discussion topics for teaching seminars. These can extend beyond the reach of the book and can be interesting to confront with other areas of research. For example, group dynamics figures prominently in some chapters. The idea that spirituality must have emerged with a ratcheting effect because it is too complex to be a single person’s invention is a key point of Henshilwood. Mellars suggests that population pressure led to territoriality, which stimulated identity marking among groups. Similarly, Morley proposes that people feel closer to each other when they have shared interpretations of music and ritual. In the same vein, Donald reasons that such a degree of cognitive unity as evidenced by the long time span of Franco-Cantabrian cave art can only be maintained by a religion of some sort.

        The editors were correct to put the mesmerizing photograph of “Excalibur,” the rose-colored handaxe from Atapuerca, on the first page of 24 fabulous color plates which definitely add to the book’s value. The excellent quality of the book’s visual aspect, layout, and images is marred by a few typographical errors— perhaps too many to be overlooked in certain chapters. The figure numbers in Clottes’s paper are all offset by one, between pages 202 and 204. A reference is frustratingly missing from Henshilwood’s paper (Pearce 2002 on p. 35). Some text could have been improved by more rigorous peer-review, such as the comment by Lewis-Williams who refers to “younger researchers today” (p. 137) who spent their youth in the 1960s—these people would be at least 55 years old now! Another editorial oversight is the “big men” phrase used by Mellars (p. 224), which is likely to be considered sexist by some. A more shocking example is Ward’s assertion that “evolutionary biologists currently think that all members of the species Homo sapiens derive from just a few, perhaps even two, individuals who lived on the African savannah” (p. 254)—the editors should not have let such a sentence pass. In de Lumley’s chapter, some important sites with hearths dated to 400 kya or earlier are neglected, namely Beeches Pit in the UK and Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel.

       Overall, Becoming Human is a collection of well-written, thoughtful and thought-provoking papers with many good references for students and researchers to follow up. Despite having no abstracts, most of the chapters have a good introduction with a summary paragraph. The ordering of chapters in the book is probably not important; the reader can easily delve into them separately. In fact, I would highly recommend reading the last two chapters first.

Reviewed by NATALIE T. UOMINI
Archaeology, Classics & Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Hartley Building, Brownlow Street, Liverpool L69 3GS, UNITED KINGDOM

In order to better understand the Ethoarchaeomusicology: Music and Manipulation

Music and Manipulation -
On the Social Uses and Social Control of Music

Edited by Steven Brown and Ulrik Volgsten

“This valuable and timely book provides an overview of various theoretical approaches to the uses and meaning of music, particularly in view of its capacity to influence people…In all, several important issues are raised in chapters of this book, and are also addressed, either in the same chapter or in one by another author.”  ·  Musicae Scientiae

“…a valuable addition/complement to the musicological literature thanks to the critically examined current debates about the uses and consequences of music. [In addition, the book offers] many concise overviews of present research on music and manipulation. As such it is suitable for graduate students but also more generally for people working in the media and music industry.”  ·  Swedish Journal of Musicology

“…a timely book that…sets a standard for a new field of study and therefore deserves to be read widely…[the volume’s] contributions contain fascinating material for further study.”  ·  International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter

“Steven Brown and Ulrik Volgsten haveput together a valuable collection of essays on a consistently interesting theme. The book constitutes an important resource for the future development of this theme.”  ·  Music Perception

“…fascinating and challenging…this book, illustrates the diversity, the depth and the potential of the field of the sociology of music. As much as these texts enlighten, they also highlight the vastness of the research yet to be conducted. However, this book is far more than just a compilation of papers presented at a conference, they are relevant discussions to anybody who turns on the radio, purchases or downloads a record or even sings a lullaby.”  ·  Leonardo Digital Reviews

Since the beginning of human civilization, music has been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. Music is an emotive manipulator that influences attitude, motivation and behavior at many levels and in many contexts. This volume is the first to address the social ramifications of music’s behaviorally manipulative effects, its morally questionable uses and control mechanisms, and its economic and artistic regulation through commercialization, thus highlighting not only music’s diverse uses at the social level but also the ever-fragile relationship between aesthetics and morality.

Steven Brown is a researcher in cognitive neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He received his doctorate at Columbia University in New York, and has done research at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. His research deals with the neural basis of human communication, including the arts.

Ulrik Volgsten is a research fellow in the Department of Culture, Aesthetics and Media at Göteborg University in Sweden. He received his doctorate in the Department of Musicology at Stockholm University, and has published papers on both musical and philosophical topics. Volgsten's multidisciplinary research mainly focuses on human communication in different media.

Some ideas about Ethnoarchaeomusicology

            

Music of El Dorado: The Ethnomusicology of Ancient South American Cultures

 

OLSEN, DALE A. Music of El Dorado: The Ethnomusicology of Ancient South American Cultures. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 2002. Illustrations, audio examples (on-line), glossary, notes, bibliography, 291 pp. The musics of pre-Columbian civilizations have fascinated musical scholars since the nineteenth century. Significant works include the d'Harcourts' 1925 study that combined information from instruments recovered in archeological sites along with folk tunes. Their interests covered parts of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Andr6 Sas (1935, 1938), a Belgian-Peruvian composer and scholar, studied ancient instruments of the Inca and Nazca to refute the d'Harcourts' claims of exclusive pentatonicism.Jim6nez Borja (1951) included iconic sources in his study of instruments. Stevenson (1968) combined the study of ancient instruments with analysis of literary sources, including colonial chronicles and dictionaries of Indian languages. Music of El Dorado:T heE thnomusicologyof AncientS outhA mericanC ulturesr epresents the culmination of Olsen's years of scholarship on the music of ancient cultures in South America. In the introduction the author focuses on all the cultures prior to the Spanish conquest that spanned the length of the Andes mountains from Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego. In practice, however, the data are generally limited to information from Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru. About ancient music, Olsen hopes to understand "who made music, where it was made, how was it made, and why was it made" (Olsen 2002, 7). To uncover this information, the author has developed a methodology rather unique to ethnomusicology: ethnoarchaeomusicology. Visually, the model is a cross with four areas of inquiry: music archeology, iconology, history, and ethnographic analogy. Each area focuses on a different kind of data and consequently each area has its own methodology. Music archeology refers to a study of the material artifacts, that is, the instruments and their sounds. By focusing on data from measurements, photography, x-rays, measurements of pitches, and carbon dating, this area appears to be the most descriptive and objective. Iconology is the description and analysis or interpretation of representations on artifacts that include paintings, sculptures, and the exterior design of artifacts. The history component comprises all musical information gathered by the chroniclers, including Garcilaso de Vega and Huaman (or Guaman) Poma de Ayala. Olsen warns against taking historic information at face value since it can be subjective or objective, and also because the chronicles as colonial documents are removed by time and place from ancient cultures. In the final area of inquiry, ethnographic analogy, contemporary cultures and musical practices are used as a cross-check of interpretations and conclusions drawn from the other three areas. Given the time and distance of contemporary practices from ancient cultures and, more importantly, given the immense variety found today in an area as large and diverse as the Andes, a rigorous methodology for data verification is needed because in practice Olsen seems to use the ethnographic data not as a cross-check, but to confirm his interpretations of musical archeology or iconology. For example, in discussing the possible shamanic flights of ecstasy found in Peruvian ceramic (the two examples cited are from the Recuay [north of Lima near Chavin, ca. 200 B.C.-A.D. 550] and the Chincha [south of Lima close to Ica]), Olsen interprets these figures playing notch flutes as representing "shamanistic musical flights of ecstasy, often accompanied by hallucinogens and whistle sounds, the latter represented in ancient Peruvian iconography by a tubular notch flute" (Olsen 2002, 54). This ecstatic flight connects to Olsen's main theme for end-blown notch flutes: transcendence. Exactly what the theme or category of transcendence means is unclear. Of interest here are the ethnographic examples cited by Olsen and how they are used. First he cites a work by Douglas Sharon (1978) concerning one of his main informants, Eduardo Calder6n, a shaman from Las Delicias, Peru (near sites of the ancient Moche culture) (Olsen 2002, 13). Calder6n, as part of shamanic rituals uses hallucinogenics, but no mention is made of music. Calder6n, as Olsen notes, disagrees with Olsen's conclusions. Additionally the author notes that shamans from the eastern slopes of the Andes in Peru, the Campa, and the Amazon, the Iquitos, also use flutes or whistles in their rituals. Obviously extensive citation of specific examples is not desirable in a book that attempts to cover such a large area, but some explanation of the logical connection between the ancient vessels and contemporary ethnographic examples is needed because examples either lend support to or question interpretations. Therefore, for an ethnographicanalogy to act truly as a cross-check, a rigorous methodology must exist for what can be used as examples. Their inclusion should be based on criteria independent of their usefulness to support conclusions drawn by the researcher. This self-serving and sloppy citation of examples is possible because of another major problem with Music of ElDorado. The time (all pre-conquest cultures) and the place (the entire Andes) that Olsen delineates for his study are so broad as to allow the essentialization of present and past cultural groups. Under the broad categories of Andean and Ancient, Olsen can freely combine data from the limited record to make his point. For example for the single-unit panpipes, Tiawanaku (northern Bolivia, A.D. 500-1150), Paracas (Ica, ca. 800-100 B.C.) and Nasca (Ica ca. 200 B.C.- A.D. 600) are combined but limited to the fact that these instruments were played in groups, and that tuning was a concern. Obviously time and space separate these ancient cultures. It is likely that even a cursory study of their culture would reveal significant differences. What then is the logic for essentially equating them? The main reason seems to be that the archeo-logical records, thus far, have produced material examples of that type of instrument in those cultures. Beginning inquiry from the material record in itself is not problematic. However, cultural differences among the cultures cited surely could lead to different uses in performance contexts. In addition the meaning of those performances would surely seem beyond Olsen's grasp. Thus, the author's research becomes problematic when he moves from materials and description to interpretation. Interpretation and its problematic use are the key mistakes of this text. Olsen sets himself a difficult task considering the lacunae in the archeological and written records. Objective methods such as description and citation of chronicles only take the inquiry so far. Ultimately, what Olsen wants to find out is beyond those sources and objective methods. Interpretation then carries the research to where Olsen seems to implicitly feel it should go. Ethnoarchaeomusicology, "the scientific, cultural, and interpretive study of music from archaeological sources the ethnomusicology of archaeological cultures" (Olsen 2002, 8) seems to walk a tightrope between objective and interpretive realms. This is because interpretation in this text lacks any methodology. As it has been used in anthropology or ethnomusicology, the interpretive method has never been about drawing whatever conclusion one feels is right because it supports what one wants to say. Rather interpretation, as conceived by Clifford Geertz for example, is an analytical tool to be used methodically to uncover the conceptual and interpretive structure of the minds of people in the culture under study. In this case, Music of El Dorado might better be seen as subjective in its conclusions about ancient music in the Andes. The numerous problems in the book, too many to critique in this essay, all seem to stem from the problematic use of interpretation and the essentialization of cultures. However, the book is not without some merits. The descriptive information and the bibliography are useful. Also because Olsen draws on iconographic evidence, this book will probably introduce ethnomusicologists to materials that might otherwise have escaped their notice. No one can question Olsen's effort, enthusiasm, or commitment to this subject. Yet given the limitations of the record and the problems with his interpretation, the book itself is mainly just a testament to one person's subjective interest in ancient music.

Elizabeth LaBate, The University of Texas at Austin

From: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Autumn - Winter, 2003), pp. 289-292