Sonic Substances and Silent Sounds: an Auditory Anthropology of Ritual Songs

Abstract

In Western Amazonian indigenous and mestizo medical concepts, substances play a great role.In order for a substance to be efficient, a ritual or medical specialist should sing a song or whistle a melody towards the remedy.The song is then 'contained' in the remedy.The song may be for instructing, negotiating with, or repulsing non-human persons, like animals, spirits, or ancestors.Magical singing is also effective by singing directly to a client.Specialists can establish performative ontological linkages between human and non-human persons.By singing such linkages into being, the singer inscribes the non-human's qualities in the human client's body, very much like when ingesting a substance.The singers' voices are understood as a substance that remains in the body.The same applies if the song was sung or whistled onto a remedy or a tobacco cigarette.These phenomena allow for a deeper investigation into indigenous conceptualisations of the sonic and of what can be heard and understood by whom.Finally, these findings shed more light on local concepts of the structure of the world within which we, and the spirits, live.