11Story

23 December 2008

A poetic and oral tradition

"We have eaten the forest"

Contents:  "We have eaten the forest"  - Introduction  - Aim of the exhibition  - Synopsis        * Ethnology as an art of living        * The Sar Luk villagers        * A poetic and oral tradition        * Burning the forest of the stone spirit Goo        * Works and days        * Buffalo sacrifice        * Sickness and death         * Sar Luk today  - The purpose of ethnography: an interview with Georges Condominas with Yves Goudineau  - Biography of Georges Condominas  - Main publications

 

A poetic and oral tradition

 

“My latest discovery was Henri Michaux, and I had all his books on the region. I also discovered poetry existing among the people of Sar Luk. As I took note of everything, I took note of those who sang, who made songs from the events of their lives. Song was their form of poetic expression. There, they did not recite poems, they sang them. So, when I reconstructed a day, I had also to reconstruct its content of songs. I might add that one of the first remarks made on my work when it was published was, ‘this book reads like a long poem’. But I was simply reporting what I had seen and heard.” “Daily life is itself constantly embellished with songs. I am not speaking of songs linked to the singer’s circumstances – lullabies or love songs, for example – for the sign of cultivation among the Mnong Gar is that a man can make use of the slightest incident (a cough, a bird in flight, a friend’s way of walking, etc.), or even of a simple allusion to some event or other made during conversation, to give birth to a song; its success depends on the appropriateness of the sung poem to the event experienced or evoked. I might add that the Mnong Gar never sing in chorus.”

 

“Black is my body, black: I remain silent, oh my love. Black is my body, black as soot: I remain silent, oh my love. Black as the bottom of a cooking-pot, I remain silent, oh my love. Like the charcoal from burnt trees: I remain silent, oh my love. Like their cinders: I remain silent, oh my love. My legs are heavy, so heavy: I cannot go with you, oh my love; My legs are heavy, they weigh me down: I cannot leap with you, oh my love; Heavy are the weights of the nets, I cannot cast them with you, oh my love. You are giving me up, abandoning me, find me another lover, oh my love. You are giving me up, abandoning me, chop me new wood, oh my love; Sing me another love song, one to my liking, oh my love.”

 

 

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