Axinn, George H. (author), Mallick, T. (author), and Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Rampur, Nepal; Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Rampur, Nepal
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1978
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 33 Document Number: B03500
Considers the characteristic features of Garífuna music, which are intrinsically related to the history of slavery, warfare, miscegenation, and resistance of this people of African and Caribbean ancestry, living today mainly on the Atlantic Coast of Central America and in the U.S. Based on his analysis of the Wanaragua or Yancunú rhythm, performed in Livingston, Guatemala, by dancers wearing shell rattles (illacu) tied to their ankles, and a musical ensemble consisting of two drums (garaón) and gourd rattles (sisira), the author examines the metric ambiguity of its basic “time line” or 'clave' of 3:3:2 as well as the rhythmic flexibility and unpredictability with which the dancers and musicians relate to it, as a musical expression of the social and cultural conditions created by that history, especially by the processes of miscegenation.
