Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Michael Largey

Source: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 29 (1997), pp. 166-169
Published by: International Council for Traditional Music
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/768312
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166 / 1997 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Another minor area of concern is the author's introduction of new theore-

tical frameworks in the individual chapters and in the conclusion. For
example, M.G. Smith's "plural society" model (p. 220), Clifford Geertz's
"epochalist-essentialist" framework for assessing the symbolics of emerging
state (p. 211), the distinction between "reputation" and "respectability" made
by Peter Wilson, and Morton Marks' assertion of "code-switching" as a
central African American adaptive strategy (p. 213) could have been made
more integral to this study if the author had introduced this material earlier
and allowed it to cook more fully with the other elements of the book's
intellectual stew.
Nonetheless, Stuempfle's achievements in this book are impressive. He
has woven together a history of an ensemble, its performance style, its social
organization and its cultural context in such a way as to provide a window
into the aesthetic and expressive questions raised in Trinidad and Tobago
as it passed from colony to independent state. The book more than lives up
to Stuempfle's goal of demonstrating, "the importance of the musical
imagination in the creation of Trinidad and Tobago as a nation" (p. 219).
Along the way, the author draws out the distinctive voices and outlooks of
participants in these social dramas from all walks of life. There are few books
available that render the relationship between musical activity and political
economy so transparently; and I expect that most readers will be firmly
persuaded that, "forms of expressive culture provide a means for disclosing
fundamental aspects of the Caribbean experience" (p. 12).
Clearly, The SteelbandMovement should be on the reading lists of classes
in Caribbean music and folklore, but I also hope it is read widely by those
interested in colonialism and decolonization, African-American expressive
culture, and the globalization of identities. It has already generated interest
and discussion in the steelband movement itself, both in Trinidad and Tobago
and around the globe.
GAGE AVERILL

Fleurant, Gerdes. Dancing Spirits: Rhythms and Rituals of Haitian Vodun,

the Rada Rite. (Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance, no. 42).
Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 1996. xii, 209 pp.,
diagrams, photographs, musical examples, bibliography, index.
Dancing Spirits, based on the author's doctoral dissertation titled The
Ethnomusicologyof Yanvalou:A Study of the Rada Rite of Haiti (Fleurant 1987),
is the first study to focus exclusively on the music of the Rada nanchon
(denomination or "nation" of Vodou spirits); other studies have examined
the rituals associated with Rada (Maximilien 1945) or the music of all the
major rites of Vodou (Wilcken 1992). Fleurant conducted most of his research
in the community of Bon Repos (Bopo) on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince
and worked with one of the most respected Rada drummers in the country,
the late Philocles Rosenbere, a.k.a. "Coyote". The book is an excellent
introduction to the major features of Rada musical style and complements
several earlier works that feature extensive transcriptions of Vodou songs
(Courlander 1939 and 1960; Maximilien 1945; Dauphin 1982).
The introduction gives a brief outline of some of the theoretical and
methodological goals of the book. Borrowing VeVe Clark's idea of a
REVIEWS BOOKS / 167

"grounded model" based on Haitian, rather than European, ideas (2),

Fleurant identifies most previous works on Haitian culture as coming from
a Eurocentral perspective and corresponding to the early stage of Vodou
initiation or "bosal'"Unlike most other researchers, Fleurant is an oungan
(initiated male Vodou priest) as well as a Vodou drummer; he brings a high
degree of ritual knowledge to the research process and conveys not only his
grasp of the musical dimensions of the Rada ceremony, but also the social
and ritual aspects of Haitian religion. Despite Fleurant's experience as a ritual
specialist, he is quick to point out that he owes his knowledge to his teachers,
Coyote and Pressoir Louis, thus reinforcing the idea that ritual knowledge
is passed from expert to initiate.
In the second chapter, "Vodun as a Religious System and Way of Life,"
Fleurant shows the centrality of family in the practice of Vodou. By focusing
his study on Coyote's lakou(family compound), Fleurant is able to show how
individuals in the lakoufulfill different ritual roles; Coyote, a master drummer
in his younger years, preferred the role of oungenikonor song leader later in
life. Also, Fleurant outlines the major structural features of a Rada ceremony,
giving the reader a road map of ritual activity during a Vodou service.
Chapter 2 also contains several references to Fleurant's ongoing involve-
ment in human rights organizations in the United States on behalf of Haitian
refugees. He claims that Vodou has emerged as "one of the means to tackle
sociopolitical oppression" (23) and that Vodou was a driving force in Haiti's
war for independence (1791-1804). He also calls Vodou an example of a
"humanocentric" religious system; a religion that "reaches to the very essence
of what it means to be human and spiritually connected to the family tree"
(9). Given Fleurant's interest in the application of Vodou religious ideology
to Haitian social life, this chapter might have also included more details on
the climate of Rada religious activity during the most recent periods of
Haitian political strife.
The third chapter, "The Music of the Rada Rite" outlines some of the
major rhythms used in Rada ceremonies. Rada rhythms occur in specific
sequences which Fleurant names yanvalou-mayi-zepol(oryanvalou trilogy), the
yanvalou-kongoRada sequence, and the nago-mazounsequence. Rather than
base his chapter on a detailed recounting of a single religious event, Fleurant
gives an overview of typical dances and musical selections found in Rada
ceremony. The ceremony is analyzed according to dance style, moving from
the invocatory yanvalou (or twarigol if the marasa or sacred twins are being
served) to the transitional mayi or zepol which send away the Iwa or spirits
summoned during the yanvalou. The chapter concludes with a convenient
table that identifies which dances are associated with which Iwa.
Chapter 4, "Drums, Drummers and Oungenikon in Haitian Rada," draws
upon ethnographies such as Melville Herskovit's Life in a Haitian Valley(1937)
and folklore collectanea like Harold Courlander's Haiti Singing (1939) for
comparative data about drumming. This chapter contains some of the best
moments in the book, especially when Fleurant discusses the learning
processes involved in becoming a drummer. Also, his consideration of the
oungenikonas an integral part of the Rada drum battery brings the songs and
rhythms of the Rada ceremony together as a musical unit; earlier works,
168 / 1997 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

such as Courlander (1939) had difficulty analyzing the vocal lines of Rada
music with their corresponding ceremonial drum rhythms.
"Music of the Rada Battery" (Chapter 5) gives a readable "how-to" lesson
in the performance ofyanvalou rhythm patterns. Fleurant walks the reader
through the learning process he underwent during his apprenticeship to
Coyote; from the rhythmically stable ogan (bell) pattern, the reader moves
to the smallest boula drum, next to the more rhythmically variable segon
(middle) drum and finally to the more volatile manman(mother) drum part.
Fleurant's expertise as a performer emerges in this chapter; he describes not
only how each part should be played, but how the drums should sound as
a musical ensemble. Readers will find themselves tapping out the musical
examples as they work their way through this chapter.
In Chapter 6, "The Song Texts in Ritual Context," Fleurant turns his
attention to the texts of Rada songs, lyrics which have been a significant
source of confusion to earlier scholars. In an effort to deal with the over 400
songs he collected during his research, Fleurant selects eighty-three song texts
and focuses his attention on songs of praise, songs about people associated
with the ceremony, songs of action that "punctuate the ritual process" (77)
and chantepwen, songs imbued with ritual power. Fleurant's description of
the significance of the songs is hindered by the lack of contextual information
from specific Vodou ceremonies. By following Courlander's model of
describing the songs of each Iwa separately, Fleurant has difficulty showing
the emergent meanings of songs in context.
In "Analysis of Song Tunes" (Chapter 7), Fleurant subjects forty-seven
of the song tunes in his research sample to intervallic and melodic contour
analysis. Combining an analytical method that follows models devised by
WernerJaegerhuber in the appendix to Maximilien's Le vodouhaitien (1945)
and by Mieczyslaw Kolinski in the appendix to Courlander's Drum and the
Hoe (1960), Fleurant refutes Kolinski's claim that the melodic contour of
Vodou songs is descending. This chapter would have benefited from a larger
consideration of the musical relationships of song texts to their corresponding
drum rhythms.
The final chapter, "Dancing Spirits," introduces the important element
of dance to the study of Vodou. Unfortunately, Fleurant's expertise in the
musical sounds and ritual aspects of the Vodou ceremony help him here least;
beyond a summary of previous dance scholarship, Fleurant is unable to give
equal attention to the idea of Vodou as a "danced religion." Despite this
weakness, Dancing Spirits is an important ethnography of Haitian religion
and should be recommended to scholars of the Caribbean as well as students
of Caribbean performance practice. By focusing on a single ritual tradition
within the larger sphere of Vodou practice, Dancing Spirits avoids some of
the over-generalized pronoucements of earlier texts on music of the Vodou
ceremony and gives readers a perspective from a ritual expert.
References cited
Courlander, Harold
1939 Haiti Singing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
1960 The Drum and theHoe. Life and Loreof theHaitian People.Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press.
REVIEWS BOOKS / 169

Dauphin, Claude
1982Musique du vaudou. fonctions, structureset styles. Sherbrooke, Quebec: Editions Naaman.
Fleurant, Gerdes
1987TheEthnomusicology A Studyof theRadaRiteof Haiti. Ph.D. Diss. (Music). Tufts
of Yanvalou.
University.
Herskovitz, Melville
1937Lifein a Haitian Valley.New York: Knopf.
Maximilien, Louis
1982Levodouhaitien.riteradas- canzo.Port-au-Prince:Imprimerie Henri Deschamps. (Reprint
of 1945 edition published by Imprimerie de l'Etat, Port-au-Prince.)
Wilcken, Lois
1992TheDrumsof Vodou, featuringFrisnerAugustin. Tempe, AZ: White Cliffs Media Company.
MICHAEL LARGEY

[Note: The author of the book uses an idiosyncraticspelling of "Vodou" (i.e. "Vodun").Thus,
the use of both in this review is not an error:- Ed.]

Porter, James and Herschel Gower. Jeannie Robertson. Emergent Singer,

Transformative Voice. Publications of the American Folklore Society,
New Series, General Editor, Patrick B. Mullen. Knoxville, TN:
University of Tennessee Press, 1995. xlvi, 357 pp., photographs, musical
examples, glossary, bibliography, index.
This book is the culmination of three lifetimes of work - those of the
co-authors and of their subject, Jeannie Robertson, the great Scottish
traditional singer who died in 1975. Although presented in title and dust
cover as a conventional performer's biography on the order of Almeda
Riddle's autobiography (1970) or the two singers' biographies by Edward
D. Ives (1964, 1971), the biographical portion of this volume by Herschel
Gower occupies less than a third of the book and is inserted among a number
of sections including: a substantial introductory essay by Porter on the
theoretical contexts from which the authors have drawn; Porter's tran-
scriptions, notes, and commentary on eighty ofJeannie's repertoire of more
than 180 songs; a short glossary of Scots words and traveler's cant; an extensive
bibliography; and a complete discography ofJeannie's recorded performances.
This is a rich book, offering information on many levels as well as a
fascinating life-story. However, in trying to accomplish so much in one book,
the authors have also presented some confusing elements for the reader. For
example, the introductory pages, with subheadings such as "Interpreting
a Life," "Social Structure," "Gender and Music," and "Cultural Practice
and the Individual," are an attempt to bring to bear many of the latest
intellectual frameworks for the study of folklore and anthropology. These
rather jargon-laden sections are interwoven with more straightforward
discussions of the travelers (the originally-nomadic Scottish culture from which
Jeannie comes), their social structures, and the aesthetics and community
values reflected in her singing. This introduction also treats briefly the
changes her singing underwent as she moved from her own community to
the broader one of the Scottish folksong revival. Certain topics, such as the
discussion of gender, seem forced, although in each of these sections, valuable
information is given and footnotes lead to further bibliography. Depending
upon the orientation and needs of the reader, portions of this introduction
will be seen as either invaluable or intrusive. The decision to divorce the