Blog Post #4 – a work song
FILENAME: WorkSong
TITLE: Work
Song
DATE: 13
May 2019
KEY WORDS: body
language; customs; humor; poetry; singing
DESCRIPTION OF
ACTIVITY:
SETTING & SCENE:
outside the workshop of the carpenter, during a group project to cut a
large tree trunk into wood blocks of more manageable size
PARTICIPANT(S):
carpenter, 4 apprentices, and the participant-observer
ENDS:
carpenter: to assist non-member of ingroup in translating the lyrics of a song
participant-observer: to transcribe and translate the song’s
lyrics (i.e., a traditional poem set to music) into English while maintaining
some sense of the original meter, rhyme patterns, and lyrical quality
ACT SEQUENCE:
1.) Under the
supervision of the carpenter, two large saws are operated by two pairs of
apprentices (each apprentice opposite his or her partner on either side of the
tree trunk).
2.) As the
apprentices angled their saws, the carpenter sang out a call to which the
apprentices responded by positioning their hands in readiness for the first
stroke.
3.) At the onset of
the 2nd sentence sung by the carpenter, the apprentices started a
steady rhythm of push-and-pull in a way that suggested familiarity with both
the lyrics as well as the tune.
4.) It took three repetitions
for me to realize that the song was relatively short and being repeated by the
carpenter. Upon finishing the last sentence of the song for a 5th
time, the carpenter paused to refresh his voice from a cup of water and the
apprentices wiped their sweaty hands on their breeches.
5.) When the
carpenter set aside his cup and cleared his throat, the apprentices assumed
their position, stance, and grip, and waited for the carpenter’s voice to
resume singing.
6.) During the 2nd
round of sawing, I heard the song as eight ‘lines’, each consisting of eight
syllables, that were being repeated by the carpenter. His singing developed a rhythm
by stressing the even-numbered syllables in each line of the lyrics. On
syllables 2 and 6, one apprentice pulled as his partner pushed, and on
syllables 4 and 8, that apprentice pushed as his partner pulled, creating a steady
back-and-forth motion that seemed effective at keeping the saw moving without
snagging.
7.) Consulting my
notes during the midday repose, I asked the carpenter if I had understood the
meaning of the eight lines of his song and was interpreting them accurately. He
corrected a homophone that I had misheard, and explained several words that
were not familiar to me. I would later refine my rough translation (in order to
maintain some sense of the original meter, rhyme patterns, and lyrical quality),
which I eventually rendered as:
‘Tween jade-green sea and
tranquil bay,
Oktipa reigns forevermore.
Waterspouts dance and
dolphins play
off Akin’senja’s golden
shore.
Where talent and skill
make landfall,
Pearl of the South,
Invention’s Fount,
we heed your conch shell’s
homeward call,
O Queen-of-Islands
Paramount.
KEY: teaching
INSTRUMENTALITIES:
negotiation of meaning
NORMS: corrective
feedback; narration; contextualizing of cultural norms
GENRE: translation
REFLECTIONS:
Because the song’s words had a stylistic quality and lyrical
content that struck me as highly artistic for a work chant, I asked the
carpenter if this was typical of work songs in Oktipsenja. I learned that the
words were a traditional poem set to music, of a type that seemed to function
as kind of ‘national anthem’ for each of Oktipsenja’s islands. The carpenter
confessed that he had sung the ‘official version’ of his island’s song because of
my presence that day. He explained that each island had adapted the other
islands’ songs as a form of parody, and those were the versions he typically
sang as work songs for his apprentices. But because the lyrics of those parody
versions could be vulgar and insulting, the carpenter did not feel that those
would be appropriate in the presence of listeners who were not natives of Akin’senja.
EMERGING
QUESTIONS/ANALYSES:
Q1: Do natives of
each island know both the patriotic and comical versions of all islands’ song?
If so, how do they react to those of others as well as their own?
Q2: Aside from today’s
example, in what other situations are either version of these songs sung?
FUTURE ACTION:
Plan for how I and/or my fellow linguistic anthropologists might
be able to document both versions of each island’s song.
Comments
Post a Comment