Song featuring lyrics ‘Oh Senor…’ quite a lot’: Mayan Evangelical Singer
Authors: Weston, G.
Journal: Suomen Antropologi
Volume: 43
Issue: 2
Pages: 67-70
Publisher: Finnish Anthropological Society
ISSN: 0355-3930
Abstract:In the first few months of my PhD fieldwork in Guatemala excitement and unease regarding my new life as an anthropologist fed an epic bout of insomnia exacerbated by a mouse who shared my shed-like sleeping quarters and liked to climb on my face during my sleep. Sleep was also hampered by a song, largely in Mam, but with two words in Spanish played with disturbing frequency through crackly loud speakers late into the night and from early in the morning. As a non-Mam-speaker the words meant nothing to me until the refrain of ‘Ohhhhhhh seññññoooooorrrr’ came around again. My sleep deprived brain would sing along with words it didn’t understand. I now recognise through others that the sense of sinking or losing the plot is a relatively common experience in fieldwork – each person’s shaped by the specificities of their situation. This song was the soundtrack to my madness.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37475/
https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/77599
Source: BURO EPrints
