The performer from the native community of Bajo Marankiari Paulina Garcia Ñate sings the song which she heard from her mother after she had lost her toddler son to illness. The song expresses the mother's depth of sorrow and the finality of the family's loss emphasizing that the surviving family will never see the child come back to play in the house. This song is a rarely seen expression of the death-related emotion since Ashaninkas were known to fear death and the dead, to dispose of the corpse quickly after a fellowman expires, and to move on, both physically (that is to relocate to a different place, at least a few miles away) and emotionally.

Be the first to comment